Wake up New York Times

July 25, 2010 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: About books, book news, New York Times bestseller 

It’s Sunday. Sunday mornings I read my New York Times. And I read my New York Times Book Review. Every Sunday. New York Times Book Review is an institution. And most likely I will continue to read it every Sunday. Like many, many others.

The reason I read it is that I like books. I assume that’s the reason most people read it. And I like to be informed about good books. And assume that New York Times Book Review will do that – inform me of new, good books.

But perhaps I read it out of habit? Perhaps I shouldn’t be reading it? Perhaps I am wasting my time? Perhaps I should go elsewhere?

The US of A has less than a tenth of the population of the world. And, perhaps – if you want to be nice to America and the New York Times Book Review – 15% of the writers of the world. Then, in addition there are a few writers in the UK.  Even so, in today’s New York Times Book Review, there is not a single review of a foreign book from the world outside the US and the UK! Not one! And, what’s more, there are no advertisements for foreign (translated) books either. So, 85% of the world’s literature is not covered.

So, what is wrong, New York Times Book Review? Are you ignorant? Are you incompetent? Are you blind? Are your eyes shut? Is quality literature – fiction, crime fiction, non-fiction – produced only inside the US and on rare occasions the UK? What about the rest of the world? Don’t you see it? Have you at least heard about it? Or do you only suspect it might exist, but have no real proof that it does?

Or do you really mean that there are no good writers that US readers ought to be informed about from Latin America? From Asia? From Africa? From Australia? Or from continental Europe – Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, Spain, Russia, the Scandinavian countries or other countries in Europe? That there is nothing worthwhile going on in those countries, in the rest of the world? Despite the fact that most Nobel prizes in literature are from countries other than the US and the UK? How strange! Are you lacking in knowledge or is it so hard to admit that there is more to the world than what goes on inside the US?

Has New York Times Book Review and the American publishing industry closed its eyes to the rest of the world? That’s what I think is the case. It is very, very sad! And it is obviously not American readers that have closed their minds – after all, Stieg Larsson is on all the bestseller lists in that very same New York Times Book Review. And he is not from the US or the UK. Even so, he “owns the bestseller lists, as one blogger put it. So American readers are more than willing to read good fiction from outside the US/UK.

I will probably continue to read the New York Times Book Review. It is, after all, an institution. Sadly, Americans tend to believe it is a quality publication. I am not so sure. I’ve doubted it for a long time. To my mind, you simply can’t produce a high quality magazine about books if your mind is closed. Or, as in the case of the New York Times Review of Books – when the mind is limited by geographic boundaries – lines on a map.

Even so, I’ll continue to read New York Times Book Review. And hope. Probably against hope.

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