Quote:
Originally Posted by tubemonkey
General Reference Center Gold from Gale (Cenage Learning).
|
Thanks to Fbone and yourself.
Ken Auletta's article is terrific. I suppose it was ironic that I read it for free (free to me, but paid for by the library) on my Kindle.
I never have read any of Auletta's books, but I will now.
Since 1970 or so, we have been in a golden age of great heavily researched non-fiction. If Ken Auletta and Mike Shatzkin, who I now respect enormously, are right, this age will end. But the backlist will endure. OK for me. Better for crooked politicians who will have just a little less to worry about. Not so good, I think, for authors, or the country.
Not emphasized enough in these articles is the gulf in the interests of readers who like research based books (mostly, not totally, means non-fiction) and those who prefer works of pure imagination. In the latter case, a lot of the books still need a pushy agent and heavy professional editing to get finished and polished. But there always will be a supply of self-starting fiction authors who can do well with light editing. Anthony Trollope, one of my favorites, wrote some of this best classics with only his wife's help. But without a lot more help than that, non-fiction gets thinly researched and sloppy.