Book clubs are the best thing that has happened to the world of publishing.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I'm happy to see book clubs on TV. Talking about books has always been an important and invigorating part of reading them, and it's nice that that is getting attention from the media.
It seems the world of book publishing is constantly changing. Whether it was the rise of chain stores or their decline, or the digital revolution... fortunately, we have been able not only to adapt but to thrive.
Book clubs, both online and in person, have become a large percentage of the reading public, and many of them won't consider reading books in hardcover.
I'll never forget a meeting with one publisher where they said, 'We don't publish books for teenage boys; teenage boys don't read.'
Booksellers are the most valuable destination for the lonely, given the numbers of books that were written because authors couldn't find anyone to talk to.
The publishing industry has always wanted to make books as cheaply and as ephemerally as they could; it's nothing new.
Publishing is a very mysterious business. It is hard to predict what kind of sale or reception a book will have, and advertising seems to do very little good.
If I grew up with a dysfunctional family, I would eventually start a book club.
My grief is that the publishing world, the book writing world is an extraordinary shoddy, dirty, dingy world.
Even in my side of the world, I've been in publishing for what, 25 or 26 years, and it's gone from being a gentlemen's club to being a few big players, and it's very corporatised.