La industria del libro

by Jaime Zulaika (Translator)

As editor-publisher to some of the 20th-century's greatest writers (Edmund Wilson, Vladimir Nabokov, Jane Jacobs) as well as the virtual inventor of the trade paperback (meaning the "quality" type, as opposed to the drugstore mass-market), Jason Epstein is one of those rare publishing-world types who is as invested in the editorial creation of a good book as in its marketing and sales. It is that dual perspective that has guided his half-century-long publishing career and that makes this compact yet expansive professional memoir such a lively, illuminating read for anyone curious how current trade publishing--basically popular general-interest fiction and nonfiction--became obsessed with a narrow pool of quickie bestsellers to the neglect of the far greater mass of slow-burners (known in the biz as "midlist") or of the perennial sellers from years past ("backlist"). But, Epstein follows up with great enthusiasm, the time is not long before the book biz will morph into a new cyberversion of the quirky, intimate "cottage industry" that it was in its precorporate era. It was in that era that Epstein came of age as a publisher, first at Doubleday in the 1950s, where he founded the successful Anchor Books, the first line of high-quality paperback reissues of classics. The four succeeding decades he spent at Random House, which in that time grew from a family-type shop into one of the largest and most profitable trade publishing houses in the U.S. (currently owned by the German media titan Bertelsmann). Epstein's chronicle of New York publishing jumps around nimbly in time--at one point, all the way back to the 19th century--but it is in recounting the heady, culturally efflorescent postwar years that he waxes most tender, regaling us with vignettes of Ralph Ellison, Mary McCarthy, John O'Hara, Frank O'Hara, W.H. Auden, Chester Kallman, and John Ashbery. Throughout, his entrepreneurial spirit in the service of good books is evident--first in the founding (along with, among others, his wife Barbara) of the still-extant New York Review of Books, then in the thorny 30-year process of publishing the classics imprint Library of America, and in the launching of The Reader's Catalog, a mail-order service from which customers could choose from what nearly every book on the planet in print--and which deservedly has been called the hard-copy precursor to the very site you're browsing right now.Like The Business of Books, the recent memoir from former Pantheon Books head Andre Schiffrin (Epstein's longtime colleague within Random House), Epstein's book decries the extent to which superstores like Barnes & Noble have forced the high-stakes (and seldom fruitful) corporatization of book publishing. But Epstein prefers to look past the current situation to an imminent day when writers will sell directly to readers over the Internet, a format that will still demand the services of editors, publicists, and marketers but will cut out the costly middlemen of publishing companies, distributors, and superstores (though not small booksellers, he assures us, which nurture bonds among booklovers that even the Web can't sever). Yes, there's money to be made in trade books, Epstein asserts, but not necessarily overnight. And in this brisk, affable, and forward-looking volume, Epstein's own broad-ranging experience in the book biz seems to bear out his recurring do it for love, not money, and the money (if not necessarily the millions) will eventually follow. --Timothy Murphy

Genres: Nonfiction, Books About Books, Writing, Business, History, Memoir, Reference

196 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Ana Leite · Rating 3 out of 5]

Teria sido mais fixe ter lido isto em 2001, mas infelizmente eu tinha 4 anos.

[Lara Abrahams · Rating 4 out of 5]

For anyone looking to understand the purpose and driving force of the publishing industry - this is the book to start with and maybe go back to at times. With precise and engaging language, Jason Epstein is able to thoroughly explain some of the groundbreaking changes that have occurred in the way we publish books and the way we read them (or 'consume' them at this point).
Incredibly raw but sweet, it felt like a love letter to publishing's past
present
and future.

[Lobstergirl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Epstein has a surprisingly ponderous writing style for a person who edited Mailer, Nabokov, Roth, and Vidal. Then again, the book is surprisingly slight (175 pages of a large, twee font) to be addressing a major, 50-year career in publishing. I wanted to read it because Epstein founded one of my favorite imprints in 1952, Anchor Books, at Doubleday. He has some interesting anecdotes of those days before publishing became focused on profits, conglomerates, and synergies. Like how Random House in 1958 shared office space in an old mansion with the Archdiocese of New York, with six parking spaces allotted for Random House and twelve for the Church, and published Cardinal Spellman's poetry in order to "forestall controversy with the monsignors" over parking issues. He tells stories about Nabokov, Edmund Wilson, Bennett Cerf and others, and manages to misspell Allen Lane's name (the founder of Penguin). Particularly interesting was his reaction to Lolita, the manuscript of which Wilson breathlessly handed to him one evening. The manuscript was repulsive, Wilson said, and could not be published legally, but Epstein ought to read it anyway. He did, and did not find it repulsive, but "nor did I find it the work of genius that it has since been called. I admired Nabokov's earlier novels...and preferred their cold precision to the plummy and it seemed to me rather cruel, if also very funny, Lolita, in which Nabokov seemed to be congratulating himself on his jokes..."

Found another typo: Kathleen Winsor spelled Windsor...

[Peter Tillman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just a quick note recommending this short book. Epstein, who spent most of his career at Random House, remarks on how publishing has changed over the years, with plenty of juicy anecdotes. Forex, the Dickens:

As you may know, the US was a book-pirate haven in the 19th century, and Harper Bros. grew to be the nation's largest publisher by pirating Dickens, Thackeray, the Brontes, Macauley -- really, the entire roster of bestselling British authors. Macauley's (pirated) History of England sold a remarkable 400,000 copies here.

Charles Dickens, who kept a close eye on revenues, made a trip to the US in the 1840's, to protest the theft of his work. His plea was ignored, and he didn't much like the country, either. He wrote a short, glum account of his visit, "American Notes", which Harpers promptly pirated. Dickens recounts a train trip from Washington to Philadelphia through what he thought was a storm of feathers, but which proved to be spittle from passengers in the forward coached. He also reported that US Senators spit so wide of the cuspidors that the carpets were "like swamps".

WH Auden, Epstein reports, had the disconcerting habit of showing up an hour or so early for parties and dinner invitations, so he could be home in bed by 9 PM.

Epstein was the first to publish a line of quality paperbacks (Doubleday Anchor) in 1952, and was a founder of the NY Review of Books. Neat book, if you're interested in books and bookmen.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

A visionary outlook on the publishing industry as it enters the digital age, sprinkled with anecdotes highlighting a long and influential career. The personal insights gave the book a unque flavour, elevating it above a simple non-fiction account of the publishing industry, past and semi-present. Epstein does not lack for confidence and openly shares his strong opinions; the passage of time proves him to be quite prescient, though the instances where he may have been mistaken add contrast and legitimacy to the picture as a whole. As noted below, a generally optimistic and accepting view of digitalization prevails - encouraging those of us involved (or not) in the industry to embrace the new technologies available. Plenty of name dropping, as some others complained... however, my retort would be that if Faulkner and Nabokov were actually friends or partners in your business, wouldn't you mention their names too??? And really, why not? From my vantage point, Epstein belongs in the Pantheon of innovators, whether writer or publisher, of a Golden Era that set the stage for all that came next.

[Tosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jason Epstein is a great man. Not only because he was at Random House for a zillion years and started or invented the quality paperback or as the founder/editor of the New York Review of Books - the journal not the press. Epstein is great because he acknowledges the love of being a publisher or working in the book business. He sees it down side, but he also sees it as a revolutionary business. He even looks forward to the Internet! But the great thing is he sees publishing as an ongoing adventure - and as a publisher myself, i totally agree with that outlook.

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book enthralled me at its start, with an optimistic vision of the book's future. Epstein transformed my dislike and wariness of book digitalization into a (still slightly hesitant) excitement for what it might herald. While there are many problems with digitalization that Epstein doesn't discuss, my worries are partially assuaged.

But the best parts of this book (for me at least) were those ideas introduced early on. What followed had some moments of interest, but also sections of information so specific to the career of the author that I wanted to skim forward.

[Christopher Herz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting book on the history of publishing and the business behind it. I learned a bunch about market trends, why people buy what books, and how the shift in publishing happened.

The book was written in the late 90s, so he made some interesting predictions. Some were dead on and some not so dead on, but provided tons of insight.

If you like reading about how publishing houses treat their writers, how deals are made, and why the present state of publishing is like it is, I recommend this book.

Fun look into the New York literary scene as well.

-CH

[Dennis Littrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fine memoir with insight into the business

Many successful careers are the result of surprising and totally unpredictable turns of events, particularly turns of a psychological kind. Jason Epstein originally went into the book business to associate with authors and to learn from them first hand as a continuing education, with the distant idea of becoming a writer himself. To his surprise he turned out to be something of a visionary and a sharp, effective publisher, whose romantic, yet business-like nature fitted the New York publishing world like a well-tailored suit. He had discovered, as he puts it on page 59, "that literature, like all religions, is also a business, though not a very good business."

Epstein sought to make it better, and in succeeding represents that rare species, the romantic as a successful book publisher. The emphasis should be on the word "successful," of course, but I'll emphasize the romantic because in the book business they (at least in my modest experience) they are now as rare as dodos, and for similar reasons. Epstein's delicious and gracefully written little memoir recalls his fifty years in publishing with the kind of understated, buttoned-down, perceptive style that one associates with the New York world of books before the rise of the conglomerates and the block buster mentality. There are chewy reminiscents of Edmund Wilson and Vladimir Nabokov, of Faulkner with brown bags under his arms, of Donald Klopfer and Bennet Cerf who "accidentally" became a millionaire because of his love of quality books, and many other illuminati, curious creatures from a more genteel time when literature mattered, and the bottom line was secondary.

But, as the title insists, Epstein is looking forward as well as backward, supplementing the story with forecasts and guesses about the future. He believes that the Internet, "the electronic literary marketplace," is going to revolutionize the business in ways we cannot guess, and the scope of the changes will be comparable to those brought about by the invention of movable type. He sees machines capable of printing a single copy of a book downloaded from the Internet on the corner of his Manhattan street or "at the headwaters of the Nile" or "in the foothills of the Himalayas" or even in our homes (p. xii). He compares Amazon.com's margin problems to his experience with The Reader's Catalog and the direct-mail selling of books. Because of his past success in anticipating trends and because of his innovative skill, people in the business will read this book with mercenary as well as nostalgic interest.

Besides editing some of the great writers of our time (the book jacket contains praise and appreciation from Toni Morrison, Norman Mailer, Michael Korda and E. L. Doctorow) Epstein was the first to see the potential for quality paperbacks with his launching of Anchor Books in 1952. He also started the very influential The New York Review of Books in1963 opportunely during a strike that shut down The New York Times and its Book Review. Epstein was also instrumental with in bringing about the Library of America, a story he recounts in the chapter entitled "Groves of Academe."

Others have remarked on the clear and even elegant style of this memoir; and it is certainly pleasant to praise an editor for his writing ability. I would like to join the chorus and add that I recognize a lesson he is implicitly teaching, namely that of brevity and economy of expression, but with a kind of leisurely urbanity that is unafraid of the complex sentence. One can also see that every sentence was polished, resulting in that seeming serendipity known to every editor as the easy reading that comes from hard work. Note however the missing word "year" near the end of page 60, and the unclear sentence spanning pages 97 and 98. (I take a writer's delight in, as it were, "editing" an editor!)

It might be noted that one of the pleasures of writing a memoir is to thank (and to make look good) one's friends and the people one admires (which Epstein does very well), while slyly, almost inadvertently, assassinating the character of others. Epstein indulges himself sparingly, but gives it to Vladimir Nabokov right between the eyes. His recall of the celebrated author of Lolita aping an American tourist at a Manhattan restaurant while cheering on Nixon and our tragic involvement in Vietnam is unsettling. His sketch of Bennet Cerf is warm and admiring without any insincerity, and his recall of half a dozen other editors and publishers seems objective and even kindly. Epstein comes across as a man pleased with himself and the world and what he has done with his life.

--Dennis Littrell, author of the mystery novel, “Teddy and Teri”

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting book to read now. It was published in 2001 and Epstein got some things right, some things wrong. I don’t think he saw how Amazon would come to dominate the book selling business. And, I think the jury is still out regarding his optimism as it relates to our ability to sort out the good stuff from the bad.

“The critical faculty that selects meaning from chaos is part of our instinctual equipment, and so is the gift for creating and recreating civilizations and their rules without external guidance. Human beings have a genius for finding their way, for creating goods, making orderly markets, distinguishing quality and assigning value. This faculty can be taken for granted. There is no reason to fear that the awesome diversity of the World Wide Web will overwhelm it. In fact, the Web’s diversity will enlarge these powers, or so one’s experience of humankind permits one to hope.”

I did find his take on the decline of publishing, pre-Amazon, interesting. This is an angle I had not considered. It might be considered elitist by today’s standards, but I do believe it has merit.

“Our industry was becoming alienated from its natural diversity by an increasingly homogeneous suburban marketplace, demanding ever more uniform products. Books are written everywhere but they have always needed the complex cultures of great cities in which to reverberate. My publishing years coincided with the great postwar dispersal of city populations and the attrition therefore of city bookstores as suburban malls increasingly became the centers of commerce, so that even the well-stocked chain bookstore branches located in cities evoke the undifferentiated atmosphere of shopping malls rather than the cosmopolitanism of the cities to which they happen to have been transplanted.”

[Jillian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Epstein, Jason. Book Business: Publishing Past, Present and Future. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2001.

Jason Epstein’s résumé reads like a “Who’s Who” of the publishing world: over fifty years in the publishing business including the position of editorial director at Random House; creator of Anchor Books and the “paperback revolution,” as well as the Library of America and The Reader’s Catalog; cofounder of The New York Review of Books; winner of the National Book Award for Distinguished Service to American Letters and the Curtis Benjamin Award by the Association of American Publishers for “inventing new kinds of publishing and editing”. Notably absent from this impressive list is the role of author which Epstein plays in Book Business: Publishing Past, Present and Future.
Touted as a title that addresses the “severe crisis facing the book business today,” this work is Epstein’s first as creator rather than editor. Based on a series of lectures given to the New York Public Library in October 1999 Book Business discusses several aspects of the publishing profession from the author’s perspective based on his vast experiences in the field. Given his impressive repertoire within publishing, one of the main strengths of Book Business is Epstein’s familiarity with the inner workings of the business. He explains the five major corporate conglomerations or, as he calls them, publishing empires that dominate the field; the importance of a publishing house’s backlists and the unpredictable nature of best-sellers; the commercial corruption of big box stores and bookstore chains with their high turnover, “low quality” mentalities; tensions between authors, agents, publishers and editors; “name brand authors” and self-publishing tactics; issues with the electronic rights of materials in addition to offering a brief overview of the progression of the publishing business from the early 1950’s to 2001 when Book Business was published. What Epstein fails to do however, is address the “severe crisis” that the industry is faced with. He brings up concerns with hyper-commercialized chain stores as well as anticipated issues relating to electronic- and self-publishing, yet falls short of concretely defining them or offering solutions to these problems. Book Business concludes with a premonition of a future where “book ATMs” dispense printed copies of best sellers at every street corner and gas station, and where online book retailers such as Amazon.com struggle to remain afloat amidst competition with big bookstore chains such as Borders and Barnes and Noble.
The lecture-based method from which this book was created has several effects. First and foremost, the author’s descriptive, conversational style of writing is a pleasure to read, as if the reader and Epstein are sitting at the old Princeton Club on Park Avenue in 1970’s New York City, drinking dry martinis and reminiscing about the way things were back in the “good ‘ole days” of publishing. In this manner, Book Business reads more as a memoir than as an historical account of the publishing business. While there are certainly merits to writing memoirs and audiences who thrive on them, the title Book Business: Publishing Past, Present and Future is misleading. Rather, it should be called Book Business: My (Epstein’s) Past, Present and Future in Publishing.
A second, rather unfortunate, influence of the lectures from which Book Business was written is that the resulting book feels disjointed, jumping to and fro from different topics to people to issues. The flow of the writing is impeded by the attempt to bring together distinct oral presentations into one cohesive written account. Taken separately, the chapters are wonderful short essays from which the reader can catch a fly on the wall’s view of what it was like to be a publisher in the 1950’s, 60’s, 70’s and so on, including specific details from what type of décor a publishing house had to what a certain author’s typical wardrobe consisted of. While these anecdotes are insightful and interesting to read, the chapters seem to be haphazardly jumbled together without thought of how one should segue to the next.
The book does have a few recognizable features that deserve attention, particularly of the reference or biographical nature. The preface is very informational, explaining that the work is the result of the New York Public Library lecture series given by Epstein in 1999. Included at the end of the book is a comprehensive index that encompasses key authors and other persons of interest, places, themes, titles and events that come up during the course of Book Business. In addition there are footnotes found throughout that give additional historical or anecdotal information about the text.
Overall Book Business reads as an enjoyable memoir of a person who has a plethora of experience in the publishing field, who has worked with many influential and recognizable authors, created some of the industry’s most well respected publications, won prestigious awards, and remained a steady constant in an ever evolving profession for more than fifty years. What it lacks in flow of writing it makes up in style and ease of reading. Epstein’s ability to transport a reader to a particular time and place is exceptional, especially given that he has never before authored any books. While it falls short of addressing directly the so-called “crisis” that is affecting the publishing industry, the author does point out several concerns within the field.
Book Business: Publishing Past, Present and Future could easily be cataloged within the autobiography section of a public library. Although classified under the “Publishers and Publishing-History-20th Century” and “Publishers and Publishing-Forecasting” subject headings, the text reads more as a personal tale of Epstein’s life in the publishing world than as an historic or forecasting work. Book Business would be a complimentary supplement to more recent historical accounts of the publishing industry such as Robert Darnton’s The Case for Books: Past, Present, and Future (Public Affairs 2009), John B. Thompson’s Merchant of Culture (Polity Press 2010) and The Late Age of Print: Everyday Book Culture from Consumerism to Control by Ted Striphas (Columbia University Press 2009). It would also serve readers to have Epstein revisit Book Business: Publishing Past, Present and Future, readdress the concerns mentioned, and reevaluate his predictions of the industry now that eleven years have passed since the book’s publication.

[David Fulmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing book about the subject of books written by one of the great connoisseurs of books. Jason Epstein played a role in introducing quality paperback books, the Library of America, and the New York Review of books. He worked for Doubleday and Random House and this book, more of a reflection on his past than a memoir (I believe it is an adaptation of some lectures he delivered at the New York Public Library), is full of tons of anecdotes featuring Faulkner and Edmund Wilson and a parade of publishers and booksellers. He recounts the arc of the book business-mainly publishing and bookselling-beginning after WWII when he got his first job, almost by accident, in publishing up until the turn of the century during which he was simply marinated in a kind of New York bookishness. Much of the book is a celebration of a past where great publishing houses reflected the eccentricities of their owners and founders and were staffed by learned people who labored on behalf of books more than anything, not giving much thought to such things as material gain. He also celebrates a bookstore past where independent bookstores had shelves overflowing with books and staff who could find any title with their eyes closed and he rues the way that this bookselling situation was slowly replaced by malls and suburban shopping landscapes. If you love books I suggest you treat yourself by reading this one, for it is a celebration of the book by someone who really knows what he’s talking about.

[Jack Nicholls · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting if meandering account of the world of book publishing, from the mouth behind a pillar of the printing world. Epstein talks about the trials of publishing books and the wide issues he's faced, from deciding the books to print, the pushback people can have when content is seen to be objectionable, and how the world of publishing has changed many times and will change again.

The book was originally published in the early 00s however, and so some of its ideas can be seen as short-sighted and at worst, hilariously off-the-mark, such as how the afterword underestimates how e-books would up-end things, and by Amazon, who Epstein also massively underestimates earlier in the book. The book also puts a lot of stock into the idea of would-be readers going to machines to print their own books from digital files, acting as a sort of "Book ATM". This idea would eventually become a reality when Jason Epstein would help make the Espresso Book Machine. Sadly, this machine was not quite the future he envisioned, though is an important step in the Amazon mass-printed hellscape we approach. His sections thusly about the "Book ATM" feel like a marketing pitch most of all.

An interesting read overall, but lacking impact. Still worthwhile as a curio and piece of history.

[Mark Isaak · Rating 2 out of 5]

A big problem with this book is that it is out of date, so the "present" referred to in the title applies to twenty years ago. Furthermore, Epstein sucks as a prognosticator, so the chapters on the future of the industry are worthless. (For example, he expected on-demand book printing quasi-vending-machines to proliferate, while reading on screens would remain marginal.) The parts relating Epstein's 50 years in the publishing industry, however, are interesting, so the book has values as history and memoir.

[Janaka · Rating 5 out of 5]

While somewhat dated at this point, Book Business is still fascinating and essential reading for anyone interested in the history of modern publishing. Furthermore, Epstein’s predictions made around 2000 have largely since manifested—and so the ones that have yet to manifest prove worth considering.

[Megan Close Zavala · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nicely written, fascinating mini history of publishing with predictions for the future of the industry circa 2001.

[Raúl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Casi 200 páginas acerca de la trayectoria de uno de los editores más influyentes del siglo XX.y análisis del futuro de la industria del libro.
La obra es de 2001.

[Chloe Harrison · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Marta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesante mezcla de memorias y presagios de Epstein sobre el futuro de la edición. Me ha gustado leerlo ahora, cuando podemos comprobar si tenía o no razón en sus predicciones.

[Kristen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating

[David Wogahn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Prescient. Still relevant in 2022. Fun fact: he figured out selling only books online wasn’t profitable before Bezos finally figured it out. And Epstein told Bezos this BEFORE Bezos started.

[Margaret Ennen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has lots of interesting history and insights about the publishing industry but I found it a bit difficult to follow at times and not very engaging.

[Alexandra II the nine lives of my library · Rating 4 out of 5]

I believe it's a must-read for anyone who wants to work in publishing. Epstein has some juicy anecdotes about his career, he mentions Stephen King about two dozen times, and you can see how publishing has changed over the years. I mean, what more could you possibly want from a book? The only downside is that it's surprisingly short for a career of 50 years.

[A.L. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book publishing is a business I'm idealistic about. I'm fortunate to work for a publisher right now. So when I had the opportunity to grab a free, hand-me down copy of this book from a co-worker I jumped at it.

Book Business is a memoir by Jason Epstein of his years in the New York publishing scene. He was an editor at Doubleday, Random House, and is responsible for a number of other successful publishing related ventures. During his career he worked in literary fiction (think: Faulkner and the like), academic publishing, magazine and journal publishing, and mass market trade publishing. His experience is broad, and the wisdom he's gained a result is deep.

Amid his witticisms and remembrances Epstein also manages to weave in a bit of publishing history. He covers topics like: why publishers ever allowed returns on their product, why book prices are so high, the rise of the "quality paperback," how the market has changed as a result of shopping malls and big box stores, and how bestsellers have changed things too. I especially enjoyed his descriptions of the New York publishing houses in the '50's and '60's. He described them with a nostalgic crush the way Ray Bradbury would describe Hollywood of the same era.

Another strength of this book is that Epstein is prophetic and optimistic in his writing about the future of the business. This book was published in 2001. I'm amazed at the things he predicted accurately then (like the rise of digital books and easy, cheap distribution) and equally amazed at the things he predicts that have not yet come to pass (like the someday-in-the-future-ability for everyone to print paperbacks on demand at home).

After reading Book Business I shared a few of my favorite quotes with co-workers in a meeting. As someone who sits at the bottom of the publishing corporate ladder, and as an aspiring writer, I found these quotes profound and sometimes humorous:

p.43 - The gift of storytelling is uncommon. It can be seen at a glance even by a beginner like myself.

p.36 - The editor's emotions are almost as much committed to the outcome as the author's.

p.59 - Literature, like all religions, is also a business, though not a very good business.

p.4 - Book publishing is not a conventional business. It more closely resembles a vocation or an amateur sport in which the primary goal is the activity itself rather than its financial outcome.

p.72 - authors, I would soon learn, sometimes bite when their egos are underfed.

If you like publishing you'll like this book. If, like me, you have romantic ideals about how books are made, you'll find a friend in Epstein and you'll probably learn something along the way. I know I did. This book is warmly recommended to anyone bookish enough to care about where books came from (and where they might be going).

[Benjamin Hare · Rating 3 out of 5]

A trip down memory lane by someone who has seen, and driven, some of the publishing innovations of our time. Epstein is passionate about books, seems to have a wonderful memory for details, and is a fine writer. The book is only seven chapters long, and the lovely prose make for pleasant reading. Because this book was published in 2001, prior to the ebook revolution, it’s fun to look back at his speculations and judge their veracity. In 2001 the ebook was ephemeral but the Internet was raising serious challenges to distribution models. Will people still buy physical book? Will they still visit bookstores? How will bookstores survive if people can buy books from Amazon or directly from the writer’s themselves? Will publishers be forced to focus only on bestsellers while their valuable backlist of works languish, ignored by an increasingly ignorant public?

From the vantage point of 2017 it’s easy to look back at these questions and chuckle. Despite what pundits both inside and outside of the publishing industry were saying at the time, the sky was not falling. Digital books have increased everyone’s profits; writers, publishers, sellers, and—most importantly—that of readers. Back in 2001 there was a pall of fear over the future of the publishing industry and that sense comes through in Epstein’s writing. He reminisces about the “good old days” when authors slept the night in his office, or met for drinks to discuss their current book, or called him for advice, or relied upon the good men and women of the publishing house to forward a little needed cash. These stories are touching and reminded me that all business is personal. They are also quite glamorous, though I doubt Epstein would’ve described them as such.

I’ve often thought of the publishing industry as the inculcated domain of a priestly class defending themselves above their writers. Having read this book I see that opinion is entirely unwarranted. To judge from this book most people working in publishing are like Epstein; caring, thoughtful, and genuinely concerned about the welfare of their industry, their writers, and their readers. For someone who loves books this work serves as an homage to the craft.

[Dan Kugler · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good book about what it was like to be one of the most innovate editors/publishers from the 1950s onward (paperback revolution, new york review of books, library of amercia)--

meditations on the book industry past and present--fascinating, and a nice, sharp quick read--my thoughts: if you are going to read books, why not learn how they are made?

also it has things like this:

I did not find Lolita repulsive, nor did I find it the work of genius that it has since been called. I admired Nabokov's earlier novels published by New Directions and preferred their cold precision to the plummy and it seemed to me rather cruel, if also very funny, Lolita, in which Nabokov seemed to be congratulating himself on his jokes. I was puzzled by Nabokov's intentions. Lolita seemed to be making a statement. Was Nabokov trying to show that America is unsafe for highly strung emigres like himself who risk losing their cultural identities to a country as shallow and seductive as his innocently corrupt heroine? Or was he simply elaborating an erotic theme he had touched on in his earlier work? Later, when he and I became friends, I asked him how the idea for Lolita had occurred to him. I expected a fanciful answer and was not disappointed. He told me that one day he, his wife, Vera, and his ten-year-old son, Dmitri, had been driving home to Ithaca from a butterfly expedition in the Rockies and stopped for the night in a small Ohio town. Since there was no motel available they took rooms in the home of a Methodist minister. After dinner, when the minster and his wife had retired, Vladimir noticed Dmitri had disappeared. Vladimir found him under a tree on the lawn in the arms of the minster's teenage daughter. Vladimir told me that this encounter aroused his curiosity about the sexual precocity of teenage American girls, and back in Ithaca would sit behind them on the school bus, notebook in hand, recording their chatter which soon emerged in the pages of his novel. I assumed that this unlikely detail, like the story of the minister's daughter, was Vladimir's way of telling me not to ask foolish questions.

[Yu · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book I will highly recommend to those who are eager to learn both how the publishing industry functions and its behind the scene stories. Looking dull, however, the memoir like award winning book tells the history of book publishing industry in the United States since 19th century. It is striking how a person who devoted half a century of his life time to a career path that involved shaping and change a society's intellectual and knowledge landscape. This includes: when Theodore Dreiser threw a cup of coffee at the face of his publisher; passionate patron publishers giving W. Faulkner money for his drunken nights; moreover, the author's friendship and personal encounter with the publishing of by-then controversial Lolita and how Nabokov came up with Lolita. Those by-gone era has been created by those who loved books, later on, some of them became great intellectuals. Many major journal and periodicals are recalled and told in the book, such as Partisan Review, New York Times Review etc.

Present and future parts are surprisingly accurate as well. Now it's 2017 when I read this book, and the author could already predict the upcoming trends in book publishing industry with a glance at the development of new technology. Not one single prediction of his is missing or misleading, it all happened. Still, there are lots of things changing in the industry, but the essence remains.

[Trish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Epstein, former Random House editorial director among other things in his long and illustrious career, treats us to reminiscences about the past and ruminations about the present and future of book publishing. Especially delicious are recollections of Doubleday's suppression of Drieser's novel Sister Carrie, the first appearance of Nabokov's Lolita, and the genesis of The New York Review of Books.

For me though, Epstein's long experience in book publishing is most interesting when applied to how the industry changed, and continues to change, over the years. I am reassured by his insistence that bookstores, like cinemas, will not entirely disappear in this new world of digital access. Years ago Epstein did not recommend to his children nor their friends to enter the publishing industry because it was an industry in decline. Today he would have encouraged them because publishing is an industry in the middle of enormous changes. I agree. There are opportunities to be seized.

A further thought. The book was published in 2001. The book is dedicated to Judith Miller. Epstein tells a little anecdote about his involvement with the CIA in Africa. Somehow it gets the mind whirling...

[Jeremy Mccool · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the tutelage of such an experienced publisher and editor as Mr. Eptsein. It's a smooth read that covers the basics and history of book publishing, trends and changes throughout history, what makes it profitable, the author's own autobiographic contributions to the field (including LOTS of namedropping), what makes literature literature, and finally he utters prophecies of the future of book publishing and how it will become a cottage organization once again with the advent of the internet. I was most intrigued by his prophecy that, although book superstores like Barnes and Noble will not fold (I don't know how that relates to Borders...), most bookstores of the future will be a comfortable place where you can get an awesome cup of coffee and sit down on a comfortable sofa with a still warm, perfectly bound manuscript in your hand that was just printed to your specifications on a book printer specifically designed to produce individual copies for three or four bucks a pop. That sounds amazing, and would save the retailers the warehousing and processing costs currently associated with them, and the publishers the risk of printing more copies than will sell.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a pleasant read. Since the author makes predictions (from the view point of 2002) about the effect of the digital revolution on book publishing (incorrect predictions in the case of e-readers), it was fun to read on my Kindle. The author was the founder of Anchor Books and the New York Review of Books, so there's a small amount of material about the storied old publishing world--insider and a predictable paean to various individuals. No special insight. One interesting thing is his thoughts about the growth of suburbs in the aftermath of World War II being what led to the rise of suburban malls and hence the high rent bookstore chains that demanded blockbuster type turnover. The book is not very interesting. It left me with the feeling that this author actually probably could say much that would be of enormous interest but that he was keeping the truly illuminating stuff to himself. It would serve as a good, comprehensive overview though for someone less familiar with the history publishing in the U.S. It's a short book, painted in very broad strokes.