Book Business

Jason Epstein has been one of the great figures in the publishing world for the past 50+ years. Among his achievements are the following: starting the quality paperback revolution with Anchor Books in 1952, when he was just 22 years old; co-founding the New York Review of Books; co-creating the Library of America; and being editorial director of Random House for 40 years. He has won several prestigious prizes. In 2001, he published a book titled "Book Business: Publishing Past Present and Future" (Norton), a combination of a memoir and a history of the publishing business over the past century or so. I have just finished reading the book with great enjoyment. Epstein seems to have known everyone in the Manhattan world of books and the arts, including Vladimir Nabokov, Norman Mailer, Philip Roth, Gore Vidal, Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Hardwick, Bennett Cerf, Hannah Arendt, Edmund Wilson, W. H. Auden, Frank O'Hara, John O'Hara, Ralph Ellison, John Ashbery, and Andy Warhol. He describes the evolution of the "book business," and its devolution as it became more corporatized over the past 25 years or so. Although he loves books and has spent his whole life devoted to them, he thinks it is inevitable that the Internet will change the publishing business beyond recognition. Surprisingly, he is cautiously optimistic that if we are open to innovation, the results may have positive aspects. His mixed feelings are clear in a recent (March 11, 2010) New York Review of Books article, in which he says he would be bereft without his huge collection of physical books, but he sees "the inevitability of digitalization as an unimaginably powerful, but infinitely fragile, enhancement of the worldwide literacy on which we all -- readers and nonreaders -- depend." Personally, I am still very resistant to digitalization or to anything that threatens the primacy of "real books," physical books in the hand, but I am impressed that such a figure as Epstein is able to look to the positive (more availability, instant updates, infinite storage, on-demand publishing, etc.). Let me finish by saying that "Book Business" is very readable and informative, and the occasional gossipy anecdote about the literary world adds to the enjoyment. (By now, you have probably figured out that I enjoy literary gossip!) Parenthetically, Jason Epstein also loves fine food, and in 2009 published a book called "Eating," a sort of food memoir/recipe book/ode to good food and good times; I recently read this book as well, and savored it thoroughly.