Will the Book Review Section in Newspapers Go Extinct?

The National Book Critics Circle has a campaign to Save Book Reviews, a campaign to preserve the book review section of daily newspapers. They lament, "Not long ago, the San Francisco Chronicle Book Review, which has readership levels in excess of fifty percent, was folded into another part of the paper. [...]Elsewhere at the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, Newsday, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Memphis Commercial Appeal, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Dallas Morning News, the Sun Sentinel, the New Mexican, the Village Voice, the Atlanta Journal Constitution and dozens upon dozens of other papers book coverage has been cut back or slashed all together, moved, winnowed, filled with more wire copy, or generally been treated as expendable."

Many in the literary community consider this a travesty. And the question remains: who or what is to blame?

Are people reading less?

This is true; in America people are reading less. In 2002, 96.2 million Americans read at least one work of literature. The same number of readers existed 20 years prior, and with the difference in population, that makes for about a 10 percent decrease in readership in the last two decades. We stick to our televisions, DVDs, and weblogs now, often ignoring literature.

Are book reviews getting worse?

In a piece written for Open Letters Monthly, John Cotter chose a book at random-Jonathan Lethem's You Don't Love Me Yet-and read a sampling of the reviews for this book by major newspapers. The problems he finds:

Clichés

'Lethem's new novel, an artsy romp about a rock band, is "more bouncy single than ageless classic," in which the "Dylan of his generation of novelists" "skips a beat" or "misses a beat," depending on whether you read the Edmonton Journal or the Sunday Oregonian. Unlike those at the Providence Journal, which detects "some sour notes," the puns at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel feel generous: "Lethem Plucks a New Chord with You Don't Love Me Yet."'

Reaching, Unliterary Metaphors