I’ve written quite a few times about how lamentations and garment rending over the death of literature, the literary, publishing, and the written word have been premature. No one can dispute that the publishing industry is changing, that our culture is evolving, that we are facing certain challenges when it comes to encouraging the general public to read when, it would seem, people would rather watch television or stare at the Internet, or do anything but read. A difficult path, however, is not an impassable one.

Publishing is dying! Publishing is dying! Publishing is dying! Go ahead, say it three times. You’ll feel better but chanting those words will not nor cannot make them true.

We have a fetish for sifting through the proverbial ashes of publishing, the age of letters, a culture of intellect, as if all hope is lost, as if all we have left is the faint memory of a time when we sat in parlors on velvet lined couches and discussed literature while smoking tightly rolled French cigarettes. We sniff with disdain when confronted with mass market paperbacks or pablum like Jersey Shore and big budget films that inexplicably gross $50 million (ahem, Jackass 3D). These “cultural abominations” (which are, in fact, not abominations at all) are more than some of us can bear. We begrudge their existence as if they are taking the place, in our hearts and minds, of the next staggering work of literary genius. We blame these distractions for the demise of all things literary and intellectual as if we must choose between the charms of The Situation and Snooki or Johnny Knoxville and the charms of, say, Adam Levin or Jonathan Franzen or Marcy Dermansky or Grace Krilanovich. I’ve said it before, but I will say it again—I choose both.

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