At The New York Review of Books' blog Tim Parks wonders whether there are Too Many Books ? -- arguing: "it's hard not to feel that we are in an era of massive overproduction", as well as that this surfeit: "tends to diminish the seriousness with which I approach any particular book".
I barely understand the question/concern -- sure, I'm annoyed by the piles of crap that flood the market (or non-market ...), and could certainly do without the dozens of e-mail pitches touting yet another anguished memoir I seem to get daily, but I don't think we've reached anywhere near capacity and I still thirst for (much) more. (The limited amount of fiction-in-translation published in English annually -- however many hundreds or even now/soon thousands of titles it is -- is a constant reminder of how little of even just the good stuff we get to see: it remains just a fraction of what is written in other languages, a needle-tip of an iceberg (sorry about that mixed metaphor, but it seems about right).)
Bring it on, I say. We -- well, I -- can't get enough.
I barely understand the question/concern -- sure, I'm annoyed by the piles of crap that flood the market (or non-market ...), and could certainly do without the dozens of e-mail pitches touting yet another anguished memoir I seem to get daily, but I don't think we've reached anywhere near capacity and I still thirst for (much) more. (The limited amount of fiction-in-translation published in English annually -- however many hundreds or even now/soon thousands of titles it is -- is a constant reminder of how little of even just the good stuff we get to see: it remains just a fraction of what is written in other languages, a needle-tip of an iceberg (sorry about that mixed metaphor, but it seems about right).)
Bring it on, I say. We -- well, I -- can't get enough.