Jo-Ann Mapson

Please, this Holiday Season, consider buying books for presents. There, I've said it-the thesis of my column. You can stop reading now, but if you read on I'll promise to make as good a case for books, and reading.

The publishing world, that New York nucleus, was thrown into a spin after 9/11. When Bush declared war, things got worse. Okay, maybe not for Stephen King or John Grisham. I don't expect they've fired their gardeners or started buying plain-wrap toilet paper. It's the "mid-list" writers who are tightening their belts. Who are mid-list authors? Pretty much anyone other than the recognizable names. Their audience is smaller, and neither merits the big advances nor earns a large profit. Imagine a world with only the big name commercial writers. Your choices would boil down to a list of maybe twenty people.

The slump boils down to this: Writers with stacks of published books to their credit are being dropped outright. Yes, you heard right. Adios, career. Respectable writers with so-so sales are taking enormous pay cuts just to stay in the game. Instead of company-funded publicity tours, the author has to think up and spend big on publicity efforts herself. The term "garret attic" has long been synonymous with writers. Emily Dickinson stayed in hers and look what poetry came out of that.

One can't blame the publishing world. These days pretty much every conversation includes the words "budget cuts." Yet if you stop and think about it, where books are concerned, the answer becomes painfully clear. Now think of the budding writer, who survives on small validations on his or her way to that first book. Will they ever pick up a pen and commit to the effort it takes to develop a voice, a style, courage, confidence, and a body of work that grows deeper and more interesting with every subsequent effort?

It's not all the fault of 9/11 or Bush's war. Over the last ten years, giant conglomerates formed, and now own several publishing houses under the same umbrella. The bookstores we were so thrilled to see emerge in the 90's are in competition with each other. Along the way, the deaths of long time independent booksellers, people who cared enough to place a new book in your hands, have been casualties. When I lived in California, there was a Barnes & Noble, a Crown Books and a Borders on one corner.

When Oprah shut down her book club, the publishing industry took a shot in the gut. Her power to get America reading was breathtaking. Lots of mid-list writers trembled in the ether hoping for Oprah's magic to give them that profile necessary to bestseller-dom. Years ago, I wrote her a letter, thanking her for making reading popular. I'd taught Basic Comp for ten years, and every semester when I asked my students to raise hands if they'd read an entire book cover to cover, I saw fewer hands. Once, on my teacher evaluations, a student wrote, "Couldn't we just watch videos instead of all this reading?"

The downside to Oprah's book club was the blatant fervor with which publishers and authors pursued her, but who can blame them for behaving like business people? While the book business is a business, it's also a rather sacred calling. Very few editors make the big bucks. Agents live in a continuous state of stress, trying to make sales and keep their authors happy. Ask them why they are in publishing and they will answer that they love books. Truthfully, so few writers make a salary to support themselves that I have come to believe that first and foremost, we write out of love for the craft.

From my earliest memory, books have been a thrill. Presents from my great aunt who magically knew what title to put in my hands. Holding in my hands the same Jack London books my father had read. The smell of new pages, the satisfying crack a book makes when first opened. That heady moment when discovering that the book I just finished by this great new author was one of twenty more titles she'd written.

These days my teaching schedule and my own writing limit my reading time, but reading remains the jewel in my day. The economy's in the toilet, there's the war to think about, and my job's no more secure yours is. We live in is a time where we need books more than ever. We learn humanity by reading fiction. Don't believe me? Pick up Harper Lee's only book, To Kill a Mockingbird . It's just as relevant today as it was when it was first published.

When Jonathon Franzen dissed Oprah he set into motion her decision to stop the book club. Now she's back, promoting classics. These books are timeless and poignant and no harm can come of reading them, but I can't help but wish she'd sneak a few current titles in now and then. Not for my own flagging career, but for me as a reader. I think of how many good books I've read because of her club and how many people I'd subsequently told, "You have to read this. It's wonderful." And the anticipation of waiting for the reader to finish so we can talk about the book. That feeling never gets old.

Please, consider buying books for the holidays. Used or new, they're treasures. They recycle well! A hardback retails for about $24; a paperback sells from $7-$15. Wouldn't you spend that much anyway, probably on a Chia Pet for those people who are hard to buy for? Try books. Your sale matters, it really does. From the store to the clerk; from the shipping company employees to the publisher spending the money in good faith; from the editor who called in her assistant to call back the agent; from the agent who believes in the writer; from the writer who risks everything to write the book.

If you don't know what to choose, ask a clerk. Find the shelf where clerks stock their favorites. There's one at Title Wave, and also at Barnes & Noble. Here are a few ideas. HC=hardcover, PB=paperback

Mystery buffs: The Last Car to Elysian Fields by James Lee Burke HC (graphic, but moral)

The Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith PB (you can buy it for your granny)

Spiritual Life: The Mitford series by Jan Karon (universal appeal)

Short Story: Collected Stories of Ron Carlson PB (hilarious, but incredible craft)

Literary Novel: The Three Junes by Julia Glass PB (first novel, great writing)

For Kids: The Berenstain Bears; anything by Richard Scarry, The Golden Compass series for older kids, the Nancy Drew series.

Happy Holidays. May your stockings be filled with books.

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