News of the changes in the Los Angeles Times Book Review continues to swirl after the publication of the last stand-alone LATBR on Sunday. Yesterday the Los Angeles Times published an essay on the birth of “Midnight’s Children” by Salman Rushdie . A series of reviews are scheduled through this week. For the latest, including news of the LA Times’s online book coverage, I checked in with LA Times book editor David L. Ulin.
Q. Will NBCC members Ed Park and Sarah Weinman and your other columnists continue their monthly focused online reviews?
A. Changes affect Sunday book review coverage only. All else will remain intact. As for the web, the columns will remain. There are five of them: Astral Weeks by Ed Park (science fiction), Dark Passages by Sarah Weinman (mysteries), Paperback Writers by Richard Rayner (paperbacks), Word Play by Sonja Bolle (children’s literature), and The Siren’s Call The Siren’s Call by Nick Owchar (myth and lore). We will also be keeping Susan Salter Reynolds “Discoveries” column, which has been an important part of our coverage for many years.
Q. How about Jacket Copy, your book blog started in May 2007? Any expansions, changes, upcoming series? Are you continuing the to “live blog” the serialization in Playboy of the new Denis Johnson novel, “Nobody Move”?
A. We will also maintain Jacket Copy. And yes, we’re continuing with the Johnson project; round two gets started this week. There are some expansion plans for the web, but we’re not going to share those until they solidify.