Although the Los Angeles Times hasn’t made a formal announcement, four former editors of its esteemed book review section have protested the paper’s decision to eliminate it and move book reviews to the paper’s Calendar section. Their letter to the newspaper reads in part:

Angelenos in growing number are already choosing to cancel their subscriptions to the Sunday Times. The elimination of the Book Review, a philistine blunder that insults the cultural ambition of the city and the region, will only accelerate this process and further wound the long-term fiscal health of the newspaper.

I don’t live in LA nor am I a regular reader of the LA Times, so I’m in no position to judge how important to the LA basin’s literary culture its book section has been. But I suspect it’s considerable, at the very least as an important link in the book business chain and in championing the writers of the region. I know the Tribune Company, which owns the paper, is in a severe cost-cutting mode across its many papers — spend a week glancing at Romenesko’s newspaper news and gossip blog on Poynteronline if you want to find out the gory details in Baltimore, Chicago and various other newspaper points in the Tribune domain. No doubt the book section doesn’t attract lots of ads, though I suspect its readership numbers are substantial. But it does speak to seriousness of purpose: How intellectually rigorous the newspaper is.
Continue reading Random July notes: LA Times Book Review oblivion →