A Young Writer's Diary Entries From Early August, 1983 | Thought Catalog

A Young Writer's Diary Entries From Early August, 1983 | Thought Catalog

A 30-Year-Old’s Diary Entries From Mid-May, 1982 | Thought Catalog

A 30-Year-Old’s Diary Entries From Mid-May, 1982 | Thought Catalog

A 28-Year-Old’s Diary Entries From Late July, 1979 | Thought Catalog

A 28-Year-Old’s Diary Entries From Late July, 1979 | Thought Catalog

Amazon reviewer calls Richard Grayson's THE BROOKLYN DIARIES "Possibly the worst book about Brooklyn ever published," says "A bore is starred"

An Amazon reviewer has given Richard Grayson's The Brooklyn Diaries a one star review:

A bore is starred

I would give this interminable book five stars as a soporific; try to get through of a few pages of any of the six volumes of this semi-literate diary of a 1970s Brooklyn nobody who somehow managed to get a few books published (it must have been easier back in the day) and you will fall asleep faster than you can say either "Ambien" or "Lunesta."

On the other hand, if you find the adolescent mumblings of a pretentious, neurotic twentysomething who's under the delusion he's a writer utterly fascinating, you will absolutely adore this boring boring boring endless book and its mundane crap about the author's odd and dopey friends and family and his so-what views on such events as the July 4, 1976 Bicentennial as seen from Brooklyn Heights, the trivia of the 1972 Democratic convention in Miami Beach, and a time when large dogs apparently walked onto New York City subway trains by themselves with few straphangers (besides the author) taking notice.

The book's most interesting discovery proved to be learning that in 1979 you could get a book of short stories published without having a discernible ounce of talent, style, or indeed, brains.

Possibly the worst book about Brooklyn ever published, this book would more aptly be titled "The Brooklyn Diarrhea." Unfortunately, the author in his dotage still lives in the borough, so we're likely to be punished with yet another thirty years of his diurnal dreck.

CHROMA and FANZINE review "LIfe As We Show It"

Chroma, the UK's only queer literary and arts journal, has reviewed Life As We Show It: Writing on Film, edited by Brian Pera and Masha Tupitsyn:

. . . Life as We Show It is everything that being published by City Lights suggest it will be: a diverse range of voices from New Queer (mainly West Coast) writing, including fan favourites Dodie Bellamy, Kevin Killian, Rebecca Brown, Lynne Tillman, Robert Glück, David Trinidad and Abdellah Taïa. . .

It’s an exemplum of how swiftly the avant-garde is forgotten because it doesn’t circulate in the same way as mainstream cinema, and – on the showing of Life – because Americans rarely have access to anything outside their own pop culture at an impressionable age. This is the post-avant garde generation, whose voices are largely ironic and mainly autobiographical, “viewing life through screen-tinted glasses,” to quote the blurb. Slanted through the prismatic lens of (for the most part) popular American cinema, the book suggests a febrile (perhaps fatal) postmodernity where reality is framed by, and processed through, its simulacral representations in pop culture.

The finest pieces in the book – by Bellamy, Killian, Brown, Taïa and poet Fanny Howe – step beyond that Gen X campness, practised to the highest order in a sonata pathetique on Elizabeth Taylor by Wayne Koestenbaum. Killian takes up, in a surprisingly critical manner, the hints of masturbation in “screen-tinted glasses” and castigates the production and spectatorship of violent and abusive pornography through his clever and well-reasoned take on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Tale of Goodman Brown (one of the few literary references in this work of literature). Taïa and Howe both address films from beyond the (anti-) canon of popular American cinema: Taïa writes movingly, and erotically, about encountered gay desire through an obscure French film broadcast on late-night Moroccan TV while his mother sleeps right behind him, while Howe encounters Stalinist Russia at its bleakest in “After Watching Klimov’s Agoniya.” These pieces have a socio-political context, clearly but never didactically established, in which cinema figures both freedom of representation and the hope or desire for change.

Bellamy and Brown show that’s not an impossible effect to achieve when writing about American cinema, and Richard Grayson’s touching “The Forgotten Movie Screens of Broward County” queers the multiplex in a charming, if slightly sentimentalised, way. . .

You can find the rest of the review by Sophie Mayer here.

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Fanzine also reviewed Life As We Show It and listed it as "recommended":

Lots of people write about film. In fact, one of the easiest things to do might be to write about some movie you just watched, your critique, your interpretation, your blog. So what makes this book special, aside from the fact that several of our lovely contributors wrote for it? Well, this isn't just a book on film and feelings, it's actually kind of haunting in strange and lingering ways, like a silent, but heavy presence in the room. Kevin Killian's "Young Goodman Brown Effect" is quintessential Killian, tracing a midnight walk with the devil with his own journey into dark corners of the Internet, while Donal Mosher ponders the crucifix scene in The Exorcist while keeping a diary as he films a documentary about his family. Myriam Gurba recounts horrific parallels as she traces, chronologically, her way through Larry Clark's Kids. It's all very surreal, and equally disconcerting and concrete. The pieces move like scenes and vignettes themselves, flickering and shimmering in the dark, shining in and out until one can almost hear the lead frames of the film monotonically whipping against the takeup reel in an otherwise silent room. -Michael Louie

* * * * *

On Monday, August 3, there'll be a reading at the wonderful McNally Jackson bookstore in Soho at 7 p.m. with Life As We Show It contributors Donal Mosher, Masha Tupitsyn and Richard Grayson.

Kevin Killian reviews Richard Grayson's "Summer in Brooklyn" at Amazon.com

We were pleased and honored to discover that the noted writer Kevin Killian (Shy, Bedrooms Have Windows), whom we've read with pleasure but have never met or been in touch with, recently reviewed Summer in Brooklyn at Amazon.com:

I became aware of this book after stumbling across some extracts on the net published by Brian Pera in his invaluable LIFE AS WE SHOW IT blog. The extract grouped together every time Richard Grayson went to the movies in the early 70s, and the diary entries from which this info was taken were immediately appealing and fresh--and real, the work of an authentically young man. So I ordered the book right away from Superstition Mountain Press, in order to get a bigger picture of Grayson's youth than just his movie going habits.

I was not disappointed. SUMMER IN BROOKLYN gives us the diary entries from Memorial Day through Labor Day, for six different years. Each day skips to a different year (1969-1975, so seven years get covered). At first Richard is eighteen, but often he is 24, and what a difference between the two ages! It's confusing and ultimately exhilarating, to see Richard slalom among all these ages, like a pinball in a giant machine. Soon however you will get a grip on the immutable facts of his life. Nurtured by a loving Jewish family in the Sheepshead Bay area, Richard grew up bookish and bright, already a storyteller by the time he enters Brooklyn College. In a way, it's like a Neil Simon play over again, except Richard benefits from the sixties sexual revolution and has some passionate sex affairs over time with girls like Ronna and Shelli. He's bisexual, or so he says, though we never see him having sex with any guys--maybe that's a pastime he saved for winter months. He fell in with the Fiction Collective crowd (book is dedicated to Jonathan Baumbach)), who encouraged his gift for postmodern prose, and turned him onto like minds.

It was an incredibly exciting time to be young, and the boys and girls of his generation believed they could change the world through direct political action. But they didn't let that stand in the way of having fun--and the inevitable angsty gloom of adolescence. SUMMER IN BROOKLYN is a time capsule of names from the news I never thought I'd hear again--remember Clement Haynesworth for example? Otherwise Richard works hard, makes good grades--seems to go to school all summer long, makes the reader feel that being a "grind" has all sorts of glamour. I can't wait to read more of Grayson's work, and as for that picture of him on the back cover, arms folded, waiting for me on his stoop pumped up in khaki shorts and a gray T-shirt, well, either it's a fluke shot or Richard Grayson actually is the most attractive writer ever.

As summer begins, this is the perfect book to reveal the hidden flavors of summers long ago and far away.

Adding It Up: We review the April 19, 2009 Sunday New York Times Book Review

For the second week in a row, the New York Times Book Review for April 19, 2009 is 28 pages rather than just 24 like most of this year's issues.

And for the second week in a row, we're sure that the increased length of the review has to do with the section's most important feature: the advertising.

This week we count 7.6 pages of advertising, including 6 full-page ads. (Actually, one ad - for books by Alexander McCall Smith - spans two facing pages). That's just 4/10 of a page less than last week's Easter paper, and the second week in a row, advertising (not for the New York Times itself or its products) makes up more than a quarter of the section.

We've turned a corner! Kudos to the display advertising department. To show our admiration and gratitude, this week we are sending you a Brooklyn blackout cake from Ladybird Bakery.

Adding It Up: We review the April 12, 2009 Sunday New York Times Book Review

The New York Times Book Review for April 12, 2009 is 28 pages, 4 pages more than all but one issue this year, and no wonder (spoiler alert): a full 8 pages of the 28 are devoted to ads! On this Easter Sunday, we shout Hallelujah! The New York Times Book Review has risen!

Is the Great Ad Drought over? Why is tonight's book review different from all other recent book reviews?

Easter and Passover congratulations to the Times display advertising department on this great leap forward. We are sending you a dozen currant rolls from Lords Bakery by the Junction in Brooklyn!

Pete Lit reviews Richard Grayson's HIGHLY IRREGULAR STORIES

Thanks to Pete Anderson for reviewing Richard Grayson's Highly Irregular Stories on his blog, Pete Lit. An excerpt:

Highly Irregular Stories. . .is a collection of four chapbooks from early in [Grayson's] career which show a young writer who was fearless in experimenting with form while never forgetting about storytelling. Much of the book is metafictional, with many stories cleverly being about the stories themselves. (And one story, "Narcissism and Me", even has the story's reader be its narrator – I can’t really explain it, so you’ll just have to read it.) His stories are funny, minimalist, and sometimes fantastical in nature. . .

The "Eating at Arby's" chapbook hilariously relates the primitive, childlike conversations (described by one reviewer as “equidistant between Hemingway's short stories and Dick and Jane”) of Zelda and Manny, an old Jewish married couple who relentlessly praise their South Florida home, their sunny dispositions desperately but never quite disguising many dark undercurrents - suffocating heat, racial tension, drug trafficking, murder - to life in the Sunshine State. "I Saw Mommy Kissing Citicorp" is a rollicking, episodic satire on corporate and government life, set in an absurd Manhattan where the chairman of the Federal Reserve faces down a balky ATM, his mother frets over him at their Trump Tower apartment while repeatedly watching an old videotape of her deceased husband, and the Comptroller of the Currency on a flight from LaGuardia struggles to figure out how he'll explain to his wife how the bag of bagels he brought home to D.C. for her is now half-empty, without bringing up the touchy subject of the cute teenage girl in the next seat who spent their flight obliviously enjoying both his attention and his bagel-generosity.

The strongest story of all is "My Twelfth Twelfth Story Story", in which the narrator tells of writing the twelfth and final story of his collection, all of which involve characters who live on various twelfth stories. The writer is a widower who is raising a young daughter, and struggles to write and earn a living while also being a good father as the girl lives in a fantasy world to avoid the reality and pain of the loss of her mother. [Grayson] he perfectly captures the joys and fears of every parent as well as the inner life of a young girl, showing a remarkable bit of empathy in doing so.

Highly Irregular Stories is another fine collection of stories from one very prolific and inventive author.

The book was also reviewed in August 2007 by Marie Mundaca at the Hipster Book Club. Excerpts:

Richard Grayson is a meta-fictionalist of the old school, where structure is often as important as narrative, where the story is sometimes hidden in structural tricks like diary entries, lists, and jokes. Grayson revels in finding stories in ephemera—descriptions of what happened to groups of people on dates throughout a year, a list of traits, stories about writing stories.

The stories in Highly Irregular Stories were originally published in the 1970s and 1980s, but Grayson has such a fresh approach to writing that these stories don't seem dated. In some ways, Grayson may remind readers of a younger Woody Allen—an intellectual who ponders the nature of existence yet is remarkably funny while discussing life, death, and capitalism.

Like much of the meta-fiction oeuvre, Grayson often writes stories about writing stories—he'll describe a story he wrote, or wants to write, or is in the process of writing. The trick with this genre is to make sure the reader can find the story. There is a narrative somewhere; It's not all jokes and lists. Grayson succeeds here—the lists and diary entries reveal his passion for finding new ways to tell a story. "The Facts Are Always Friendly" is a series of calendar entries that explore the complicated relationships among a group of friends who are at once affable and duplicitous. "My Twelfth Twelfth Story Story," a tale about a seemingly upright citizen writing a book of stories about living on the 12 floor, reveals that the protagonist has a preoccupation with gruesome murders. "Progress" is a tale of a young man who goes home with a very friendly clothing salesman and ends up alone, trapped in the salesman's circular apartment, afraid to leave.

The funny stuff in Highly Irregular Stories is not just mildly amusing but actually laugh-out-loud funny. Take these lines, from "A Disjointed Fiction":

My eye catches an unauthorized advertisement scrawled on the subway map across from my seat:
FOR A GOOD LAY CALL 969-9970
It's bad enough that this is my sister's phone number, but what really hurts is that the handwriting is unmistakably my father's.

"Eating at Arby's" humorously explores the lives of two Southern Florida residents, Manny and Zelda, through a series of Dick and Jane-style stories. For Manny and Zelda, a trip to a mall becomes an analysis of the wastefulness of the middle classes, a visit to the chiropractor, and an examination of race relations. What sometimes seem like stand-up routines on the outset reveal stories about the deep struggles of creativity and identity in the late twentieth century.

In the story "Innovations," Grayson takes revenge on a more successful writer by making him a character in a story and leaving him trapped in Miami Beach during the 1950s, specifically because the successful writer called Miami Beach America's armpit. However, "Innovations" is not about the successful writer, identified as D.L., being trapped in Miami. Rather, it is about some of the things he does that seem to annoy Grayson's character and how these annoyances lead to Grayson's character trapping him in Miami. "Innovations" is very typical of the tales in Highly Irregular Stories—there are stories within stories within stories that spiral inward or spiral outward towards their conclusions.

There is nothing lazy or superfluous in Grayson's prose. Every word is called into service. What seem like digressions are insights into the story or the characters. For example, Grayson starts "The Governor of the State of Depression" by writing, "The Governor likes to be treated like a baby… He has taken to eating baby food. His especial favorite is Gerber's Strained Vanilla Custard Pudding." The pudding is not only pudding, it's custard, and it's strained. It's practically pre-digested. Later, when the Governor is reading an editorial condemning his policies, he's eating the pudding in an obvious attempt to comfort himself.

Sometimes Grayson's self-effacing humor seems almost Vonnegut-esque, as in "Escape from the Planet of the Humans," where he writes,

If I were to write wonderful books and grow old gracefully and become a member of the Literature Panel of the National Endowment for the Arts, the headline on page 11 of The New York Post might read WRITER HONORED AT FORUM, but I doubt it.

For all the similarities to more mainstream writers, Grayson is firmly seated in the experimental realm and is much closer to writers like Donald Barthelme, Raymond Federman and Steve Katz. Readers in search of realistic plots and characters will not find what they're looking for here, but for the more adventurous reader who enjoys satirical and experimental fiction, Highly Irregular Stories is highly recommended.

The book also was reviewed by Kirkus Discoveries in July 2006:

An audacious and wickedly smart comedic writer brings his full weight to bear in a collection of his early work.

Grayson, no stranger to experimentation, here assembles four of his most engaging chapbooks, which merge nicely as an eclectic anthology of intriguing short stories. The author, who breaks nearly every literary rule in an obsessive effort to be unique, is both maddeningly and hilariously self-aware. "Narcissism and Me" leaps dizzyingly between the author's presence and the actual story like a snake eating its tail, while "Sixteen Attempts to Justify My Existence" reads like a blog from another planet, and "I Saw Mommy Kissing Citicorp" waxes poetic on the rise and fall of 1980s greed. No business is safe, either, as Grayson mocks traditional publishing's buzzed-based marketing with caustic sarcasm in "The Greatest Short Story
That Absolutely Ever Was." In "The Facts Are Always Friendly," the action is narrated through a series of terse, date-stamped factual statements. Grayson opens up in the meatier "Eating at Arby's," a clever spoof written in childlike prose. It details the absurd dichotomies of South Florida as a pair of retirees fall prey to consumerism, political exiles and even gunplay on their way to the mall. With a keen eye for highlighting the high anxieties of the modern world, and many of the sensibilities of a sensitive urban writer, Grayson is occasionally compared to Woody Allen. But Grayson's stories here recall no one so much as Richard Brautigan, who walked a similar line between wit and warmth in his more eccentric novels. Though certainly unconventional, Highly Irregular Stories are refreshing because of their aloofness, which allows the author to indulge his peculiar point of view.

An iconoclast sways to his own beat, making beautiful music along the way.

The book was also reviewed by Ken Davis at Bookgasm in August 2006. An excerpt:

With HIGHLY IRREGULAR STORIES, I can’t think of adjectives that more accurately describe this collection of Richard Grayson’s writings than the first two of his title, although unorthodox, quirky, peculiar and highly entertaining also come to mind.

This book is purportedly an accumulation of stories originally published in the 1970s and ’80s in four separate chapbooks (DISJOINTED FICTIONS, EATING AT ARBY’S, THE GREATEST SHORT STORY THAT ABSOLUTELY EVER WAS and NARCISSISM AND ME), all long been out of print. I wouldn’t exactly describe the contents as stories, at least in the traditional sense anyway. Many of them might be better described as vignettes or sometimes as just snippets of a fictional conversation. Heck, “Some Sad News” is a mere 180 words. By comparison, this review is roughly 450. I didn’t find any exquisite plots or character development, but I was too busy enjoying myself to care.

Grayson is a literary performance artist. His words are avant-garde and so uniquely different than anything else I’ve ever read., as the book is chock full of the offbeat. Take the narrator in the 147-word “Ordinary Peepholes,” who spies the scrawled message on a subway “FOR A GOOD LAY CALL 969-9970.” He recognizes the phone number as his sister’s and the handwriting as his father’s. Or how about the very subtle but delicious irony in “I Saw Mommy Kissing Citicorp,” in which the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board who oversees the ebb and flow of cash in this nation has trouble with an ATM and can’t withdraw $200.

The entries from EATING AT ARBY’S were by far the most entertaining, written in the style of the old Dick and Jane readers, but updated to feature the liberal thinkers Manny and Zelda. These two don’t discuss how fast Spot can run, opting instead for more adult subject matter. For example, in “Strange Experience,” Zelda comes home and announces, “Look what I have got, Manny. I have some cocaine.” Manny replies, “So that white powder is cocaine. I have heard a lot about it from many people.”

Manny and Zelda are taken to a gun range by their friend José in “Fun with a Gun.” Zelda warms to the idea of firearms and says, “Manny, I want to shoot that gun. That gun will become our friend, just like José is our friend.” The topics of murder, homosexuality and outrageous electric bills also are tackled by the pair. Sasson Jeans and the Arby’s salad bar at Arby’s also make hilarious repeat appearances.

I highly recommend this book and reading in general. So do Manny and Zelda. In “Shopping in the Mall,” Zelda says, “I read a book once. It made me think.” Manny replies “Thinking is fun. I like to think.”

If you like to think, too, you can get a copy of Highly Irregular Stories from Dumbo Books.

Twenty-Five Years Ago This Weekend: The New York Times Book Review & "I Brake for Delmore Schwartz"

Twenty-five years ago this weekend, we got our first book review in The New York Times Book Review. It was our third book of stories, and how the review got in there is a story in itself.

We'd sent a copy to a fiction writer we admired, Ivan Gold, whom we'd been introduced to by our creative writing professor at Brooklyn College, the great Jonathan Baumbach (to whom our new book Summer in Brooklyn is dedicated).

Gold sometimes reviewed books for the Times Book Review - just the year before he'd reviewed our friend and neighbor Tom McHale's last novel (Tom committed suicide soon after that, though we wouldn't call the events related) - yet we didn't really think of that. We just liked Gold's books - especially Nickel Miseries - and wanted him to have a copy.

It turned out that Gold was at the time reviewing another book, by the very talented David Evanier, for the Times Book Review, and he thought our book was worth including in the review. So he wrote the Times Book Review's editors, and they agreed. He also tried to get in touch with our publisher, Zephyr Press, who were in the Boston area near him, but at the time they were in a communal house in Somerville and the phone message got waylaid.

There were all kinds of complications - because he couldn't get another copy easily, Gold had to rip out the half-title page in which I'd inscribed the book to him when he sent it to the Times for the editors to check out - so it's amazing that it ever appeared. But finally our publisher Ed Hogan got word the review would appear on Sunday, August 14, 1983.

We knew the Times Book Review was usually available by Wednesday at some bookstores, and then living in South Florida, we called around and found it was at the Waldenbooks in the Pompano Beach Mall. It was about a 20-minute drive and we were really nervous about what the review would say.

But, skimming it after we took it from the racks, it seemed okay. In a feature article on us a couple of months later, the Wall Street Journal described the NYTBR review as "mildly favorable." We'll take "mildly favorable" and so were pretty happy that day 25 years ago when we first saw the review.

Since you won't find the review in the online New York Times database - we think because of New York Times Co. v. Tasini, 533 U.S. 483 (2001) - and it's hard to find even in library databases - we're vain enough to want some record of it on the Web.

(It's been on our old MySpace blog for awhile, but that means it's virtually invisible, impossible to find even on MySpace's useless search engine of its own site.)

So we beg your indulgence and display it here after typing it up from our fading photocopy:

The New York Times Book Review

Sunday, August 14, 1983
Page 12 (continued on page 29)

"Uneasy in Brooklyn"

THE ONE-STAR JEW
By David Evanier.
223 pp. Berkeley, Calif:
North Point Press. Paper, $15.

I BRAKE FOR DELMORE SCHWARTZ
By Richard Grayson.
95 pp. Somerville, Mass:
Zephyr Press. Paper, $4.95.

By IVAN GOLD

A character named Bruce Orav has been spooking David Evanier for a good part of Mr. Evanier's creative life. Orav is a writer from Brooklyn, with divorced parents (a real couple of characters) to whom he remains in emotional bondage. He has an equivocal sense of his Jewishness; a number of idiosyncratic shrinks (some of whom he abandoned, some of whom abandoned him) trail in his wake; and he is a party to a never-ending quarrel, most of its battles lost, with the recalcitrant stuff of life, in his attempt to wrestle it into some kind of fictional shape.

Orav was about to turn 30 when Mr. Evanier's earlier account of his misadventures, "The Swinging Headhunter" (1983), came to a halt, and Orav has just had his 40th birthday as "The One-Star Jew" ends, or almost ends: These 14 stories that jounce Orav (along with his wife, Susan, and stepson, Danny) through his 30's are not quite chronologically arranged. Thirteen of them have appeared previously in magazines (three in The Paris Review, of which Mr. Evanier is fiction editor), and the title story was reprinted in "Best American Short Stories, 1980," so that there would seem to be some sort of consensus—although I am not able to share it—that each Oravian chunk has enough density to stand on its own.

These first-person narratives range in size from three pages to 42. In an example of the former ("A Safe Route on Eighty-Third Street"), Orav and his wife, who remains an extremely shadowy figure in these pages, endeavor to sublet an apartment from a dotty lady on the East Side, then think better of it. The story "The One-Star Jew" is, on the other hand, a lengthy account of Orav's employment at "JFI" ("Jews for Israel"). Or more accurately, since Orav, despite his first-person narration and a liberal but arbitrary smattering of his dreams and memories, is not much more clearly rendered than his wife, it is the account of the quirks and crochets and sex lives and medical histories of the two men in their mid-50's with whom Orav works most closely. There is probably a first-rate novella to be written about office politics and personalities in a fund-raising organization, with or without the Jewish touch, but this is not it.

Fortunately, Orav's attempts to reduce his parents to subject matter are continually thwarted by these bouncy individuals themselves. Orav's short story entitled "My Mother Is Not Living," which she has read, is probably think indeed next to the woman in the flesh, eked out by Orav's painful memories of her old maternal failings—for example, the time she neglected to rescue him from the attentions of her hairdresser, who, making a house call, fondled the 10-year-old in the bathroom, under the cover of cutting his hair. And the fact that his father ("I have used my father as a guinea pig for my stories and poems most of my adult life") totes around with pride a copy of an unflattering description of himself written by Orav, and "whips it out to show to strangers," is a far more arresting piece of business than the description itself.

But the book's most splendid creation lives in the story "The Lost Pigeon of East Broadway." Widowed and crippled, the 84-year-old Annie Blocker survives quite nicely, thank you, the do-good weekly visits of Orav and Susan as well as the barbed attentions of a series of "black Home Care workers," who, if they bear her no ill will to begin with, are soon enough sucked in by her cantankerous combativeness. Annie Blocker ponders the larger questions: Is a wheelchair really any less humiliating than a walker? Can a Jewish man be a crook? (Yes, she decides, when she remembers Rabbi Louis Ribman, "king of the nursing homes.") She is bigoted, canny, loving, ungrateful, witty and obscene. Where do they come from, Orav wonders, these people still clinging to life on the Lower East Side, "these new old Jews?" The whole of this collection may or may not add up to more than the sum of its parts, but Annie Blocker is worth the admission price.

A less hefty tariff will gain you access to Richard Grayson's fifth book, "I Brake for Delmore Schwartz," whose title may have had life as a bumper sticker before it was placed on this collection of 15 short stories, all previously published in little magazines like The Smudge and Street Bagel. The stories generally revolve around a chap named Richard Grayson. This character, like Mr. Evanier's, is a writer from Brooklyn, uneasy in his Jewishness and very concerned with the esthetics and mechanics of turning things into fiction, and fiction into things.

Mr. Evanier's and Mr. Grayson's stories are full of insanity, nutty therapists, cancerous relatives, broken homes, fiction workshops, youthful theatricals at Catskill bungalow colonies and the morbid wizardry of telephone-answering machines. Writing at less than the top of the their forms, both writers appear as sensibilities in search of story, grab bags of meaningful memory, acute perceptions and mordant social comment, which neither seems able to sift through and transform into art. Yet now and again for Mr. Grayson the shticks become inspired, as in a two-page meditation on the letter "Y" ("Y/Me") in the present volume and in the story "Inside Barbara Walters" in "Disjointed Fictions" (1981).

The histories of some of Mr. Grayson's other characters, like that of Saul in "That's Saul, Folks," are artfully telescoped and given equal valence with the history of the times. That is to say, where were you, reader, when the lights went out for the city of New York? In "Is This Useful? Is This Boring?" fictional beings named Joyce Carol Oates and Donald Barthelme square off over the issue of the fragment as a viable literary form, but then they patch up their differences. The title story threatens for a while to turn into a well-made story about two friends involved with the same woman, and both fearful, in the computer age, of continuing to lead the hand-to-mouth artistic life, but it pulls back just in time. If one is not blessed with a gift for extended narrative (a problem Mr. Grayson faces squarely in "How Not To Write a Novel" in "Lincoln's Doctor's Dog and Other Stories," 1982), then why not go for the spring? And in a 24-page pamphlet, "Eating at Arby's" (1982), Mr. Grayson mastered, or invented, a style equidistant between Hemingway's short stories and Dick and Jane, a feat probably useful and, at that length, far from boring.

In "Nice Weather, Aren't We?" in the present collection, the grandfather of the character Richard Grayson has been leafing through an anthology of Jewish stories put together by a famous writer named "Ballow." "He looked at me conspiratorially. 'Personally,' he said, 'I prefer your little antidotes,'" Others may, too.

________________________________________________________________________

Ivan Gold is the author of "Nickel Miseries," a collection of stories, and "Sick Friends," a novel.

The PODler Reviews Richard Grayson's AND TO THINK THAT HE KISSED HIM ON LORIMER STREET

The PODler reviews Richard Grayson's And to Think That He Kissed Him on Lorimer Street today:


Richard Grayson is a prolific writer of over 200 stories, articles, and books. In the 80s, he staged a satiric run for the White House against Ronald Reagan. He has obtained a J.D. degree from University of Florida with honors and is, in addition, a master satirist and a keen observer of the American scene from his own and unique viewpoint. Grayson writes in a deceptively simple style that is, nevertheless, hard to imitate. Using this kind of autobiographical method, bordering on a confessional, Grayson looks through shifting viewpoints (gay and straight; white and black; American and immigrant; young and old) at the people, times, and palaces of a fictional Brooklyn.

In these fictions, Grayson meditates on various topics, mostly race, sexual identity, age, and change by using the device of popular culture, mixing in liberally the icons of pop culture with persons and places from memory to construct a solid literary edifice.

The collection is filled with resonant stories about the lives of ordinary people, and this focus is what makes them interesting and memorable. Somehow, though Grayson's master touch, the ordinary becomes fascinating and highly readable literature. Many of these stories, however, reflect a deep sadness that exists in the heart of the common man and his experience. Nothing seems to happen for the protagonists in these stories, their lives stupefying their subjects. Grayson reminds us with his fiction that our lives are, in the end, rather banal, revolving around the mundane, the ordinary, and the common. At the same time, there seems to be a kind of weird current of apathy that flows beneath the surface of the stories. In the title story, we wonder, for example, whether the narrator is incredibly open-minded about his son's sexuality and the kiss between the boys, or whether he's just too apathetic to care, and we wonder because the title seems to be a kind of subconscious expression of protest by the protagonist. Apathy, or more precisely, a kind of stupefaction, perhaps synergized by the bathos of pop culture, rears its head in "Shirtless Tea-bag Eating White Boys," in which two characters, one stupefied by Haldol, the other just tranquilized by American culture, watch internet videos, which somehow are appropriate for the mentally dysfunctional character and the young elementary school teacher; the first prefers to watch a purple hippo, and the latter prefers to view shirtless tea-bag eating white boy clips.

Some of these stories are biographical, and those are the stories that I like the best. Especially likable are "Branch Libraries of Southeastern Brooklyn," in which Grayson's character reminisces about the libraries that he had known and how they had evolved over the years-this one is probably my favorite story, as I do love libraries, and it seems that Grayson is a true lover of the library as well - and "The Lost Movie Theatres of Southeastern Brooklyn and Rockaway Beach," another story of nostalgia and memory, where we are treated to reminiscences about the various theatres that the author remembers. "1001 Ways to Defeat Green Arrow" deals with change in gay relationships and the longing and emptiness that result. "My Life in The New York Post" is a collection of strange but somehow funny clips from, apparently, the Post regarding a fictional Grayson's plots and schemes.

Other stories that I liked were "In the Sixties," a kaleidoscope-like summary of the Sixties; "Diary of a Brooklyn Cyclones Hot Dog," which deals with the life of a lesbian Uzbek immigrant who is promoted to being the Relish in a Hot Dog Race; and "Mohammad's Therapy Monkey," in which the protagonist, a college student with some issues is assigned a roommate with a pet monkey, which helps him find acceptance and a relationship of his own in a place that he detests.

Grayson chronicles the real through his funny, sometimes sad, but always genuine, if slightly offbeat, fictional world.

Sunday at the Brooklyn Book Festival: Panel on "Why Book Reviews Matter"

This post appeared on Richard Grayson's MySpace Blog on Monday, September 17, 2007:

Sunday at the Brooklyn Book Festival: Why Book Reviews Matter


The last of four panels in the National Book Critics Circle's event "The Age of Infinite Margins: Book Critics Face the 21st Century," took place yesterday at the Brooklyn Book Festival. At 1 p.m. over a hundred people gathered at the Brooklyn Historical Society to attend the panel, "Why Book Reviews Matter: How We Decide What to Read (Next)."

Deborah Schwartz, the president of the Brooklyn Historical Society, began by welcoming us to their building. I've been there a number of times, and they always seem to have great exhibits of photos and other stuff from the old days, most of which I was around to see (trolleys, Ebbets Field, pterodactyls over Flatbush, etc.).

Deborah then introduced Jane Ciabattari, NBCC board member, short story writer, book critic and presence on the NBCC blog Critical Mass, today's moderator, who in turn introduced the four panelists:

Colin Harrison, author of five novels and vice president and senior editor at Scribner's, a resident of Brooklyn;

Kathryn Harrison, author of novels as well as a memoir, a biography and an essay collection, also a Brooklyn resident (you figure it out);

John Reed, novelist and books editor of The Brooklyn Rail (his residence was left unspecified); and

Harvey Shapiro, poet, former editor of The New York Times Book Review, a resident of Brooklyn Heights for 50 years.

(Full disclosure: When my first book was published in 1979, I placed a copy with a cordial note on the doorstep of Mr. Shapiro's brownstone. This friendly gesture did not get that book reviewed in the New York Times Book Review, but Mr. Shapiro did allow a mildly favorable review of my third book to appear in the NYTBR in August 1983; three weeks later he was replaced as editor by Mitchel Levitas).

Jane's first question for the panel: How do they decide what to read next?

Colin said that as an editor at a major publishing house, a river of paper comes to his desk every day. If the book is from an agent or an editor that he knows or on a topic that interests him, it has a better chance of getting his attention. Because he reads so many manuscripts, he has very little time to read for fun – and when he does so, it's usually as a "vacation" from his usual fare: a novel from the 1950s or a strange book of nonfiction.

The truth is, Colin said, he doesn't read based on book reviews. He's currently reading a Peter Blauner thriller set in New York City.

Kathryn said the last novel she read had been recommended by a student. Most books she reads are recommended by her friends, though she does look through The New York Times Book Review and the daily reviews in The New York Times.

Kathryn said there are certain writers she follows and will read all of their books. She gets a lot of books, though not as many as Colin. A lot of her reading is research for her own books. For fun, she reads Victorian novels such as those by Dickens or Madame Bovary (which she re-reads every year).

Colin interrupted to say that she reads books about serial murders, and Kathryn said that yes, she likes true crime books.

John said he finds books a lot of different ways: review copies to The Brooklyn Rail, book reviews he reads, websites he looks at, recommendations from friends. At the book festival today he'd already bought "too many books." He especially looks for books published by presses that he respects. For research, he reads strange stuff, like books on 1850s pottery. For fun, he reads things like graphic novels.

John said he wants to have The Brooklyn Rail review books early, so he relies a lot on publishers' catalogs. While a lot of review copies come to the Rail offices, he's not physically there and so doesn't see them all. Finally, reviewers sometimes come to him with books they are interested in reading.

Harvey said that there are so many books in his apartment that he has never read that he always has a huge pile of books to get to. He doesn't really use reviews as a consumer guide; rather, he listens to friends. However, he is affected by reviews – such as when everyone suddenly "discovers" a writer like Cormac McCarthy.

Harvey also follows specific reviewers like Louis Menand and Diane Johnson: "I'll read whatever they're reviewing." He also likes Adam Kirsch's reviews in The New York Sun and Charles Simic's poetry reviews in The New York Review of Books. Publications he reads include The New York Times Book Review, New York Review of Books, Times Literary Supplement, Brooklyn Rail and the newsletter of the St. Marks Poetry Project, which is important for reviews of poetry books.

Jane then asked the panel how they want word to get out about the new books they themselves have coming out and what the ideal in terms of book reviews would look like.

Harvey said that it is imperative that advance copies get to the following periodicals well in advance: Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and Booklist (the latter is especially important for poetry, since a good review will create library sales).

Review outlets that help sell books, Harvey said, are The New York Review of Books, New York Times Book Review, Talisman, literary magazines, The Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times Book Review (although he got an unfortunate review there) and Boston Review.

John agreed with Harvey's response but said that even if you get a lot of reviews, a lot of other things have to happen to achieve maximum sales. He noted that publishers often mess up when it comes to advance review copies; they have to be in six months in advance. Too many people chase reviews when it's too late, like two months after publication.

John said it's necessary for books to go after very specific markets and that it's important for authors to use social networking sites, blogs, and other outlets besides the traditional print review publications.

Jane mentioned the posts about the NBCC campaign to save newspaper book reviews on its Critical Mass blog. A Harper Perennial editor said on the blog that authors definitely need a MySpace page. Another site the editor mentioned is Powells Books, which has a review of the day and with whom Harper Perennial partnered to make a film about the novel On Chesil Beach.

Jane asked Kathryn if things are done differently to get reviews and publicity for her fiction and nonfiction books. Kathryn said that it's hard to address the difference between two, that there's not much crossover in terms of readers.

Kathryn said that every book is like reinventing the wheel, even if they are from the same author; it's always like starting over unless you become one of those rare "brand names" like Stephen King. Selling books is not like selling toothpaste, as publishers say, in that books are not necessities.

Kathryn's preference is to be completely involved in something else during the publicity process; in some ways it helps to let go of a book already published, if not thinking about it as a failure before the fact.

Jane asked her about blog tours, about guest-hosting on blogs – something authors are beginning to do; Kathryn said she would certainly do that, as she would anything helpful for her books. She has a website and will probably get a MySpace page, though she called herself "an Amazon virgin" who has never checked her sales rankings or the reviews of her books by readers there.

Colin said that word of mouth is the best way to sell books. As an editor, his perspective is that the publishing company will work hard to get authors reviews. Unfortunately, due to factors beyond their control, publishers do something send out galleys late.

As reviews come in, things happen to books; sometimes a book you had high hopes for garners poor reviews that can be devastating to authors. As an editor, Colin said, he tells his authors that this is just the immediate response but the reviews are not everything in terms of success.

Right now, Colin said, there really isn't the reviewing culture that existed in the past. While professional critics are often very good, a number of book reviews today are done by occasional reviewers who freelance and these reviews are not always the best; sometimes it's easy to tell that the reviewer hasn't really read the book but based his review on the press materials.

Colin said the good reviews are sometimes not as intelligent as bad reviews because lazy reviewers who don't read carefully are loath to expose their failings with a bad review and so indulge in mindless praise.

Sometimes, Colin went on, a single review can have an electrifying effect that creates a chain of critical awareness and set the perception of the book. And some books get reviewed very well, but they don't sell many copies anyway. Few newspapers do daily reviews anymore.

Colin mentioned a book he edited, the first novel by Anthony Swofford, whose memoir Jarhead sold well after magnificent reviews. The novel got a "murderous" review in The New York Times Book Review, and although that was really the only poor review the book got, it set the perception for the novel, much to the detriment of its sales figures.

Colin repeated what others said, that there's a very short period of time in which responses to a book come in and actually matter; most books are in the marketplace of ideas for only a brief moment. A lack of reviews can be very discouraging to writers.

With newspaper reviews in decline, outlets like The Village Voice's Voice Literary Supplement gone, things are much harder, but Colin hopes were merely in a pause in the critical culture; he expects more reviews from newspapers will migrate from the print edition to the online one. There are some wonderful literary blogs that do a good job; he mentioned Jessa Crispin's Bookslut, Maud Newton and Lizzie Skurnick's The Old Hag, among others.

John took up the question and said his magazine likes to champion underdogs, so he particularly looks at small presses, of which there are many excellent ones that bring out books that might otherwise slip through the cracks. The Brooklyn Rail has a political bent and that affects its book coverage. They try to review books that they can help, which is why they rarely review books long after publication, except to right what he feels is an unjustified neglect by other review outlets.

John said a lot of an author's best coverage comes off the book pages, where the author can better define and control the coverage to her advantage.

Again, John mentioned social networking sites like MySpace, saying writers take to them like a duck takes to water. Authors who are afraid of these sites must dive in, because they will inevitably become more important.

Harvey began by saying that in his lifetime, middlebrow culture has completely disappeared. At one time magazines like Life, Time and Newsweek would feature authors on their covers because books were an important part of American novel.

[My intrusion: As a kid in the 1960s, I used to collect autographed Time covers, and in my collection are those of a number of novelists, such as John Updike, who made Time's cover when Couples came out. Updike signed it, "I'm glad you liked Irene," referring to the character of Irene Saltz, whom I told him I thought was the most well-drawn.]

Harvey said book culture receded in importance as the boundaries broke down between highbrow and lowbrow culture, with middlebrow culture completely disappearing as postmodernism reigned. This was in many ways a good thing, but it ended mainstream coverage of literary works in the mass media.

Today, because of financial problems unrelated to books and book culture, newspapers are cutting back reviews. To some degree, Harvey said, editorial space is determined by the amount of advertising in a section.

When he was editor of The New York Times Book Review, a company vice president once told him that it was okay for the section to lose two million dollars a year but if it lost three million, they'd be in trouble. No one ever gave him a balance sheet although at one point an executive told him the section was actually running int the black.

Harvey said that under him, the section reviewed about 6% of reviewable books, not including very specialized titles for a narrow audience. At one time he wanted to eliminate all art and graphics to make more room for book reviews, but of course that never happened. He thought the extra space could be given over to more review content.

The sad truth, Harvey said, is that book publishers don't advertise much. The inability to financially support itself is why The Los Angeles Times Book Review ceased to exist as a separate section as was folded into an insert in the Arts section of the paper.

Interestingly, Harvey said The New York Times Book Review began as part of the Arts section of the paper and then he mused, "Who knows, it may eventually go back to that."

Jane said the panel was running out of time and she wanted to mention some other kinds of publicity of books: Oprah Winfrey and her book club on her television show, for example, really did bring mainstream attention to a literary novelist like Cormac McCarthy when Oprah selected The Road.

After asking if anyone in the audience relied on The Colbert Report as a source of information about books they might read (no one did, apparently), Jane asked the audience members what other sources they did get information about books from.

Here are some responses people called out: page one of The Wall Street Journal, Booklist, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, The Leonard Lopate Show and The Brian Lehrer Show on public radio station WNYC, critic James Wood (now at The New Yorker), Salon.com, Rain Taxi, American Book Review (particularly important for poetry), Booklust.com, Amazon.com reviews (John Reed said Amazon has been culling and deleting some reviews and reminded everyone that books are reviewed there by people who also review soap) and various literary blogs.

The Brooklyn Book Festival people had another event scheduled at 2 p.m., so Jane thanked the panelists and the audience and wrapped up an interesting series of panels from the National Book Critics Circle.

Friday Afternoon at Housing Works Books Cafe: "Grub Street 2.0: The Future of Book Coverage"

This post is from Richard Grayson's MySpace blog for Saturday, September 15, 2007:

Friday Afternoon at Housing Works Books Cafe: "Grub Street 2.0: The Future of Book Coverage"


Yesterday at 4:30 p.m. I was in a very large crowd, perhaps 65 people, filling the Housing Works Used Books Cafe to attend the National Book Critics Circle's second of four panels in their series "The Age of Infinite Margins: Book Critics Face the 21st Century."

Entitled "Grub Street 2.0: The Future of Book Coverage," it was moderated by John Freeman, the widely-published book critic and president of the NBCC, who began by saying it was great to see that so many people left work early to come.

He thanked Scott McNemee for the title of this session, which of course comes from Samuel Johnson, who lived on Grub Street and who popularized the term as one for hack writers when his dictionary called it "originally the name of a street...much inhabited by writers of small histories, dictionaries, and temporary poems, whence any mean production is called grubstreet."

Mentioning George Gissing's novel New Grub Street, set in late-19th-century London—which contrasts a pragmatic journalist with an impoverished writer and examines the tension between commerce and art in the literary world—John noted that although the current climate for book reviews was considered bad, things may have always seemed bleak. He quoted from Gissing back in 1891:

Presently the conversation turned to periodicals, and the three men were unanimous in an opinion that no existing monthly or quarterly could be considered as representing the best literary opinion.

'We want,' remarked Mr Quarmby, 'we want a monthly review which shall deal exclusively with literature. The Fortnightly, the Contemporary -- they are very well in their way, but then they are mere miscellanies. You will find one solid literary article amid a confused mass of politics and economics and general clap-trap.'

'Articles on the currency and railway statistics and views of evolution,' said Mr Hinks, with a look as if something were grating between his teeth.

John then said things were no different in 1959, when Elizabeth Hardwick wrote her scathing Harper's essay, "The Decline of Book Reviewing," which lacerated the turgid state of American book reviews:

In America, now...a genius may indeed go to his grave unread, but he will hardly have gone to it unpraised. Sweet, bland commendations fall everywhere upon the scene; a universal, if somewhat lobotomized, accommodation reigns. Everyone is found to have 'filled a need,' and is to be 'thanked' for something and to be excused for 'minor faults in an otherwise excellent work.'

After briefly discussing the NBCC's current campaign to save newspaper book review sections, John introduced the panel:

Melissa Egan, producer of The Leonard Lopate Show on New York's public radio station WNYC;

Dwight Garner, senior editor of The New York Times Book Review and writer of its best-seller list column and its Paper Cuts blog;

Emily Lazar, producer of Comedy Central's The Colbert Report;

Jennifer Szalai, senior editor at Harper's magazine;

Erica Wagner, literary editor of The Times (London); and

Steve Wasserman, former editor of The Los Angeles Times Book Review, currently a literary agent and the incoming editor at Truthdig.com, author of the recent Columbia Journalism Review article on the decline of book coverage, "Goodbye to All That."

John began by asking Erica about the literary situation in England and if newspaper book sections are livelier there.

Erica said the crucial difference between our countries is that England is much smaller and still has national newspapers that have a greater influence over literary culture. At times, that can create an insular literary culture, "as if we are all in conversation with ourselves" and outsiders may feel excluded.

The British literary community knows each other well, Erica said, and are not as dispersed as in the U.S. so that when, say, a new Philip Roth novel comes out, people compete with each other to be the first to review it.

Erica's newspaper, The Times (as opposed to the separate entity The Sunday Times), never had a stand-alone book review section until she started one in 2005. The section is 20 pages, with games and crossword puzzles in the back. She's trying to reach people who ordinarily don't read book sections.

British newspapers also sponsor literary festivals, as hers does the Cheltenham Festival of Literature, which takes place in early October. The Times provides financial support for the festival and has a say in programming, which it ties to coverage of the event. Her book section the Saturday before the festival will be all about it and other sections of the newspaper, such as the arts section, will cover other aspects of Cheltenham's guest authors. The sponsorship has proven to be a good value all around.

John said that this reminded him that authors today can't hide from the public until they've developed a loyal cult following. Before that, they have to be out on tour, plugging the book as much as they can. He asked Emily how she chooses authors to appear on Stephen Colbert's show.

Emily said they viewed the show's primary obligation to be one of entertainment; it's not a book review show, but books are a great resource for them. They rely on book reviews to help select author guests from the many books that they get (about 60-80 each day).

Of course the premise of the show is that the Colbert character never reads any of the books he's interviewing the authors about. They would rarely have a novelist on, as the audience (and Colbert) need to understand the idea of the book right off the bat. Novels usually don't have clear arguments and their show isn't about stories. They are looking for books, essentially, that contain arguments that can easily be made fun of.

While Salman Rushdie did appear recently on Colbert, it wasn't for any of his novels. They also had a recent appearance by Garrison Keillor, but he is less a literary writer to them than the apotheosis of NPR banjo-playing folksiness, something that can be satirized.

John noted that much of the news about the Bush administration, including revelations seen nowhere else, have come not from newspaper or magazine journalists but from the authors of books. He asked Steve, now at Truthdig.com as opposed to the Los Angeles Times Book Review, about the differences between reviewing books about current events on the Web and general book reviewing in newspapers.

Steve said that the fact that newspapers have to rely on books for news about the Bush administration testifies to newspaper journalists' total abdication of their responsibility to search for the truth. As for technological change, it may make communication more swift, the human desire to make sense of our world and seek answers remains the same.

He looks for the same qualities in all reviews: the degree to which the writer is accurate and composes with style and grace and has something interesting to say. He thinks victory will ultimately go to those blogs and older forms that have these qualities in abundance.

Steve said that the proliferation of blogs and other new forms still hasn't shown that they can produce an economic model for employment of people to write about books. Zealots in their garages now can post their manifestos on the Internet without first going through a discriminating filter that editors provide.

John then turned to Dwight and asked him about his blog for The New York Times. Dwight said that blogging is sticking a live wire into one's neck. At the book review section, they don't really have much contact with readers except for the relatively few letters that come in, but when he posts something on his blog, people respond immediately. That people online are "always yapping" means that the blogger has something like a pet that constantly craves attention and it's difficult to keep up.

Dwight likened book reviews to restaurants, while blogs are more like good hot dog stands, a fun place to go for a quick bite.

John asked Jennifer about her magazine's use of long-form reviews. In view of the widely-assumed decline of people's attention spans, has Harper's thought about changing this format and going to shorter reviews?

Jennifer said that the magazines had no plans for shorter reviews, that they and their readers seemed to appreciate the 4,000-word reviews they run or John Leonard's 2,000-word columns covering a number of books. As far as shorter attention spans go, Harper's appeals to readers curious about the world around them, people who like the long form. A not-for-profit organization, her magazine doesn't have to worry so much about economic imperatives.

John turned to Melissa and said that Leonard Lopate's radio show had the same instant feedback as blogs. He asked how she finds the authors to appear on the program.

Melissa said she usually goes by her gut feelings about the book; if they like a book, they invite the author on without worrying that she might be boring. Some people are amazingly good writers but find it hard to communicate over the air. Leonard Lopate's job is to pull them out. Their show does loads of first novels, often before there are many reviews out of these books.

John asked if she ends up reading a lot of stuff, and she said they do aggressive screening since they get 40-60 books a day. They have to do a lot of skimming.

John then discussed all the multimedia add-ons newspaper book sections now contain: the podcasts, Q & A's, etc. He asked Erica about these in both her paper's print and online book sections.

Erica said we are trying to do more and more multimedia, but nobody really yet knows what the effect of these add-ons will be and if the expenditures made will be worthwhile. After all, if they decide to do a podcast, someone has to be the interviewer. They are basically throwing stuff out and seeing what sticks, but none of this material comes without costs. The current confusion about all this comes down to economic reality.

John asked Dwight if the New York Times is also heading in that direction, and he pretty much echoed Erica in saying they were throwing everything out at readers online in particular and are waiting to see what works. For him, blogs and podcasts are not as much fun as book reviews themselves.

John noted that there were fewer newspaper reviews, and while there were many blogs, blogs don't have editors. He asked Steve about this: are we losing the kind of incisive criticism a Susan Sontag-type review once provided.

Steve said newspapers and all mass media worry about the need to "retain eyeballs" and so they can neglect the pure mission of providing criticism. Many book review outlets have blurred the boundary from being critics to being spin doctors for authors or publicists for book publishers.

In a furiously visual culture, Steve went on, mass media depend upon "a certain velocity of image." He views books as the most pure form and hates interviewers who ask authors, "What more can you tell us about your book?" An honest author might answer, "I spent three years writing my book and put everything in in. If you want to know that, just read my book. It says everything I have to say."

All podcasts, Q & A's and the other add-ons are a species of higher gossip, Steve said, a kind of Rope-a-Dope or junk food, to bring in the kind of person who normally doesn't go near straight book reviews. But they have little nutritive value compared to the work itself, and the work should be the primary focus.

John quoted Updike when he said that the perfect book review would quote the book under discussion in its entirety.

Then John asked Emily about the relentless plugging of books and whether Colbert satirizes that in his author interviews, making fun of the current system of book publicity.

Emily said the Colbert persona is so misinformed, his guests have to constantly correct him about his assumptions regarding their books. Keep in mind that their show's demographics skew toward very young viewers who probably read fewer books. If they were more conventional in their author interviews, their audience would get turned off.

She said Colbert can sell books that no one else is paying attention to. At work she has to deal with books in a "circus atmosphere," but at home, as a reader, she wishes her work self didn't have to resort to these circus tricks to bring attention to books.

John noted the paradox that while technology is making it easier to publish, it's also making it harder to find time to read. He then turned to Melissa and asked how she gets listeners to the radio show involved when so much else is competing for their attention.

Melissa said the show asks for the listeners' direct involvement, and uses it, in the form of email questions and comments to Leonard Lopate during the show; he incorporates these into his interviews with guests and also takes phone calls from listeners, who can talk to the authors who are guests.

The radio show also has contests, such as a recipe swap, and it recently had a contest for drawings using googly eyes in connection with a new book by Amy Sedaris; the contests often draw as many as 400 entries from all over the country.

John said that Steve Wasserman was a recent guest, discussing the decline of book reviewing, and he noted that soon after the interview, it could be downloaded and streamed online and that people could post comments about the show.

Melissa said that people suggest ideas for segments and guests constantly, that they use many of these ideas but only if they agree they are worthwhile.

John asked Jennifer if young reviewers, who grew up in a different mass media environment, write differently than old-time critics like Irving Howe. She said every generation takes a somewhat different approach, but young Harper's contributors are also their readers and are comfortable with the long form; reviewers in their twenties for them are happy to write 4,000-word reviews. While most twentysomethings may have a different attitude toward reading than people in their twenties did forty years ago, that's not true of the young reviewers Harper's publishes.

John turned to Dwight and asked about the Times Book Review, noting that many older book reviews the paper had in their online archives, unless they were by critics like Helene Vendler or Edward Hirsch, were often quite badly written in comparison with today's reviews.

Dwight said that he's pleased when he can go back and find reviews of old stuff, like John Gardner novels, that still stand up, but he agreed they have higher standards today. Back in the day, when he was coming up, young book reviewers could hone their craft in alternative weeklies, which have drastically cut or eliminated book coverage by now. Blogs, with a lack of editors, don't help a writer develop in the same way.

Steve Wasserman said that he doesn't understand then why the chain bookstores and some others seem to have tons of literary quarterlies. Even if these are subsidized and read by only fifty people, can't talented writers get their start there? All the quarterlies actually seem desperate to find fresh, excellent material, so talented young writers still can get published today.

Steve mentioned a UCLA student who a few years ago approached him after a panel like the one today who asked if he would look at her stuff. He did and liked it, and Cristina Nehring has gone on to produce superb work for Harper's and other magazines and has a book contract with HarperCollins. Of course, not all people with literary aspirations have as much talent as she does, and they will not succeed, and that's a good thing.

Steve affirmed that there were lots of outlets for writers with talent although he admitted they pay abysmally. Erica said she would agree, though England is a more closed world and sometimes she gets people writing her saying the British literary world is a kind of conspiracy to keep certain people down. She wishes she had more space to publish more writers who can genuinely contribute to the literary discussion.

John stated that novelist and poets write for their own enjoyment and don't feel terrible if their stuff doesn't get published, but nobody sits home and writes book reviews for their own pleasure. Without enough outlets, potential book reviewers are frustrated.

John said this frustration leads to the acerbic quality of some, but not all, literary blogs, who feel they must shout out to get heard. Some have compared them to the English essays of the eighteenth century who were similarly acerbic. Is this an apt comparison?

Steve said that at the risk of psychoanalyzing anyone's rage, he believed it was better that these people get their anger out with words on their blogs rather than climb up to a tower and start shooting people willy-nilly. Their rage is a perverse acknowledgement of how deep people's feelings about literature are.

What he dislikes about the Internet is that its neat aesthetics confer an unearned authority on the scribblings of ranters. You used to be able to tell a "nutter" by the bizarre formatting of addressing on their envelopes, their disregard for margins, their crazy scrawl. It was so much easier in the old days to spot an unhinged person. Now the Internet makes it harder to tell; all opinions, at first glance, appear equal. This is terrifying, so you've got to read online stuff carefully.

John asked Dwight how he reads the Internet, and Dwight said that at the Times Book Review, they don't really look to litblogs for literary criticism but for news of the publishing world and gossip. To look at literary criticism, they search the online book sections of other newspapers like The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, etc. Although they don't provide real literary criticism, Dwight said, blogs do have the virtue of distinctive voices.

John said that the NBCC blog Critical Mass can get famous writers to send them articles without paying them – a somewhat depressing situation if you think about it – but people don't read them, like a great essay Richard Powers did for them. Most of the traffic to the organization's blog comes from some link by another site, like Arts and Letters Daily.

Jennifer said she looks at litblogs for news as well, but she might not want online criticism because she herself is not used to reading long pieces on the Internet. Probably young people feel differently. She uses the Web to "get a sense of what's out there." But there's a lot of glut, and sometimes good things are hard to find.

Emily said some of the reviews of her husband Jonathan Alter's book seemed so petty. When reviewers aren't thoughtful, they lose credibility. She noted that some reviewers discredit an entire book because an author got one or two facts wrong. Then she said she was speaking more as the wife of an author than a TV producer.

Jennifer said there are real problems with book reviewers who want to feel superior to the books they are assigned.

When Emily said snark is more entertaining, Jennifer said that reviewers must communicate their critical experience in encountering work. It's bad to be condescending to the books under review; particularly with fiction, reviewers need to have a little bit of humility. Being a showoff results in the worst reviews, and editors need to guard against letting condescension creep into their publications' reviews.

Emily said she wanted a review of a book that was written, not the book the reviewer thought ought to have been written. Dwight said he was a fan of Emily's husband Jonathan Alter's writing and said that his columns are tough, and so he should expect tough reviews of his own work.

John asked Dwight if they often had to kill poorly-written reviews. Dwight said they rarely do this; instead they try to fix it. It looks bad if the Times Book Review kills a review because it seems as if they are favoring a writer and don't want her to receive negative criticism. They hate cheap shots, but some hits and fair hits.

Steve said that to him, a worse sin is the widespread prevalence of indifference in book reviews. "I'd embrace a crime of passion, however wrongly directed," he said, "over the indifferent complacency I see in many reviews."

Steve said he wanted to feel a presiding sensibility informing a book review, a sense that the reviewer holds readers in high regard and understands the high stakes of a review. He wants reviews that embrace the strange, the unknown, even the perverse – writing like that would go a long way toward gaining eyeballs for book review sections.

John asked Melissa if discussions on the Leonard Lopate radio show ever get combative or confrontational, and she replied that emotions are sometimes important, though if you're interviewing Henry Kissinger, you must approach him with respect. They try to have on only people that Leonard respects, and if the conversation gets heated, that's fine.

John then turned to Emily and asked her role in scripting the interviews; if they've got on a Swedish writer with a skeptical view of global warming as they did recently, what's their strategy to make the interview entertaining?

Emily said lots of writers make good foils for Steve's Colbert character, and it's Steve who usually figures out how. She couldn't do it for Keillor and would have passed on him as a guest, but Steve said he'd out-folksy him. Steve loves the challenge of interviewing guests his character would really have nothing to say so. The more difficult the interview, the better Steve likes it.

John said they were nearing the end of the hour session and asked each panel member what they were currently reading. Some of their answers:

Emily: Philip Roth's The Counterlife

Steve: Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism ("be very scared")

Melissa: Akiko Busch's Nine Ways to Cross a River: Midstream Reflections on Swimming and Getting There from Here

Erica: Carol Gould's Spitfire Girls: A Tale of the Lives and Loves, Achievements and Heroism of the Women ATA Pilots in World War II

Dwight: Phoebe Damrosch's Service Included: Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter
Jennifer: Gyula Kruda's Sunflower

With that, John closed the session by thanking the panel and the audience, reminding them that at 5:45 p.m., there would be another panel, "What We Talk About When We Talk About Books: Can Criticism and Promotion Coexist Today?"

Unfortunately, someone's grandmother was waiting for me at Sal's Pizzeria in Williamsburg and so I could not stay for it.

Wednesday Evening at the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen Library: "Save Our Book Reviews!" Panel

Recently many newspapers have been cutting or eliminating their book review pages or sections and downsizing their book review staffs. Last evening we went to the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen Library on West 44th Street for a "Save Our Book Reviews!" panel discussion sponsored by the New York Center for Independent Publishing (NYCIP; formerly the Small Press Center) and the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC).

After being introduced by NYCIP executive director Karin Taylor, moderator John Freeman, the NBCC President, who's reviewed hundreds of books in publications worldwide, in turn introduced the panelists: M.A. (Michael) Orthofer, managing editor of the web site The Complete Review; Sarah McNally, owner of McNally-Robinson Booksellers; Dan Simon, publisher of Seven Stories Press; Tim W. Brown, freelance reviewer and NYCIP Executive Council member and Hannah Tinti, author of Animal Crackers and editor of One Story.

John began by asking if book reviews matter, if they sell books.

Dan said that at best, book reviews start beautiful electricity, that some books would have been ignored but for an inspired New York Times Book Review notice that led to a snowballing series of events that got them a lot of notice and sales. Historically, book reviews have made all the difference in the world; in some ways, reviewers are his press's ideal readers. However, today book reviews carry less weight than they used to. Once the cover of NYTBR would be magic for a book's sales, but now a NYTBR cover review may not create a ripple.

John noted that the crisis in newspaper book reviewing did not affect the New York Times, whose book review is healthier than ever.

Sarah said that in smaller cities, book reviews did affect customers. Younger people may use websites to get book information, not reviews, but older people are very review-conscious. She wondered if fewer local reviews outside the New York area, particularly in the South and Midwest, have affected book sales there.

Sarah continued that although the NY Times may be okay, literary culture is based locally all around the U.S. Some reviewers do sell books, and she said that Dan's use of the word "inspired" was perfect. A single review can bring in dozens of customers in one day. An example she offered was Australian writer Tim Flannery, who got a glowing daily NY Times review for his novel Deconstruction Acres.

Tim agreed with Sarah about the importance of reviews for sales, but said that newspaper cutbacks were leading to fewer reviews. People also use their personal networks and word of mouth to decide what books to buy as cracks appear in the edifice of mainstream media.

John asked Hannah about One Story's audience, and she said the publication's now five years old; it began to fill a gap after Story and other fiction magazines closed. It provides a focus on one story, is only subscription-based, and now is sent out 18 times a year, every three weeks, to over 4,000 subscribers. When her authors do have books published, they have to work harder than ever to get book reviews.

John brought up the example of Virginia Woolf and how her literary criticism provided her with income. If literary interest leads to fewer book reviews, where will today's Virginia Woolfs make their living? He then turned to Michael and asked him about the Complete Review.

Michael said he was interested first in the possibilities of the Internet, where he noticed lots of book reviews but few places with links to them. He wanted to provide access to opinions and publish information. The Internet has great potential for book information, but it's not a substitute for newspapers.

John said that the Complete Review focuses a lot on independent presses and asked if print review culture does less for indie publishers. Michael said yes, and gave Tina Brown's book on Princess Diana, which got the cover review in Sunday's NYTBR and is being reviewed by many newspapers. But it's not appropriate punishment for lack of newspaper attention to small presses to cut back these reviews. It's just that papers aren't living up to their potential when they pick Tina Brown on Diana over their own local literature.

John said that print reviews vary widely in quality. Some NYTBR reviews are so badly written that no one would buy a book because of them while a more stylishly written review on the web could be more productive of book sales.

Sarah quoted the line said to the nineteenth century literary critic Belassarion Belinsky in Tom Stoppard's The Coast of Utopia: "You are our one true critic." What is the point of reviews, though, if publishers have only a short-term mentality?

John said that Dan published the 2007 Human Rights Report but found it impossible to get reviews because of newspaper editors' fealty to mainstream publishers' frontlists.

This led Dan to discuss what being an "independent" publisher actually meant. He saw it not so much about non-corporate ownership but about non-corporate values: an alternative set of values that have created a network or an ecosystem that includes not just presses but indie bookstores, web people, reviewers (including NBCC folks): picaresque underpaid true believers. Nobody owns these people, so smaller newspapers can't tell them what to write. The literary ecosystem can't function without any one of these groups. As publishers, it's hard to get reviews yet somehow we always get them. When the ecosystem breaks down somewhere, as in the loss of book reviews, it has a devastating effect; writers get depressed they can't sell their books and they stop writing.

Sarah said that for her as a bookstore owner, it's impossible to buy books without review quotes, especially for paperback originals. Consumers respond to the review quotes when they see books at McNally Robinson's front tables. John asked if front table placement affects sales more than book reviews, and Sarah said yes, but not without review quotes. She will not buy paperback originals that don't have review quotes.

Tim said this was not so much interconnectedness, the term Dan and John used, but a kind of sick symbiosis in a highly dysfunctional publishing industry and went back to his metaphor of cracks in the edifice of mainstream media. He mentioned Rain Taxi, which he reviews for (copies were being given away for free at the symposium), as an example of a thoughtful independent journal that reviewed books. Other ways to sell books are through personal appearances, panel discussions, publicity events. NYCIP's mission is to defend and uphold the ethos of indie presses. Aside from Rain Taxi, Bloomsbury Review, American Book Review and other publications exists besides the NYTBR.

John said he was worried that Tim's model for book culture excluded the mass audience. Tim said no, books like Jerry Seinfeld's autobiography are review-proof and will sell to the masses regardless. The type of book Tim wants to review is not for everybody, it's for a niche audience: "I work as a reviewer below the radar."

John noted that many of the publications Tim mentioned are also available on the Web and that Rain Taxi is sold in China. Turning to Hannah, he asked if her story collection (an excellent book, if I can intrude here) Animal Crackers got a wider audience due to book reviews.

Hannah said word of mouth helped more, especially her parents' word of mouth. (Laughter.) But also before every reading she did in various towns, the local indie bookstore would usually contact the local newspaper, which would schedule a review or interview her. She said that playing all angles with a lot of will power can overcome a publisher's lack of financial resources for publicity.

Book blogs are exploding, Hannah said, and these vibrant websites are more "where the action is" than a newspaper recycling an AP review. Authors want a variety of reviews, wherever they are found. She said that One Story's website provides information about their authors' books and their forthcoming readings; this has made a lot of difference for some of these writers.

Tim said that journalists were very lazy people, that the books they write about are the result of being fed press releases: "Every newspaper reviews the same five damn books on Sunday." Book review pages shouldn't be this passive; they should be more engaged and proactive.

John noted that of NBCC's 700 critic members, many live outside New York, with the largest contingent in San Francisco. The NBC believes that the more people discuss books, the better off American culture is, and the best way to reach average people is in the local newspaper. However, regional papers are abrogating cultural responsibility to the New York Times, AP, etc. No matter how great book websites are, the average person can't read 200 blogs and webzines every day, but they can pick up a newspaper.

These papers are, with the exception of some family-owned entities like the NY Times, owned by conglomerates, John said. For example, the Village Voice is run by a Phoenix-based chain of alternative weeklies that is openly hostile to book reviews. The venues for young writers to get paid for their reviews are shrinking as these weeklies tool their culture coverage to entertainment, pop culture and corporate interests. While the Internet exhibits a lot of promise -- and have the advantage of being able to review books past the narrow time frame newspapers require (very close to a book's pub date) -- does this mean giving up on the "accidental reader" that a newspaper review may attract? Will book reviews be read only by a certain niche?

Michael said that although he publishes on the Internet, he wanted accidental readers. If we are just talking talking to ourselves, separating ourselves into a group of people who think the same, can that be good?

John then turned the discussion to literary prizes, one of which seems to be given out every three weeks. What effect do prizes have on sales?

Sarah said that prizes are a huge deal. People particularly love her store's Booker Prize display (they put out the current and past winners) even more than the displays for the National Book Award or the Pulitzer. Prizes bring people into the store and give books a wider audience. She thinks it is a good thing for a lot of people to read some particular book so that it serves as a pillar for discussions. Prizes also can eliminate the gap between indie and corporate publishers. She reiterated that indie books sell well only when they are on a table with "mainstream" books, and this happens when stores create displays based on prizes and awards.

Then the panel took questions from the audience.

Someone asked who is the "client base" of book reviewers, publishers or book buyers? Reviewers seem to hype big-advance Random House books, for example. If you rip off a book's title and strip it of its publisher and author, it would be better for the many good books that get published but not read.

John said that critics don't all think a lot. He just sends publications queries about reviews he wants to do, and some venues are more receptive than others. If he suggested doing a book in translation to an editor in Cleveland, she might counter by suggesting a book for which she'd received a press release that day.

If a critic said he wanted to review Robert Walser but the editor wanted a review of Jasper Fforde's latest book, the latter would be the one to get assigned. If we reviewed only small press books, we'd miss out on good work. One problem small presses have in getting reviews is that unlike large publishers, they can't afford to print 5,000 galleys for distribution.

Tim said that being proactive pays off. He's never reviewed for major newspapers. He deliberately looks for books to review based on his own level of interest; for example, he reviewed one of Dan's books for that reason. Employees of newspapers are beholden to their corporate employers, but he had a day job and just got paid in copies, like most writers whose work appears in literary magazines.

An audience member said she had been reviewing books for 30 years, but she can't find anything out about small press books before their pub date. At small press book fairs, she approaches publishers asking for info before the pub date; these small presses seem unaware that editors won't accept books for review after the pub date.

John said there's a six week window generally. He just reviewed a book published in March and tried to hide the pub date from his editor. He agreed that there are structural problems regarding both time and information; if it's hard to get a book, people can't review it.

Tim said that proportionally, books from small publishers probably get reviewed more than most conglomerate books because at these giant companies, only their top tier books get reviewed and they don't care so much about the others.

Karin said that small presses should realize that they can declare the pub date later than when the books actually come back from the printer. NYCIP can help provide small presses with information like this, that they don't necessarily know but which might be crucial to success. Also, prizes specifically for indie presses tend to get overlooked and that they should work with the NBCC to get these prizes better known. John mentioned that NBCC's poetry prize winner had a press run of only 500 copies, so how many copies could that publisher afford to give away for free? They needed a targeted list.

An audience member who identified himself as a self-published writer noted that the New York Times dropped its Sunday TV listings section but kept the book review because it generated ads. He gave What Color Is Your Parachute?as an example of a book originally self-published that gained a large audience through word of mouth, which is how music albums also have achieved commercial success.

John agreed that word of mouth is the number one reason books are bought. People pick up books that look and sound interesting to them.

Tim said there's a difference between the corporate and indie personalities, and reviewers are, of course, individuals. The empowerment of an individual voice can do a lot in assessing the value of books or other cultural objects.

Hannah mentioned the lack of profitability of books of short stories, which she said were just "one step ahead of poetry."

An audience member identifying herself as an academic said that in the academic book reviews she writes, the pub date is irrelevant, that she's reviewed books years after they first came out. She stopped reading the NYTBR because it's too boring; missing from is a sense of style, a sense of verve, pizazz, or a moral vision.

She asked if NBCC members discuss this problem of style. She herself never reads reviews of fiction books because they are all plot summary; instead,she depends for recommendations on booksellers and, yes, Oprah. She is not interested in plot summary but in the use of language, a book's theme and vision, but the NYTBR fiction reviews are almost entirely plot summary when they should be the kind of essays that Woolf wrote.

John said it was often a question of space in a review that could not be more than 600 words. Once a critic presents the book, there may only be 450 words left. But longer reviews are not necessarily better; an example was the 6,000-word NYTBR review of Norman Mailer, which he found "deadly." The academic in the audience said that she enjoyed that review.

John said some NYTBR reviews are quite well-written. The NBCC has the Nora Balakin Citation for excellent book reviewing, and it was won recently by someone who reviews for the San Antonio Current. Other great stylists have also won this award.

But, John continued, some newspapers require an institutional style. It's almost always verboten to use the first person. He was assigned a review on the aftermath of Hiroshima and was writing the review on the morning of 9/11; he thought that it would be relevant to use "I" in the review to describe what he saw from his window that day, but it got edited out. For the most stylish reviews, people probably have to go to literary journals and magazines like The New Yorker.

Tim said his novel reviews were often from 400-600 words, and he compared composing this kind of book review akin to the structured way a poet might write a villenelle. Most of the skills to do this kind of review he learned by third grade, from doing book reports, perhaps combined with what he learned in high school about "theme."

Hannah said that she got a lot of responses to reviews of her book that appeared in small local newspapers. Whether the reviews were good and bad, she connected with people, and it was interesting to see the different responses.

John asked everyone to name a stylish critic and he himself offered Anthony Laine and also John Updike, whose tools include his vast experience and vocabulary. Karen said she agreed with the audience member who found the NYTBR boring. Dan offered the name of Joel Agee (an old friend of ours from a Park Slope writing group in the 1970s), who reviews books in translation. John mentioned that the New York Sun has well-crafted reviews, particularly by NBCC member Adam Hirsch. Tim said Christopher Hitchens was a stylish reviewer and Hannah offered "this guy named John Freeman." (Laughter.)

A young audience member discussed the issue of not wanting to alienate the casual reader. There is a myriad of strategies publishers can follow. He mentioned Big Crossing, a book borrowing system, as well as niche blogs. Casual readers, especially if they're older, don't have the time to do Internet surfing. But for younger people, aren't these alternative methods of reviewing becoming mainstream?

Dan agreed that the Web is becoming mainstream; as a publisher, he couldn't survive without it.

John mentioned the NBCC blog, Critical Mass, which has half a million readers. However, in comparison, every Sunday's Hartford Courant had 400,000 readers, half of whom read the paper's book reviews while the NBCC blog attracts about 2,000 each day. He said a recent New York Times article portrayed a "beef" between bloggers and print reviewers and said this was inaccurate, that there is no war happening: "If people stop talking about books, we'll all be screwed."

An audience member asked what the panel thought of C-SPAN's book coverage. He also wanted to know about the demographics of Michael's Complete Review website. Michael said that The Literary Saloon blog gets about 10% of viewers and the reviews get the rest. Individual reviews can get as much traffic as the blog on a particular day; recently, reviews of Lolita and The Coast of Utopia got a lot of hits.

Dan said that C-SPAN did some events right here (the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen Library) and are supporters of indie publishing. Karin said her husband appeared on C-SPAN and for a while afterwards, they couldn't go out on the street without his being stopped by people who recognized it, so it must be bringing attention to books. John said C-SPAN's book coverage was nice but a little too much like cable access. The book coverage on Jon Stewart's and Stephen Colbert's shows is livelier but they never invite novelists on.

An audience member whose voice sounded familiar (later we realized it belonged to Ed, the young roving correspondent who interviews authors on the Bat Segundo podcasts) returned to the question of "the lack of pizazz" in the NYTBR. He mentioned John's statement about the banning of the first person in NYTBR reviews. If book reviews are so dull, why save them? Maybe they are making themselves obsolete with their current format and style (or lack of style). Why not grab readers by their lapels and give book reviews more electricity? And isn't the latter what online coverage is doing?

John said that book reviews aren't perfect. Because the NYTBR is so widely read, people copy the style of the reviews there. But there are hordes of book reviews, not all with that NYTBR "voice." He was not saying that book reviews are perfect.

Dan noted that Ed was speaking provocatively, that a writer can slip stuff in a book review that would never appear in another section of the newspaper.

Hannah said it would be great if reviews are more dynamic, but for that to happen, we need more book reviews. First-time authors don't have the kind of personal networks in the publishing world that allow them to survive without reviews.

Tim said it was bad to cut back on book coverage but that Ed may be right, that what is happening could be creative destruction, as one thing falls by the wayside as another grows up. He said the New York Times treated him well, that the paper was highly useful, but it is still a bit narrow and parochial.

Dan said we need local diversity, not just the NYTBR. We need to make sure books are talked about at the grassroots.

An audience member asked if galleys are beyond the financial reach of some small publishers, will book reviewers or publications that review books accept digital galleys. Tim said, "PDF is OK with me."

John said he recently reviewed a 3,000-page book which he read entirely on PDF, but some reviewers like to make notes in pen or pencil on the pages of the books they're reviewing, something they can't do yet with PDF although perhaps the technology will change. As for himself, he would like to see more books on PDF. He gets 100 galleys a week. Hannah suggested small publishers might try gauging interest and then doing a small sample of galleys to send to selected reviewers.

An audience member asked a question about pack journalism, and most panelist members agreed that was always a concern. Finally, it was well after the 8 p.m. scheduled end to the discussion, and Karin thanked John, his fellow panelists, and the audience for coming.

Afterwards we had the pleasure of meeting for the first time some of our favorite litbloggers: the aforementioned Edward Champion of Return of the Reluctant, Levi Asher of Literary Kicks (Lit Kicks), and MaryDell of Book Blog. Others in the audience engaged in informal discussions with the panelists for the next 20 minutes or so.