Vol. 1, Number 4	Winter 1998 issue

Dear Reader,

Selling books is not the world's easiest business, but if you're interested, December is the month to try it. As you read this, bookstores large and small across the country are preparing for an annual selling frenzy matched only by college bookstores during the first week of class. This is the season when, for better or for worse, the leisurely process of browsing and buying books becomes transmuted into the strange modern ritual of shopping for presents.

Chosen carefully, books can make amazing gifts. The best of all might be those that have already changed our own lives. Unfortunately, though, such thoughtful gifts are the exception. Among busy shoppers, and particularly as the time available before the holidays dwindles, the decision-making process often approaches the level of literally judging books by their covers.

Publishers and bookstores understand this process well, and they try to display books whose titles and cover art will appeal to both the customer and the book's eventual recipient. In especially egregious cases, there seems to be a tacit understanding between the publisher, the bookstore, the customer, and the recipient of the gift that a book is not for reading at all-no one involved will get any further than the cover concept.

The impulse-buy shelves of our local bookstores contain ample examples of this strange idea. I hope no one is seriously going to read Machiavelli's Guide to Womanizing -- I tried, and the text itself is an almost apologetic afterthought to the cover concept. Or John Madden's Ultimate Tailgating? Perhaps the wife of some stereotypical football fanatic will try to make the recipes in this unfortunate book, but it seems more likely that the book will be given and received less as a cookbook and more in the spirit of a signed football.

Perhaps the apotheosis of this empty genre would be a relic of the 1970's called In Defense of Nixon. I like this book a lot, although it takes just one glance inside to get the joke -- all the pages are blank. This book has a message, and I'm sure it was an interesting gift in its day, but the idea of giving or possessing it seems qualitatively different from the idea of reading a book.

In a capitalist system as advanced as ours, it is easy to believe that the primary reason we buy any product is to own it -- or in the case of gifts, to give the product to someone else to own. From the perspective of the firms involved in the production and sale of books, this motivation is a fine reason for anyone to be in a bookstore.

But when you walk into a bookstore this month and face the inevitable army of neatly packaged gift ideas, pause a second. Consider the possibilities. A book can be the most personal gift imaginable. The right book can open a dialogue that was never part of a friendship before, or reveal a world to someone's view a world that you had never previously shared. Choosing this kind of book takes so much more than mere knowledge of the recipient's shirt size and favorite color -- doing it right requires time, care, and a fairly intimate knowledge of the way a person feels and thinks.

But it's worth it. A bestseller or a gag book may be a gift of last resort, but the right book is one of best gifts you can get. So shop slowly and patiently, and when you finally find exactly the book, don't forget to write something in the front.

Good luck,
Joey Fishkin
Editor-In-Chief