Trish at “Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin’?” tackles yet another pompous post from some pontificating “publishing guru” re: the future of books, which blogs like The Elegant Variation and BookSlut may yet “save.” Because, apparently, since newspapers’ review sections are no longer covering books and including reviews thereof, books must be dying and people must no longer be reading and the publishing industry must come to an end.
From Trish:
“Book reviewing bloggers need to move away from opinion in favor of judgement.” What is the point of blogging if not to be effing self-indulgent. Blogging is the place that I can say, I can do what I want when I want to and I can make it look however I want. If I want to say like or alls or dude or WHATEVER, I can. More importantly, the reason I read bloggers’ book reviews is because I don’t want some pompous ass talking about things like What’s the book’s place in the canon. WTF? Canon? Really? If you’re recommending a book to a friend, do you really talk about the canon? HELL NO. You talk about whether the book was good or not. That’s what I want from my book bloggers, just like I want from my friends. Was the book good. I don’t care if the writer succeeded in doing what he or she set out to do. The only place I care about that is in the classroom and sometimes in my book group. Otherwise, I don’t give a shit.
Yeah. What she said.
Because, first, books don’t need saving; they’re doing fine and will continue to. And second, even if they did, you know what would save books?
Better books.
Of which there are few about.