the winds of change have the scent of kerosene

When we sat down with executive editor Bill Keller last week, he promised "dramatic changes" in the Sunday section now that head honcho Chip McGrath is stepping aside. He also indicated that the top brass is rethinking book coverage top to bottom.

Well, if you write non-fiction, review non-fiction, or prefer to read non-fiction, break out the champagne. "The most compelling ideas tend to be in the non-fiction world," Keller says. "Because we are a newspaper, we should be more skewed toward non-fiction."

Good thinking. Also: stop covering narrative films. Only review documentaries. And dance or theatre? Why discuss performances when you could devote more space to politics?

And then there's the next paragraph, a classic "I thought things couldn't get much worse, and then…" moment. Our best daily newspaper, a newspaper written in our country's literary capital, claims that reading literary fiction is painful:

What's more, if you're perplexed or simply bored with what passes for smart fiction these days, the Times feels your pain. More attention will be paid to the potboilers, we're told. After all, says Keller, somebody's got to tell you what book to choose at the airport. [more>]

Posted by nchicha at January 22, 2004 04:15 PM