One of the great pleasures of working in a newsroom is associating with other enthusiastic readers.
Margaret Sullivan: Book lovers share the joy of reading
Editor
Updated: 02/16/09 11:19 AM
“Check this one out,” Assistant Managing Editor Susan LoTempio said as she handed me a paperback copy of a memoir called “Infidel” by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somalian woman who, after abuse and persecution, becomes an international champion of free speech.
“Some parts might be a little graphic for the book club,” LoTempio added, “but it’s supposed to be a great read.”
And so, “Infidel” is on my nightstand, which, as usual, is piled with half-read books — one in galley form that I am reviewing for The News (Curtis Sittenfeld’s novel, “American Wife”); a “workbook” I am using for creative inspiration (Julie Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way”); a jolt of theology from Garry Wills (“What Jesus Meant”); a new piece of outstanding reportage (Steve Lopez’s “The Soloist”); and a massive volume of poetry that could double as a doorstop, (“e. e. cummings: Complete Poems, 1904-1962”).
Journalists, not surprisingly, are book lovers, and one of the great pleasures of working in a newsroom is associating with other enthusiastic readers.
A conversation with City Editor Bill Flynn, I’ve found, can easily slip from City Hall politics to whether we’ve read the latest collection of Alice Munro’s stories.
News Books Editor Jeff Simon is perhaps foremost among these bookish types — the man who’s read everything.
Simon can gauge, at a glance, whether a book should be reviewed for The News’ Sunday book pages and who would best review it. (Dozens, sometimes hundreds, of books are mailed to The News each week by publishing houses; only a fraction are reviewed.)
The Sunday book pages in the Spotlight section are very much his baby. Over the years, Simon has cultivated a stable of strong reviewers, including university professors, a minister, a banker, a TV anchorwoman and a host of current and former newspaper people.
Simon says that, when deciding what to review, he thinks about many factors: literary importance, entertainment value, historic significance and potential news impact.
On the pages themselves, he says, “the one thing I strive for every week is a maximum of variety. It can be achieved some weeks better than others but I don’t want to ever be aiming at some monolithic readership of one sort or other.”
Meanwhile, an entirely separate venture — The Buffalo News Book Club — is almost 5 years old.
This is an effort to introduce (or reintroduce) once a month to News readers a worthwhile book, always in paperback and always available locally. We sometimes interview the author, always write an explanatory piece about the book, and then solicit readers’ mini-reviews. It’s a little like a neighborhood book club without the cheese and crackers.
“The idea was just to share with the whole community the joy of reading and discussing the same book,” said LoTempio, who — along with feature writers Andrew Galarneau and Charity Vogel and Assistant Managing Editor Liz Kahn — is beginning to consider next year’s dozen.
The book is introduced on the first Tuesday of every month with a story on the Life & Arts cover and an illustration by our prize-winning illustrator Dan Zakroczemski. Those illustrations make their way onto attractive bookmarks that are available in public libraries and local bookstores that stock the book: Talking Leaves, Borders and Barnes & Noble.
Over the years, the club has looked for books of high literary quality that will be both engaging and stimulating, especially to local readers. Among the offerings: Joyce Carol Oates’ “The Falls,” Thomas Friedman’s “The World is Flat” and Joan Didion’s “The Year of Magical Thinking.” (For a complete list of the book club choices since its inception in October 2003, go to buffalonews.com/newsbookclub.)
“Infidel,” by the way, is marvelous — and it’s looking good for next year’s list.
