After the departure of Marie Arana and much rumor, The Washington Post announced last week that it was going to discontinue Book World as a standalone tabloid in the Sunday paper. (For the record, I wrote a couple of reviews for her several years back and found her to be a wonderful editor.)

Of course the Post is not the only newspaper to eliminate its book section qua book section, nor likely will it be the last.

For me, what’s sad about all of these shutterings of books sections is the shortsightedness not only of the newspapers but also the mainstream publishers. It’s all very