Another Book Club
A longtime reader of this space pointed me toward the blog "Andrew's Book Club" today; this book club seems to want to do what the late Lit-Blog Co-op sought to do: provide a platform for discussing books online. Here's blog author Andrew Scott explaining the basics of what his book club entails:
Scott goes on to explain that each month he "will select two short story collections to be released that month, give or take a few weeks. One will be from a NYC publisher, while a second selection will spotlight a book from an indie or university press. Buy at least one of these books each month. 12 books a year (24 if you buy both selections) is not too much to ask."
One unanswered question here is the imperative "should support"—why are these two collections worthy of our support, instead of others? Another unanswered question might be "not too much to ask of whom?"
In the case of the latter question, presumably Scott believes he's addressing a literate readership—and, if so, I can't imagine that those readers don't already buy at least two dozen books a year (though it's certainly doubtful that they buy two dozen collections of short fiction a year). Even during a recession, his maximum of twenty-four books perhaps aims a bit low. Can one imagine starting, say, a film club, and suggesting that the cinephiles who join it watch only two films each month?
The populist approach of his appeal—a tongue-in-cheek request for Oprah and her book club to "move over," a series of "rules" for Andrew's Book Club modeled on the infamous rules of Fight Club, Scott's "polite request" that the readers of his blog "please tell five of your friends about the [Facebook] group/blog"—suggests that he wants to do a service for literary publishing as well as to become a tastemaker. And indeed, he's selected a short fiction collection from a fine small press—OV Books, now an imprint of Dzanc—as his first "indie" selection, as well as a book from Hyperion as his "big house pick." Still, the one major / one minor approach ultimately seems arbitrary at best, and given that the authors and titles he references in his explanation are all high-profile, middle-of-the-road examples—books that will receive plenty of attention regardless of his efforts—one wonders about the sort of book Scott wants to promote, and why we "readers and writers of short stories should support" his selections.
I don't want to discourage anyone from reading, certainly, and I also don't particularly want to criticize what seems a well-intentioned if underconceived gesture. And, as someone who regularly discusses his own work in this space, I understand the promotional possibility of blogs—and since it seems that Andrew Scott has plenty of ambition for his project, I don't doubt that it will be successful.
That said, I see a fundamental problem with Scott's approach: by explicitly arguing against a "scattered" approach to book-buying in favor of the "One Book" model popularized by Oprah's Book Club and various city libraries, he encourages the already messed-up economics of the trade publishing industry by deliberately seeking to focus sales solely on two books per month, rather than offering his readers a wider sampling of disparate books they might buy. The trade publishing industry is predicated on such bulk purchases; one hyped or high-profile book will cover the unearned advances of many other books—and also based around promoting the blockbuster to the detriment of these other books. (Years ago, when I reviewed fiction for a news & arts weekly, I remember—to cite but one example—asking a "publicist" at a prestigious trade house for information about an author I was reviewing—e.g., Would the author's book tour bring her to our area anytime soon, so we could time the publication of the review, or include an interview?—and receiving no helpful information; the next day, the author called me herself to tell me she would indeed be reading in our area in the immediate future.)
It seems a shame for a medium such as a blog—isn't "democratic" the cliché generally invoked in this case?—to replicate trade publishing's sales model. Given that publishers now pay bookstores for the privilege of having their books placed strategically on tables, or that the big-box chain bookstores can dictate cover designs, focusing the book-reading public's attention ever more narrowly seems the wrong strategy to encourage reading. As someone who teaches reading and writing for a living, I well understand the importance of the community reading experience, but I also understand how excited my students generally are when I inform them, at the beginning of the semester, that one of our course credos will be Greil Marcus's statement that "College is for finding out about stuff one wouldn’t find out about otherwise," and then try to offer them as much of that "stuff" as I can.
Each month, I select two short story collections that readers and writers of short stories should support. The idea is simple. We should buy short story collections and support this important art form, especially if we’re writers and ever hope to publish our own books of short stories. But if I buy Antonya Nelson’s new collection and you buy the new Jim Shepard book of stories, and our friend Sally buys Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock (soon in paperback!) and your mom buys Cathy Day’s The Circus in Winter, then the publishing numbers are scattered all over the place.
Scott goes on to explain that each month he "will select two short story collections to be released that month, give or take a few weeks. One will be from a NYC publisher, while a second selection will spotlight a book from an indie or university press. Buy at least one of these books each month. 12 books a year (24 if you buy both selections) is not too much to ask."
One unanswered question here is the imperative "should support"—why are these two collections worthy of our support, instead of others? Another unanswered question might be "not too much to ask of whom?"
In the case of the latter question, presumably Scott believes he's addressing a literate readership—and, if so, I can't imagine that those readers don't already buy at least two dozen books a year (though it's certainly doubtful that they buy two dozen collections of short fiction a year). Even during a recession, his maximum of twenty-four books perhaps aims a bit low. Can one imagine starting, say, a film club, and suggesting that the cinephiles who join it watch only two films each month?
The populist approach of his appeal—a tongue-in-cheek request for Oprah and her book club to "move over," a series of "rules" for Andrew's Book Club modeled on the infamous rules of Fight Club, Scott's "polite request" that the readers of his blog "please tell five of your friends about the [Facebook] group/blog"—suggests that he wants to do a service for literary publishing as well as to become a tastemaker. And indeed, he's selected a short fiction collection from a fine small press—OV Books, now an imprint of Dzanc—as his first "indie" selection, as well as a book from Hyperion as his "big house pick." Still, the one major / one minor approach ultimately seems arbitrary at best, and given that the authors and titles he references in his explanation are all high-profile, middle-of-the-road examples—books that will receive plenty of attention regardless of his efforts—one wonders about the sort of book Scott wants to promote, and why we "readers and writers of short stories should support" his selections.
I don't want to discourage anyone from reading, certainly, and I also don't particularly want to criticize what seems a well-intentioned if underconceived gesture. And, as someone who regularly discusses his own work in this space, I understand the promotional possibility of blogs—and since it seems that Andrew Scott has plenty of ambition for his project, I don't doubt that it will be successful.
That said, I see a fundamental problem with Scott's approach: by explicitly arguing against a "scattered" approach to book-buying in favor of the "One Book" model popularized by Oprah's Book Club and various city libraries, he encourages the already messed-up economics of the trade publishing industry by deliberately seeking to focus sales solely on two books per month, rather than offering his readers a wider sampling of disparate books they might buy. The trade publishing industry is predicated on such bulk purchases; one hyped or high-profile book will cover the unearned advances of many other books—and also based around promoting the blockbuster to the detriment of these other books. (Years ago, when I reviewed fiction for a news & arts weekly, I remember—to cite but one example—asking a "publicist" at a prestigious trade house for information about an author I was reviewing—e.g., Would the author's book tour bring her to our area anytime soon, so we could time the publication of the review, or include an interview?—and receiving no helpful information; the next day, the author called me herself to tell me she would indeed be reading in our area in the immediate future.)
It seems a shame for a medium such as a blog—isn't "democratic" the cliché generally invoked in this case?—to replicate trade publishing's sales model. Given that publishers now pay bookstores for the privilege of having their books placed strategically on tables, or that the big-box chain bookstores can dictate cover designs, focusing the book-reading public's attention ever more narrowly seems the wrong strategy to encourage reading. As someone who teaches reading and writing for a living, I well understand the importance of the community reading experience, but I also understand how excited my students generally are when I inform them, at the beginning of the semester, that one of our course credos will be Greil Marcus's statement that "College is for finding out about stuff one wouldn’t find out about otherwise," and then try to offer them as much of that "stuff" as I can.
Labels: bestsellers, literary fiction, reading, reviews, short fiction
posted by Josh at 5:25 PM
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