by Ann Kjellberg, editor One of the last freestanding book supplements, Bookforum, was closed this week. With its sense of play, gritty glamour, and jolt of intellectual rigor, Bookforum cultivated an audience that was also to an extent its subject.
A minority opinion about BOOKFORUM. I must have written c. 8 reviews for it in earlier years years--on Joseph Roth, a big one on Gregor di Rezzori, one on the Wittgenstein family etc. I loved Bookforum. But when Albert Mobilio was no longer editor-in-chief, I was dropped--evidently too old (it's true, I am 91), not hip enough! I continued to read BOOKFORUM with relish. But this past year or two, when the magazine arrives, I go through it in about 15 minutes. It's become much too narrow--an obsession with gender and NO ATTENTION to scholarly books at all. I know wonderful books that were published this last year like Craig Dworkin's THE RADIUM OF THE WORD (Chicago) not reviewed. And I published two books--INFRATHIN, which got a rave review in LARB and good ones in other places but nothing in BOOKFORUM and an edition of Wittgenstein's war notebooks (Liveright) which was reviewed in UK in TLS, Spectator, Guardian, Daily Telegraph, New Statesman, Poetry Review, and in the U.S. in NY Times, New Yorker, among many others but not in BOOKFORUM even though I had been one of their authors not long ago. So when I heard that it was being discontinued, I was not at all surprised and part of me feels it served them right for going so WOKE in such narrow ways.
There is an inclination, when an outlet like BOOKFORUM is cancelled, to immediately bemoan the current rejection of the arts, culture, etc. The editors and your readers feel something important has been lost. But the truth is that Bookforum had become a coterie publication and no longer filled a need. It became sort of anti-intellectual, not covering history or art history or important criticism.
I realize my response can be interpreted as sour grapes--they also didn't cover my daughter Carey's wonderful book on Tom Stoppard and Harold Pinter or my other daughter Nancy's book on Concrete Poetry, so yes it is sour grapes--but whatever the case, I will not miss Bookforum at all. I read LRB, NYRB, and TLS and that's good enough for me. And the demise of Bookforum should stand as a reminder to readers that there is more of interest than transgender studies, countless memoirs of the victimized, or polemics about climate change.
To all who graciously refrained from pointing out to me in public that I misspelled "Artforum" as "Art Forum" through this entire post in spite of having a picture right in front of me and the visible example of "Bookforum," I thank you.
A minority opinion about BOOKFORUM. I must have written c. 8 reviews for it in earlier years years--on Joseph Roth, a big one on Gregor di Rezzori, one on the Wittgenstein family etc. I loved Bookforum. But when Albert Mobilio was no longer editor-in-chief, I was dropped--evidently too old (it's true, I am 91), not hip enough! I continued to read BOOKFORUM with relish. But this past year or two, when the magazine arrives, I go through it in about 15 minutes. It's become much too narrow--an obsession with gender and NO ATTENTION to scholarly books at all. I know wonderful books that were published this last year like Craig Dworkin's THE RADIUM OF THE WORD (Chicago) not reviewed. And I published two books--INFRATHIN, which got a rave review in LARB and good ones in other places but nothing in BOOKFORUM and an edition of Wittgenstein's war notebooks (Liveright) which was reviewed in UK in TLS, Spectator, Guardian, Daily Telegraph, New Statesman, Poetry Review, and in the U.S. in NY Times, New Yorker, among many others but not in BOOKFORUM even though I had been one of their authors not long ago. So when I heard that it was being discontinued, I was not at all surprised and part of me feels it served them right for going so WOKE in such narrow ways.
There is an inclination, when an outlet like BOOKFORUM is cancelled, to immediately bemoan the current rejection of the arts, culture, etc. The editors and your readers feel something important has been lost. But the truth is that Bookforum had become a coterie publication and no longer filled a need. It became sort of anti-intellectual, not covering history or art history or important criticism.
I realize my response can be interpreted as sour grapes--they also didn't cover my daughter Carey's wonderful book on Tom Stoppard and Harold Pinter or my other daughter Nancy's book on Concrete Poetry, so yes it is sour grapes--but whatever the case, I will not miss Bookforum at all. I read LRB, NYRB, and TLS and that's good enough for me. And the demise of Bookforum should stand as a reminder to readers that there is more of interest than transgender studies, countless memoirs of the victimized, or polemics about climate change.
Yours, Marjorie Perloff.
Love the room metaphor
Ditto for moi
To all who graciously refrained from pointing out to me in public that I misspelled "Artforum" as "Art Forum" through this entire post in spite of having a picture right in front of me and the visible example of "Bookforum," I thank you.