Martin Schneider writes:

A couple of hours ago I had a very interesting conversation with four intelligent and well-informed twentysomethings (that is, people a good deal younger than myself), none of whom rely on books as a significant source of information, inspiration, and so forth.

I hasten to add that this is not in any way meant as a criticism or even something to sigh about. I know plenty of people who are really into books, and I know plenty of people who are not; these just happened to be some of the ones who are not.

If it is not implied in my presentation already, it may need to be stated explicitly that the non-book people are not in any material way (I would venture) less informed than the book people; they simply rely more on television, blogs, podcasts, magazines, and the like for their information.

We were talking about safety standards or some such topic, and someone (continued)

Martin Schneider writes:

Here's the lede from "The Death of the Slush Pile," by Katherine Rosman, in the Wall Street Journal:

In 1991, a book editor at Random House pulled from the heaps of unsolicited manuscripts a novel about a murder that roils a Baltimore suburb. Written by a first-time author and mother-to-be named Mary Cahill, "Carpool" was published to fanfare. Ms. Cahill was interviewed on the "Today" show. "Carpool" was a best seller.
That was the last time Random House, the largest publisher in the U.S., remembers publishing anything found in a slush pile. Today, Random House and most of its major counterparts refuse to accept unsolicited material.

(After I wrote the above, it occurred to me that I should find out how Random House got its name. According to Wikipedia, "Random House was founded in 1927 by Americans Bennett Cerf, Christopher Coombes and Donald Klopfer, two years after they acquired the Modern Library imprint. Cerf is quoted as saying, 'We just said we were going to publish a few books on the side at random,' which suggested the name Random House.")
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