[[Category:Entertainment|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Entertainment]] __NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->
{{newreview
|author=Tim Parks
|title=Where I'm Reading From: The Changing World of Books
|rating=3.5
|genre=Entertainment
|summary=Books, eh? – who here doesn't just love them? (And if you don't, please exercise greater mouse control as you click away.) Some of us love books about books – and that includes a lot of us here at the Bookbag. And who better to turn to regarding books than [[:Category:Tim Parks|Mr Tim Parks]], who writes them, writes about them, educates about them, translates them, teaches the translation thereof, blogs professionally about them… He tells us he has a split personality in that different worldly territories know him for different things, whether that be essays, travel writing, seriously serio-comic fiction, or just for being 'that bloke who never exactly set the world on fire but does do a definitely reliable turn every time I've tried him'. This, being the pick of four years' web posts for the ''New York Review of Books'', is his clearest statement in book form about books, and yes, it is yet again a pretty reliable turn.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784701793</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Emma Marriott
|summary=It’s not difficult to find a history of popular or recorded music, written around the musical names who made it happen. ''Cowboys and Indies'' takes a different approach. While there is plenty in these pages about several of the most important stars, there is just as much again if not sometimes more about the movers and shakers, the inventors, managers, impresarios, and record label founders without whom there would not have been a record industry.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781254524</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Emma Tennant, Hilary Bailey and David Elliott
|title=Did We Meet on Grub Street?
|rating=3.5
|genre=Entertainment
|summary=Essentially, the three authors (all of whom have long careers in the book industry) revel in the idea of being whining old curmudgeons who miss the good old days of publishing. This unashamed nostalgia provides the focus of the book and allows the writers to recount numerous anecdotes from their days in the publishing business. Whilst the primary audience for this book may well be students of creative writing and media studies, it also serves as an interesting exploration of an aspect of modern history: how a once-burgeoning industry is now a shell of its former self, much like a lot of manufacturing. Because of this, I was disappointed that no space was given to a consideration of how the rise of the e-book and Kindle has directly damaged both the sale of books and the potential for new books to be written (fewer real books sold = fewer financial advances paid to writers = fewer books written). Also, given the clear love of books as treasured artifacts, the dismissal of the Harry Potter phenomenon seems truculent, given the impetus the series gave to reading amongst both the young and adults.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0704372983</amazonuk>
}}