The talk of the publishing world this week: Boris Kachka’s article “The End,” in New York magazine. It’s a lengthy tome, but well worth the read. Kachka’s hardly the first to declare the end of publishing as we know it, but the fact that the business is dying a slow death can’t stop the funeral march. Books and readers will prevail. Despite what I wrote earlier about vetting in publishing, Kachka affirms that celebrity-making is as alive – though perhaps not as well – in book-selling as it is in politics.
Speaking of politics – you didn’t really think I could breeze by that opening – a new Sarah book is in the works, and this one’s not through a Christian publisher. 101 Things You—and John McCain—Didn’t Know About Sarah Palin should hit bookstores in a couple of weeks.
I’m working on a review of Willie Hensley’s Fifty Miles from Tomorrow for Bookforum, so I’m thrilled to see that Barry Scott Zellen will be speaking Monday from 5-7 p.m. at the UAA Campus Bookstore on “Breaking the Ice: From Land Claims to Tribal Sovereignty in the Arctic.” Important and timely issues all.