A couple of decades ago, some 400 newspapers published book reviews in arts and culture sections. Now it may be as few as 40.
What to do about that? If anything? Booksellers and librarians will gather Wednesday in the lead-up to the seventh annual Bow Market Book Fair (held all day Saturday) for a peer-to-peer conversation exploring how local media can help boost books and booksellers in 2026. The event, held in conjunction with the fair, is organized by The Cambridge Somerville Independent in partnership with the Somerville Media Center.
“Getting the Story Out” runs 7 to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday at Union Tavern, 345 Somerville Ave., Union Square, Somerville. (Union Tavern is the former PA’s Lounge.)
Participating businesses and organizations include: All She Wrote; the Cambridge Public Library; Harvard Book Store; Lovestruck; Porter Square Books; Narrative; Side Quest; and the Somerville Public Library.
The most recent blow to literary coverage was last month, as The Washington Post shut down its Book World section. That follows the recent closing of the San Francisco Chronicle book section, the end of book reviews by The Associated Press and cutbacks by The Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune and Seattle Times. The last literary section running in any general-interest publication is at The New York Times.
There are still publications devoted to books and the word, but they are “for an audience that already knows it cares about literature. The books section of a newspaper plays an altogether different role,” Becca Rothfield wrote Feb. 10 in The New Yorker. “It does not cater to aficionados; it seeks new recruits.”
There is also a thriving BookTok community on the TikTok social media app, but Rothfield mourns the end of book coverage in general-interest publication: “A newspaper is – or ought to be – the opposite of an algorithm, a bastion of enlightened generalism in an era of hyperspecialization and personalized marketing,” she writes, “a quiet reproach to its audience’s most parochial instincts. Its mission is not to indulge existing tastes but to challenge them – to create a certain kind of person and, thereby, a certain kind of public.”
The public is invited to listen for free to the free-flowing conversation and brainstorming session and return Saturday for the free Book Fair run by the Tiny Turns Paperie, All She Wrote Books and Side Quest Books. It starts at 9:30 a.m. with story time, features a market and author panels and signings from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and ends with an open mic and Literary Drag Trivia ($14).
Bow Market, 1 Bow Market Way, Union Square, Somerville