| Here’s an idea: a year-end column filled up with New Year’s resolutions for other people to make. It’s a wonder no one else has thought of this before. So here goes:
For readers attending book launches: I resolve, once again, to turn off my cell phone before going into the building. Or to leave it at home.
For authors reading from their work: I resolve to remember that, even though it really is all about me and my book, there are better and worse forms of self-celebration. Long meandering intros: not so good. Lively readings of carefully-chosen passages: very, very good. Seemingly aimless flipping through one’s book in search of bits to read: much less good. Reading for more than 20 minutes to people seated in folding chairs, or standing, or leaning against bookshelves: also less good. Patient good humour while signing dozens of books for new readers: you know this is always wonderful, so no resolution required.
For booksellers hosting author readings: I will remember that writing and publishing a book, especially a good book, is a rare and significant accomplishment. And that showing up in person to read from it is an act of public exposure that some authors may crave and others dread, but that few people would volunteer for. So, I will treat the event with respect. This means not running noisy concurrent events or entirely failing to promote the reading, so that the lonely author is stuck reading to a few friends, over the din of electronic games, in a corner somewhere.
For people promoting said events: I will let all the relevant people know all of the details a minimum of two weeks in advance. In particular I will remind myself that weekly publications have longer lead times than daily publications.
For publishers: I will remember that most readers of books, as opposed to most consumers of films and TV, are making a bit of an effort. They’re lugging that book around, manually turning the pages – all that bother. It’s much more work than flicking eyeballs back and forth while slumped in the dark, or thumbing a remote. But, readers are willing to do it because books, at their best, actually challenge and nourish the imagination. They perplex, they amaze, they teach, and they amuse in lasting, rather than ephemeral ways. Only because books do this are readers willing to exert themselves. So please, publishers, resolve to err on the side of original imagination and enduring quality over marketing. Yes, it’s a struggle, but you don’t have to win it, for all time, in 2005. Just resolve to keep the forces of good from not losing for one more year.
For Canada’s book-page editors: I will continue to make space for home-grown literary goodness amid the weeds of wire-service reviews of big fat movie books and celebrity tie-in printed matter.
For book columnists: Try not to be utterly dull. And don’t make any mistakes about time and place of events, like you did for that one McNally Robinson reading. It wastes the people’s time.
Finally, to the many Calgary readers, booksellers and others who have no need for any of the above resolutions: gratitude for all you did in 2004! |
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