para onde vai a "literatura"

O poder do comércio, o poder da imagem, o poder da comunicação. Nada de julgamentos, apenas a constatação. No Guardian de Domingo:

(Oprah) Winfrey's decision to include self-help book A New Earth in her book club, and embark on a global promotional campaign, has turned it into this year's publishing sensation, boosting sales of the Penguin Books title from 500,000 to four million, a far greater uplift than winning the Man Booker prize might generate.

The American book market grew by 2 per cent in 2007, and Winfrey was responsible for half that expansion, according to Penguin's chief executive John Makinson, a former journalist who took over at Penguin in June 2002. The American Association of Book Publishers says the US market was worth $24.2bn in 2006, so Winfrey provided the industry with a $250m fillip last year.

(...)

But there is little doubt that we are reading more. The total number of books sold in the UK was 237.8 million in 2007, up 5.8 per cent from 224.8 million in 2006.