THE YEAR IN REVIEW - 2002
By Alex Good

December 31, 2002

Another year has passed in the life of the literary Web-site that just refuses to go away. Sure there are other sites out there that look prettier and are better behaved, but goodreports.net still manages to hold its own. There were over 200,000 visits in 2002, and traffic is still on the rise. Just for an independent Canadian book site/personal home page! Why?

My best guess: A lack of alternatives. To be honest, when I launched this thing I called it "Canada's Premier Independent Book Site" simply because I didn't know of any others. Any others. And things haven't improved much. I've included some excellent places to start browsing on my home page, but it isn't a long list. It's hard to escape the conclusion that books just aren't as central to today's culture as movies, videogames and porn.

Reading today is an increasingly marginal activity. Within my own social circle I know of very few people who are interested in books. Moving outward from such a personal observation, there have been several prominent recent essays on this rise in "aliteracy" among us. Michael Kinsley, a judge for the American National Book Awards, was quite unabashed in declaring that he hadn't read more than a small fraction of the nominated works (for a comment, see here). In the Globe and Mail this past month there appeared a lengthy essay on non-readers. Writing in response, Russell Smith suggested that it wasn't our fault, that it was today's literature that was failing to respond to the "trivial present." This is an excellent point, slightly echoing Philip Marchand's search for a native Toronto literature. But the larger problem is that literature as an art form has found itself inadequate, or at least not as effective, at describing - that great Modernist enterprise - "the way we live now." For those interested in the trivial present the television and the Internet beckon.

What we think of as literary fiction is a form of expression uncomfortably suited to contemporary life. Of course this is a generalization, but I think it's supported by the evidence of the huge popularity today of escapist novels and the worst of genre pulp. (I say "worst" because the fact is much genre fiction engages with contemporary concerns more than our dramatic fiction. The vast bulk of it, however, is formulaic escapist trash.) This is the stuff that's carrying the industry.

There are many bright shining exceptions to this gloomy situation, but I have to be honest in admitting that my own tastes are tending more and more toward non-fiction. A reviewer should be up front about these things. Thinking back on the books I enjoyed the most this past year I came up with a list of titles that included such journalistic investigations and exposes as Eric Schlosser's take on the American food industry Fast Food Nation, Peter Biskind's account of Hollywood in the 70s, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, Adam Hochschild's history of the exploitation of the Congo, King Leopold's Ghost, and Barbara Ehrenreich's investigative memoir of working-class life Nickel and Dimed.  

I will end with my regular warning about how much I plan on cutting back this coming year. Unless I win the lottery, I can't expect to keep going at this rate indefinitely. As it is I am often reading books for review during 20-minute breaks at work. This entire Year in Review essay has been written in less than half an hour. My rants in the News section are turning into unpremeditated sparks from the wheel. I don't even know if I'm responding to all my e-mail.

That said, I do plan to stick around in one form or another. This site is a great hobby, and it has introduced me to many interesting people. And if nothing else, it is still an alternative to the media powers-that-be.

Best wishes for a safe and happy New Year,

Alex Good