Bookreporter.com's co-Founder Carol Fitzgerald interviewed four prominent book journalists --- Charlotte Abbott, Book News Editor of Publishers Weekly; Bob Minzesheimer, Book Reviewer and Publishing Reporter of USA Today; Sam Tanenhaus, Editor of the New York Times Book Review; and Steve Wasserman, Editor of the Los Angeles Times Book Review. The fast-paced and lively discussion included conversation about book prizes and awards, bestseller lists and influences on readers. Read on to see what they had to say.

BRC: This year's National Book Award nominees are sparking this roundtable conversation. It's a year when many people saw the list in all four categories and immediately asked --- why these books? What did you think when you saw the nominees?

Sam Tanenhaus (NY Times): That I had some catching up to do.

Bob Minzesheimer (USA Today): I had not read any of the five fiction finalists. In nonfiction: I had read part of THE 9/11 REPORT, and WASHINGTON'S CROSSING. In YA I had read only HARLEM STOMP.

Charlotte Abbott (Publishers Weekly): I was most surprised by the fiction nominees, mainly because none had emerged as likely front-runners at the usual industry checkpoints, like the Book Expo trade show, or even during my more casual lunches with other people who talk about books for a living. But I was delighted to see so many female nominees and also by the unpredictability of the choices, which suggest that the judges were thinking outside the box a little more than usual.

On the nonfiction side, I was thrilled by the selection of THE 9/11 REPORT. Making such an important document into a gripping read was an undeniable feat. And the fact that it was so seamlessly produced by a team of writers seems very much in tune with the wired zeitgeist of our times.

Steve Wasserman (LA Times): Every reader is a judge. Judging is inherently subjective. Kudos to the National Book Award for recognizing the neglected and the obscure. It is unfortunate that literary merit is often untethered to commercial considerations. It was ever thus. On the other hand, sometimes it seems that no book in America, however mediocre, goes unrewarded.

BRC: What book(s) that you read this year would you have liked to have seen nominated for a National Book Award in the fiction and/or nonfiction categories?

Bob Minzesheimer (USA Today): Roth's THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA, but I repeat that I have not read any of the five fiction finalists.

Sam Tanenhaus (NY Times): We'll be posting our own best books list soon; that will give readers some idea of titles we especially liked.

Steve Wasserman (LA Times): "I plead the Fifth Amendment."

BRC: There are 12,000 novels and 75,000 nonfiction books published each year. Do you think a panel of 5 judges can judge all submissions received to come up with a short list of nominees?

Steve Wasserman (LA Times): No panel of five judges can hope to read all book-like objects manufactured in a given year. Separating wheat from chaff is an errand for fools or heroes. But our obsession with listmaking is a cult in America that no amount of sobriety can end. Thus, awards proliferate even as literacy declines.

Bob Minzesheimer (USA Today): Not in a perfect world, but I don't live in a perfect world. Your numbers may be misleading because that includes textbooks and all sorts of other specialized books. I think the number of books submitted by publishers to the judges is actually in the hundreds. That's still overwhelming, but doable.

Charlotte Abbott (Publishers Weekly): No way. Michael Kinsley said as much after his stint as a judge at the National Book Awards. Clearly, many of the books are judged by their covers. If the most conscientious judges read more than 20 titles from cover to cover, I'd be surprised.

Sam Tanenhaus (NY Times): Certainly they can; they did precisely that.

BRC: There is a huge disconnect between what people are reading and what is winning prizes. Industry professionals have noted this gap since the beginning of the mass audience. But is this gap widening now? If so, why?

Steve Wasserman (LA Times): What people are buying and sometimes reading may differ greatly from the titles judges consider worthy. Since literary talent is unevenly distributed among the citizens of the republic of letters, the democracy of the marketplace is no guide to literary merit. This is a fact of commerce, not a politics of cultural elitism.

Sam Tanenhaus (NY Times): And when, exactly, was “the beginning of the mass audience”? It seems to me Dickens wrote for a mass audience in the mid 1850's, and Twain did in the 1870's and 1880's. The high-low divide some find so terrifying has been a subject of hand-wringing since Matthew Arnold's day, if not before. Our bestseller list has recently included some distinguished authors: Philip Roth and Stephen Greenblatt, to name two.

Bob Minzesheimer (USA Today): I suspect two factors may be at work: at one end of the commercial scale, bestsellers now sell in the millions; brand-name writers are under pressure to write a book or more a year. Productivity may not correlate with quality. And at the other end of the commercial scale, there are more publishers publishing more books and finding a way to make a go of it while selling maybe 3,000- 5,000 copies. A few of those books may be quite good, even if they receive little attention in a "winner-take-all" marketplace. And we tend to forget that most readers aren't reading bestsellers. It just seems that way.

BRC: Some prizes like the Booker Prize actually impact sales, while most others do not. Thoughts on this?

Bob Minzesheimer (USA Today): Clearly the NBA helped Julia Glass's THREE JUNES and the Pulitzer helped Richard Russo's EMPIRE FALLS. Impact of the prize depends on the author and book. Biggest benefit, I think, is to someone not very well known yet.

Steve Wasserman (LA Times): Why some prizes, like the Booker, seem to affect sales and why others, notoriously --- with exceptions --- the Nobel --- do not, is a mystery no theory of contemporary literature will ever satisfactorily explain. To the extent, however, that prizes proliferate, the coin of compliment is devalued.

Sam Tanenhaus (NY Times): My understanding is that here in the U.S. the Pulitzer sometimes increases sales dramatically, the National Book Award has perhaps less impact; but this isn't based on any actual evidence.

Charlotte Abbott (Publishers Weekly): The Booker has had more commercial impact than some other awards in recent years, but it's not foolproof. Yann Martel's LIFE OF PI sold quite well in paperback after winning the Booker in 2002. It was helped by a great high concept --- a boy and tiger stranded on a lifeboat --- that appealed to young adult readers as well as adults. D.B.C. Pierre's VERNON GOD LITTLE, which won in 2003, was a much more edgy, unflattering portrait of modern America that got mixed reviews in the U.S., and didn't do nearly as well commercially.

BRC: Do you think we are in need of a new kind of award --- one that recognizes more populist work? Or do you think that commercial success is its own prize?

Sam Tanenhaus (NY Times): I don't think the addition or subtraction of awards makes much difference. There was a time when the NBA handed out more prizes than it now does. Was that an improvement? If so, why was it abandoned? Does anyone even remember who won the National Book Award eight or ten years ago? I don't.

Bob Minzesheimer (USA Today): Hard to imagine how you do that: Best novel to sell a million copies? Best book optioned by Hollywood? Best book by a celebrity or the relative of a celebrity? Sounds like one of those phony awards shows on TV that seem to pop up every week.

Steve Wasserman (LA Times): Commercial success is the best revenge --- at least in one's lifetime. The risk is to be forgotten by posterity. Whether history will absolve the verdict of the present is an open question. Arthur Koestler, the famous author of DARKNESS AT NOON, among other works, was once asked if he preferred to have 100 readers in the present or 10 readers one hundred years from now. He unhesitatingly replied that he would prefer to have 10 readers in a century. But then he paused and said that he was certain his publisher preferred it the other way around, hoping still to be in business in a hundred years.

BRC: Each of your publications has a bestseller list, which increases reader awareness. Looking back over the past month, approximately what % of the titles on that list were reviewed by your publication?

Bob Minzesheimer (USA Today): 10-20%, but that includes paperbacks that we reviewed in hardcover..

Steve Wasserman (LA Times): On average, we have reviewed about 50% of our Los Angeles Times Bestseller List.

Sam Tanenhaus (NY Times): I'll have to check on this. I know we're trying to cover more bestsellers than we used to, primarily as a means of broadening our news coverage. Our new bestseller list column, written by my colleague Dwight Garner, often features titles that have a presence on the list but have not been reviewed in our pages.

BRC: Do you think that bestseller lists need further segmentation beyond what we are seeing? Witness the weeks when there are a large number of suspense/thriller/mystery titles on the lists, which may keep quieter, but still noteworthy fiction from getting any play.

Sam Tanenhaus (NY Times): I don't think “need” has much to do with it. Would any purpose be served by segregating some titles even more than we now do? My sense is no.

Charlotte Abbott (Publishers Weekly): There's plenty of segmentation if you know where to look. The BookSense list (www.Booksense.com), compiled by independent stores around the country, offers more literary fiction and nonfiction than the more commercially-oriented New York Times bestseller list (www.nytimes.com), which is based on sales figures from chain bookstores and big box retailers as well as independents. Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com both rank bestsellers by category. And the Essence bestseller list reveals what's hot among African-American books.

Bob Minzesheimer (USA Today): If the lists are intended to tell us what people are buying (not necessarily reading) there should be no segmentation. Which is how the USA Today list works. If we're really interested in what people are reading, we should find a way of also measuring demand at public libraries.

Steve Wasserman (LA Times): Further segmentation of the Bestseller List might well be a good idea.

BRC: What do you think your mandate as a book review editor is?

Steve Wasserman (LA Times): Our aim is to provide news of some of the more important and entertaining books now being published in America.

Sam Tanenhaus (NY Times): Mandates are for political leaders. Book review editors have a more mundane task, informing readers about new books we think may interest them.

Bob Minzesheimer (USA Today):I'm not the book editor, merely a reviewer and reporter, but my job includes: sneaking ideas into the newspaper (which, like all newspapers, is driven more by events than ideas); starting conversations among readers about good books and bad books; discovering authors worth reading, commenting (critically) on the culture we live in.

BRC: Do you get letters from readers complaining about the lack of commercial reviews in your publication or the fact that you do run commercial reviews?

Bob Minzesheimer (USA Today): No, my sense is that readers are just looking for something worthwhile to read. They don't care if it's "commercial" or not. Only publishers worry about that.

Steve Wasserman (LA Times): Yes, from time to time, readers do complain that we publish an insufficient number of reviews of commercial books and, at the same time, we receive complaints from readers who believe we give too much attention to works already popular and well-known.

Charlotte Abbott (Publishers Weekly): As the preeminent trade magazine in the industry, Publishers Weekly covers every category of books and reviews more titles than any other publication --- more than 7,000 per year. Your readers may have seen our reviews on Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com, where we license them.

Sam Tanenhaus (NY Times): We get very few complaints of this kind --- either pro or con.

BRC: In recent years publishers have complained about the shrinking number of newspaper pages devoted to book reviews. Do you see this trend continuing? If you have not already done so, do you have any plans to expand the book review sections on your online editions of the newspaper? Perhaps online-only reviews?

Sam Tanenhaus (NY Times): Thanks to the support we've received from the publisher of the New York Times, since October 3 we've had at least four more open pages per issue. We hope advertisers will continue to support the section. If they do, our pages will expand still further.

Charlotte Abbott (Publishers Weekly): About two years ago, we expanded the number of reviews we publish by posting 25-35 new reviews each week at the new PW Review Annex on our website.

Steve Wasserman (LA Times): One of the great scandals of American journalism is the sad fact that too few newspapers regard the publication of book reviews as news that they should feel obligated to bring before readers, and instead consign such reviews --- where they publish them at all --- to virtual ghettos. In most newspapers, readers are lucky to get a column or halfpage, much less an entire separate Sunday section devoted to the coverage of books. And then, adding insult to injury, such reviews are too often written in baby talk. And yet it is doubtless the case that, despite all predictions of the triumph of the world wide web, books remain the single most important instrument for the conveyance of deep knowledge and lasting entertainment yet devised. Books still retain the patina of authority that only time can bestow. They have yet to be bested for ease of access and even for pure sensuality. They will not soon disappear so long as the human species is defined by its opposable thumb and its obsessive need to tell each other stories --- sometimes the same stories, over and over, albeit in new guise.

Bob Minzesheimer (USA Today): I'm fortunate to work for a publication, USA Today, that has actually increased space for book coverage --- in part because we've been getting more book ads. But overall, you can never underestimate the taste of many newspaper publishers. They seem not to care about books because book publishers don't buy ads in regional and local newspapers. That newspaper readers are by definition readers, and likely to be interested in reading books, seems not to have occurred to many newspaper publishers and editors. Why do you think most Sunday newspapers devote much more space to travel than to books? Wouldn't more readers like to read about books they may never read than about places they'll probably never visit?

BRC: We have a policy at Bookreporter.com that we do not run bad reviews, meaning that if our reviewer does not like a book, they have an option to take a pass on reviewing it. Our philosophy is that we want to encourage people to read instead of not to read. Do you regret the absence of space to praise all the good books out there? Do you think negative reviews do anything for readers? (Note that we are not talking about reviews that point out flaws in books, as we think those need to be noted.)

Bob Minzesheimer (USA Today): I think if it's an unknown author, then it makes little sense to run a negative review unless there's something important to say beyond "this isn't a good book." Book reviews should be more than just a sort of literary Consumer Reports, but there's something to be said about warning readers about books that don't live up to their hype, ie. the latest Tom Wolfe novel. Then there's the larger issue of maintaining some cultural standards in a society driven by commercial success.

Steve Wasserman (LA Times): Any serious criticism worth its salt is a species of literary hygiene. Gratuitously negative reviews, of course, are silly and a waste of space, but a dust-up over real issues of profound literary or aesthetic, cultural or political matters is at the heart of any book review worth reading. In these matters, I hold with the late Dr. Johnson who, if I remember rightly, once advised a friend whose book had been savaged by a snarky reviewer: "Nay, Sir, pay it no mind; fame is an object that to be kept aloft must be batted upon both ends."

Sam Tanenhaus (NY Times): Of course we'd like to have more space, but not because we think our function is to praise books. We're journalists, not publicists.

BRC: Do you stop and weigh the number of positive versus negative reviews that your publication runs?

Sam Tanenhaus (NY Times): No.

Steve Wasserman (LA Times): We do not keep a running score of so-called positive and negative reviews.

Bob Minzesheimer (USA Today): No.

BRC: What do you think is the single biggest influence on readers?

Steve Wasserman (LA Times): Word of mouth is the biggest single influence on readers.

Bob Minzesheimer (USA Today): TV (for many); Word of mouth (for a lot of other readers).

Charlotte Abbott (Publishers Weekly): The quickest way to influence readers is through the media, specifically TV. A slower but in some cases more powerful influence is word of mouth. Books that become major phenomenons --- like THE DA VINCI CODE or THE LOVELY BONES --- usually have both going for them.

Sam Tanenhaus (NY Times): “Influence” in what sense and in what direction?

BRC: What do you think the industry can do to encourage reading among the next generation?

Steve Wasserman (LA Times): Have faith, publish with passion and know that ideas matter. Reading has always been a minority taste. Yet books often have an impact disproportionate to the actual number of copies sold. In 1953, for example, Alfred A. Knopf published Czeslaw Milosz's THE CAPTIVE MIND, selling fewer than 3,000 copies. Nearly 30 years later, Milosz was awarded the Nobel Prize. Barely a decade later, communism collapsed and the Cold War was over. History is full of surprises. Books are the foundation of civilization. In these matters, I remain something of a Leninist: Better fewer, but better.

Bob Minzesheimer (USA Today): On author tours, make more time for writers to visit schools and libraries.

Sam Tanenhaus (NY Times): By “industry” do you mean publishers? I'm sure they have a much clearer idea about this than I do.

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