Where have all the book reviews gone?

I think I’m just about ready to let my latest creation out the door. I have to—the deadline is in less than a week. I’ve done a lot of editing on this 3500-word story without substantially changing the tale. There were a few rough transitions that have gradually been smoothed out as I polished and repolished, but most of the modifications over the past day or two have been about language. Finding better words, mostly. This is very much a sensory tale, so I dithered over power-nouns and adjectives to achieve the desired effect. If I had longer, I could probably dither some more, but I think it’s in fine shape as it is. I’ll read it over once more, probably change a couple of things that don’t need changing, and get it off to the post office in the a.m.

Then it’s back to the story that is currently called “Jury Pool” but shouldn’t be, because that’s no longer what it’s about.

Drive, the new multicharacter conspiracy thriller on Fox keeps me hanging on, primarily because of Nathan Fillion. I hope it survives—its viewership dropped another 20% from last week, down to fewer than five million. 24 was okay, but there was more of that interminable bickering between Chloe and Morris. Nice twists at the end, though. Mega-oops on everyone’s part now that the McGuffin is in the hands of the Chinese and Jack’s left with a zombie girlfriend.

I started reading Obsession by Jonathan Kellerman, the newest Alex Delaware novel. Only got through a few chapters last night, but hoping that this is one of the stronger entries in a decidedly uneven series.

The publicity director from Little, Brown publishers sent me a link to an online petition aimed at preserving the official position of “book review editor” at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She writes, “The AJC obviously doesn’t feel that books are important enough to justify having their own editor to thoughtfully and intelligently present the world of books and the publishing industry to its readers.”

Phasing out or scaling back book reviews is a growing trend in newspapers across the country. If you feel inspired to support this particular instance, here’s the online petition. Among those who have signed already I see the names of authors James Lee Burke, George Pelecanos, Ian Rankin and Karin Slaughter, as well as the publicity directors from several publishers—and that was just on a brief skim through nearly 1800 names.