At the end of a long day doing other stuff, I came across an article in today’s NY Timesabout the shrinking pages for books:

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, meanwhile, has recently eliminated the job of its book editor, leading many fans to worry that book coverage will soon be provided mostly by wire services and reprints from national papers.

The decision in Atlanta — in which book reviews will now be overseen by one editor responsible for virtually all arts coverage — comes after a string of changes at book reviews across the country. The Los Angeles Times recently merged its once stand-alone book review into a new section combining the review with the paper’s Sunday opinion pages, effectively cutting the number of pages devoted to books to 10 from 12. Last year The San Francisco Chronicle’s book review went from six pages to four. All across the country, newspapers are cutting book sections or running more reprints of reviews from wire services or larger papers.

The reporter finds it necessary to yoke this sad empirical fact with the burgeoning of literary blogs. (Is this an attempt to attract thought? controversy? readers?) Whatever the reason, I’m delighted that the story mentions several of my favorite sites (and it was actually useful to read through the kinds of issues some of these bloggers have brought up in response to the piece–and oh, there’s also a petition to sign for a worthy cause):

In recent years, dozens of sites, including Bookslut.com, The Elegant Variation, maudnewton.com, Beatrice.com and the Syntax of Things, have been offering a mix of book news, debates, interviews and reviews, often on subjects not generally covered by newspaper book sections.

Image taken from Maud’s site.