News reaches us via the newborn blog of Tod Goldberg that Steve Wasserman is considering stepping down from the helm of the LA Times Book Review.
I consider myself a fairly well read person and I figure that most of the people who read the LA Times Book Review are as well. On any given Sunday, however, I can flip through the pages of the Review and not recognize the majority of the authors or books, and this is from a person who typically stays abreast of these things. Perhaps Wasserman wants his reading public to be smarter; there's no harm in that, certainly, but at some level the Review should resemble the people who read it. And in Los Angeles, I believe that means fiction.
Well said, Tod. Now, since Wasserman's apparently only "likely leaving", we'd like to urge Wasserman in the strongest possible terms to follow your impulses and skeddadle. We'll even help you pack your books. Really, the door's that way.
The fact is that once a week, the LA Times hits our doorstep with a truly sickening thud (we only take it on Sundays), and once a week we extract this limp, anemic, gasping thing that claims to be a Book Review. But it isn't really, hasn't been one for as long as we've been reading. Whether it's to do with Wasserman's well documented self-importance or these newer accusations of cultural tone-deafness, the end result has been the same. A dull, tepid and uninspiring weekly pamphlet that's utterly discardable and forgettable.
It's a golden opportunity for the LA Times to seize and to refashion this section into something that reflects the vibrant and burgeoning literary culture in this city. Given their track record, we're not terribly confident that they'll rise to the occasion, but we're here for consulting.
UPDATE: The considerably more professional L.A. Observed reports that we may have rejoiced a bit prematurely. But we're keeping hope alive.