If the publishing industry really does collapse, as some predict it will, it won’t be the big houses or the independent bookstores that will be most affected, it will be Hollywood. This year’s crop of Oscar contenders raises the question “Can there be a cinema without books?” I’m skeptical. Try to imagine this year’s Academy Awards without Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close or Moneyball or The Descendants or The Help or Hugo. Even Midnight in Paris couldn’t exist without Hemingway and Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein. Without books, Scott Rudin would have to have to find work as a dentist or something.
