Hefty tomes lose their appeal

Like millions of others, I'm headed for the beach next week. My favorite part of the ritual, other than packing a suitcase full of shorts and flip flops, is finding the perfect books to accompany me on the flight and at the water's edge. This year, my traveling companion is pushing hard for the work of Ayn Rand. My reaction to the lovely gifts of The Fountainhead (720 pages) and Atlas Shrugged (1088 pages) was an indignant cry, "They're so LONG!"

I was, frankly, shocked at myself, and wondering what happened to the youngster who read all seven of the Narnia books.

It appears I am not alone.

Yesterday's New York Times features a piece by Motoko Rich (registration required) which discusses how America's teens are loathe to tackle books, but instead spend long hours reading or texting sound-bite like snippets on Facebook. Lest we attack only the young, Nicholas Carr's cover story in the July/August Atlantic Monthly says readers of all ages, including him, are similarly shunning long format text.

"Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy," writes Carr. "My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I'd spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That's rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I'm always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle."

Wow. I admit that half of me felt better to be in the same camp with Nicholas Carr, but the other half got mighty nervous for the publishing world at large. Carr's piece cites research, ranging from a U.K. educational consortium to a psychologist at Tufts, that says both how and what we read is fast changing.

Maybe it's not all bad news. Maybe it means the epic novel will go the way of the encyclopedia -- published online in digestible pieces. Maybe the next Charles Dickens will pen his masterpiece via Twitter. As for me, Rand is in my suitcase but that doesn't mean I won't be sneaking into the airport bookstore for a copy of Runner's World or People for a somewhat shorter bit of escapist reading while I'm gone.

Book Blog gig widens at CHC

My new mantra about blogging comes from the phrase Hillary Clinton made so popular -- it takes a village. Or, I guess the truth is, in my case it does.

After nearly a year of guilt in which I struggled to post twice a month, I've decided to take the advice we give our clients every day and figure out a way to post frequently. So, I'm sharing the space and my colleagues graciously offered to help me fill it. "Barbara's Blog" officially becomes "The Push Behind the Book" and will feature the thoughts and ideas of everyone here at CHC and some beyond.

Sara Schneider, our Digital Media Director, will weigh in often about the growing importance of digital media, blogs, social networks, and the online world's increasing clout in launching a book.

Dennis Welch, who heads our Christian Division, will write about faith-based books and what makes them succeed or fail.

I will continue to weigh in on the publishing community at large.

And we plan to invite our authors and others in the publishing community to guest blog on their great books and how they are being received by the world at large.

We’re trying to make our blog more than just a forum for our ideas -- it's part of our effort to educate ourselves in every way we can about digital media and how it’s truly changing the way books and ideas are introduced into the market. Being active participants in this world has really been the best teacher of all.