I’m glad to hear I’ve got some faithful readers here at the Orchard. A few friends have asked me why I’ve posted so infrequently, and in fact there’s a good reason. I’m doing a special project on LitKicks, an inquiry into the question “Does Literary Fiction Suffer from Dysfunctional Pricing?“. It’s been a very lively debate, so lively that it’s really sapped my stamina for the kind of politically-minded or philosophical debates we often have here. I also haven’t been able to pay attention to some recent news developments and subjects I would usually cover.
For instance, I didn’t post anything about this year’s United Nations General Assembly, even though it had been one of my original intentions here to blog about the United Nations (well, hell, somebody’s got to). This doesn’t mean I have lost interest in that subject; it just means I couldn’t pay close enough attention this year to have anything useful to say.
If you’ve found the political inquiries and discussions we’ve had in the past here interesting, though, I’d suggest you pop over to LitKicks and check out the very intense discussion we’re having about book pricing, book industry habits and hardcover vs. paperback demographics. In a way, I’ve begun this project because I want to see how such an organized inquiry proceeds, and the mission of this literary project is very much aligned with the mission of the political inquiries we’ve conducted here.
Which is all meant to say: don’t worry that Levi Asher has abandoned the Cherry Orchard. I’m just busy in a different orchard for the moment, but I’ll be back soon, and there’s plenty to talk about.
