THE YEAR IN REVIEW - 2008
By Alex Good

January 1, 2009

At this time last year I announced that I was taking a year off. As you know, that didn't really happen. I did take a break from posting daily news links and writing commentaries on the latest Book News, but I kept up a strong reviewing schedule (which is what takes the most work). 

Overall I don't think I missed much as far as major news stories are concerned. Many of the headlines over the course of the past year were variations on themes that have become pretty familiar. But one thing did stand out for me. We've been hearing about the slow death of newspaper book reviews, and book reviewing in general, for quite a few years now. Still, 2008 marked some kind of watershed. First off, the perennially endangered Books in Canada finally closed shop. Then the Toronto Star cut its book coverage in half. And then, at the end of the year, the Globe and Mail announced that it would be folding its stand-alone Books section and taking its act online. 

Folks, this makes a difference.

I know I've talked about this before, but I'll say it again just because I don't think it can be stressed enough. Reviewing is important because it is writing focused on books. Not personalities, not gossip, not advances and movie deals, not awards, not the economic health of the industry and whether or not the e-book is ever going to catch on, but the actual words on a page that someone (the author) has written and someone (the reviewer) has read. Get rid of reviewing, and make no mistake that is what's happening, and you hollow out the culture. Effectively you have book commentary - you can't call it criticism - without books. 

There has been much talk, for years now, about how the Internet is going to "pick up the slack." I have yet to see any convincing evidence of this. Very, very few book sites or lit blogs actually review books. Among those that do the quality of reviewing is middling at best. To repeat a point I've made before, this is because the Internet is not a "content" medium. Content is crap on the Internet. And I can't imagine that changing anytime soon.

But enough of that. On to some changes that you may have have noticed.

(1) I've added a section called "The Headboard." This is simply a reading log named after the headboard of my bed, since most of my reading is done on the horizontal. In this space you'll find quick takes on books I'm reading (not all of them new releases). I also do a lot of mini-reviews for my local newspaper that I'll be posting here as well.

(2) I've decided to get rid of the Trivia Challenge. In the age of the Google toolbar "trivia" no longer has any connection to knowledge or memory. And trying to come up with questions that are unGoogleable is a chore. So good-bye to all that. The Archives will be where I put the Headboard reviews.

(3) I have deleted the archived Anthology pages. I find the short lifespan of so many of the links to be terribly frustrating. Within a year over half of them are dead. Whole sites have disappeared while others have done makeovers and changed all of their urls. When I tried to weed out the bad links recently I realized just how hopeless the situation was. So from now on the Anthology page will only have the Readings for the current year. 

As for the rest of the site, we'll just have to see how it goes.  

Best wishes for a safe and happy New Year,

Alex Good