Steve Wasserman e-mailed this letter, also signed by Sonja Bolle, Digby Diehl, and Jack Miles: As former editors of the Los Angeles Times Book Review (1975 through 2005), we are dismayed and troubled at the decision by Sam Zell and his managers to cease publishing the paper’s Sunday Book Review. This step signals the end of an era begun 33 years ago when Otis Chandler, then the paper’s publisher and owner, announced the debut of the weekly section. Since then, the growth of the Los Angeles metropolitan region and the avidity of its numerous readers and writers has been palpable. […]
Book Section
Another Book Review Editor Gone
As part of the combination of buyouts and layoffs cutting deeply at the Tribune Company’s Hartford Courant (where they intend to eliminate 25 percent of editorial pages), books editor since 2002 Carole Goldberg is leaving the paper.
Personnel, Etc.
Book review editor (and arts writer) at The Tennessean Jonathan Marx e-mailed contacts to let them know he has left the newspaper to take a job as publications manager for the Nashville Symphony. Del Commune Enterprises is now scouting in France for Calmann-Levy and Le Livre du Poche and in Spain for Salamandra Ediciones. As of August 1, they will also scout for Jorge Zahar Editor in Brazil.
Zell Aide on Book Pages
“Heard a conversation about how Book reporting doesn’t generate revenue and may have to go away. WAIT! Maybe Book reviews and coverage are one of those things that don’t generate revenue right now, BUT–are trademarks for newspapers and elicit high passion from readers. At XM, we had Opera channels. Low listenership…HIGH passion…AND–it was one of those things that even if people didn’t listen or even like Opera, it was one of those things you had to have for completeness. Maybe Book sections in newspapers are just dated. Not the idea…but the look and feel. Maybe they’re modeled after a book […]