by Eric
Seeking Smaller Books
May 2, 2008 in Books, Culture, Fate's Harrow, LJM, Personal, Silver Fox, Writers, Writing by Eric
I have been chasing an interesting story around the net. Hillel Italie reports for the AP that “Brief Books are in Style.”
In the decade since James Atlas revived the form with his “Penguin Lives” series, at least 10 publishers have started their own lines of short, nonfiction books, on subjects ranging from scientists to presidents to mythology. Although the advances are low — and sales often to match — short books have attracted such best sellers and prize winners as novelists Jane Smiley and Larry McMurtry, essayists Christopher Hitchens and Bill Bryson, and historians Robert Dallek and Sean Wilentz (Boston.com).
The majority of the article is various authors bemoaning the restrictions of the brief format. I, on the other hand, have a very different point of view.
As a reader, I simple don’t have the time to sit down for 20-30 hours and enjoy a brilliantly elaborate tale of intrigue and daring do. If it weren’t for Audible, Podiobooks, and Narrator (software for the Mac that turns text into an audiobook/play), I would not have much time to read at all.
I hear it all the time from friends and family as well. Gas prices are going up, few and few movies are coming out that we want to go see, and our obligations are multiplying, nibbling away at what little free time we had in the first place. This is a problem.
As a writer, I am happy and scared by this trend to smaller books. I love serials, and pulp era fiction, and this push to smaller books lets me write more like my heroes. It is also a strong pressure on me.
I have been working on a fix up of my book Liquid Sky so that it will be more serial friendly. It will be released as four books, one for each part, and a collected volume, and Shine Like Thunder is a short book too.
I like the format. It is possible to do more with less. My only real fear is that if our free time keeps eroding, then we will have no recreation time at all.
For now, I have to say three cheers for the short form book! Maybe, just maybe, we will see a new golden age of fiction.
