Read any good books lately?

From under my hat

By John Riutta

, Dec 16, 2009

John Riutta is a freelance columnist living in Scappoose.

Darryl Swan / The South County Spotlight

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Last week, the long-standing and highly respected magazine Kirkus Reviews announced that it would be ceasing publication. In existence since 1933, Kirkus Reviews published roughly 5,000 reviews annually. From mysteries to histories, sci-fi to children’s books, if it was a soon-to-be-released book, a Kirkus Reviews book reviewer likely had something written about it.

The closing of Kirkus Reviews is the result of one of those all-too-common modern deals where Giant Corporation A – in this case Nielsen Business Media – sold a number of the magazines it owned to Giant Corporation B – e5 Global Media, a new joint venture between four huge financial services firms. However because e5 didn’t want Kirkus Reviews, Nielsen simply decided to close it.

If you’ve never heard of Kirkus Reviews, don’t be surprised; most of its readers were authors, publishers and bookstore owners. However what makes this story far more than simply “inside baseball” of the publishing world is the amount of influence Kirkus Reviews had in the lives of tens of millions of people each year all across America.

Most every living American who has bought a book in their lifetime likely has Kirkus Reviews to at least partly thank for that book being available at their local bookstore. Because the reviews it published were pre-publication, booksellers from the smallest to the largest bookshops counted on it to keep them informed of what was soon to be available and whether it might be worth adding to their inventory.

To a bookseller, stocking the right books to match the interests of their customers is more than simply a series of business decisions; it’s an art and something in which they take considerable pride. A bookstore’s inventory of books is what gives it its character, its own distinctive personality – the qualities that attract and keep customers coming back when the “big guys” are working so hard to lure them away.

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