Music critic Carl Wilson, author of the 33⅓ title Let’s Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste, on small books for The Globe & Mail:
The little book that abounds in much: It’s a goal widely aspired to these days. The wish is that a short book can navigate both print and digital with buoyant grace, where a bigger one might capsize. “Somewhere between a long magazine article and a book” is the sweet spot that many publishers describe. They picture customers polishing off a volume on a short plane ride or a round-trip transit commute, on a tablet or in an easy-to-hold compact volume.
Such books can bring the urgency of a manifesto. They can provide literary sustenance without the commitment a thick tome demands. And, properly designed, they stoke a fetish for tiny, perfect, collectible objects.
What could be better? It’s an in-between form for transitional times. It’s a nod to collective attention-deficit and the Internet’s “too long; didn’t read” syndrome. Whether it succeeds in practice is another question: Is the little book as unsinkable a prospect as its advocates hope? Or is it a pursuit as vexed as the one in Melville’s following novel, for the great white whale?
I like short books as much as the next guy, but I’m yet to be convinced that they’re going to save publishing. And, as if prove the point, Wilson’s own short book is becoming a longer one. (On the plus side, the article was accompanied by a rather lovely illustration by Drew Shannon)
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