The Last Book Party

So, where is the publishing industry going? No one really knows. But we like to speculate. For the March issue of Harper’s Gideon Lewis-Kraus covered the annual Frankfurt Book Fair, what he called “the last book party.” Read an interview about the article here. (Lewis-Kraus must like to review literary conferences as he did in the Believer for the Annual MLA gathering in 2004.) Last year, Maureen Dowd reflected on outsourcing local news writing to Bangalore, and, in January, The New Yorker reflected on the origins of newspapers.

Update: I just finished this article. It’s great. A couple of things that I’m still pondering: Jami Bing has built the best publishing brand in Britan. He’s a DJ and he always has a Geoff Dyer novel and Nick Cave CD in his satchel. Publishing will go on. Publishing has always been a depressed industry filled with depressed people. Eli Horowitz was the guest of honor at Andrew Wylie’s party. What? Did I read that right? Little Eli, the streetball player? – s.e.