Debra Goldman's Consumer Republic

First it was cows. Back in 1999, someone in Chicago got the madcap idea from those crazy Swiss that decorating the city's streets with fiberglass cow sculptures would do wonders for the commonweal. Soon, a veritable virus of civic whimsy was raging, as city after city succumbed to adorning its streetscape with cows and other four-legged mammals. The virus is back, although this time books, not bovines, are the symptom of the disease. The outbreak began last year in Seattle, where literary boosters and civic lights decided it would do the town a world of good if everyone were to read and discuss the same book at the same time. The idea caught on, as other cities, tri-county regions and even entire states announced mass read-ins for the purpose of—well, it's not really clear what, but since it involves books and reading, it must have something to do with spiritual improvement. What is it about books in our society that makes them the one medium with unimpeachable cachet? Everyone in Seattle, Chicago and everywhere else is going to see Spider-Man and talking about it at the watercooler and on the playground. But no one has suggested that this rush to the multiplex is improving the citizenry's moral fiber or strengthening community ties. Somehow, reading To Kill a Mockingbird (Chicago's pick) or Snow Falling on Cedars (Milwaukee's) en masse is supposed to do something for the human spirit that watching Tobey Maguire en masse does not. The valorization of books and reading certainly has nothing to do with their vitality as a medium. One prominent book packager, after seeing a recent report from the Book Industry Study Group, declared that the book business "is in a mathematical death spiral." According to the study, total sales of trade units declined 6.4 percent in 2001, and are expected to decline further during the next five years as the number of titles and the prices of books rise. Indeed, the entire practice of devoting time to the printed page appears to be losing ground: Spending on reading material, which includes books and newspapers, plummeted from $199 to $159 per household between 1990 and 1999. Thus, the television networks, which have burnished their image over the years through PSAs advocating reading, can promote books without fear that viewers will actually turn off their sets and read one. Yet books' shrinking position in our time-pressed culture seems only to enhance their aura. Reading has become not just a pastime but a form of virtuous self-improvement, valued as an activity in inverse proportion to its marketplace street cred. Books' cultural position is a little like that of classical music, which is disappearing from the radio as its audience dwindles. The less people want to hear it, the more its advocates tout classical radio as a public service. Who knows, maybe next year the cultural fad will be "One City, One Symphony"—a campaign urging urban populations to go about town simultaneously humming the same few bars of Beethoven's Fifth. Whatever the reason for their status, books are undeniably good for one's brand. We all know what Oprah and her club did for books. But consider what books did for Oprah. To paraphrase one wag's description of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, Oprah gave books sex, and books gave Oprah class. While Jerry was staging chair-throwing fights and Maury was conducting paternity tests, Oprah was having dinner with Toni Morrison. To appear to be saving Western civilization while your competition appears to destroy it is a powerful brand differentiator. Now that Oprah has disbanded her club, it's little wonder that other media institutions, from the Today show to USA Today, are eager to pick up where she left off. You, me and Jonathan Franzen can all disagree about Oprah's taste, but at least it was the taste of an actual reader. Can we say the same about Katie Couric and Matt Lauer, who will start touting book titles in June, as soon as a library is completed on their NBC set? In the meantime, Kelly Ripa, the woman who replaced Kathie Lee Gifford as Regis Philbin's morning-show sidekick, has made the cash register ring for her first pick, If Looks Could Kill by Kate White, editor of Cosmopolitan, who appears on the show this week. This is all very fine for White and her publisher, Warner Books. But you can bet that Ripa, who is something less than a household name, has a lot more to gain from acting as an arbiter of literary taste than literature does.

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Debra Goldman's Consumer Republic

Debra Goldman

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Debra Goldman