times book review

On "Up is Up but So is Down: New York's Downtown Literary Scene, 1974-1992"

Does downtown still exist--and does it matter? The quick answer to the first question is no...As little kids in New York in the 1980s, my brother and I were scared (I blush to remember) of punks' metallic studs and mohawks; its hard to imagine first graders being terrified of a hipster in a trucker cap and expensive jeans. Today, the city is so expensive that the real Bohemians are dispersed among disparate, far flung neighborhoods.

But maybe that's not so tragic. After all, the third factor in the disappearance of Downtown is the Internet...If there is to be a new downtown, it is probably taking shape in a city like Portland, Ore., out among the fresh pine trees, and those of us in New York can visit it online.

From a brief about most-stolen books:

He added, interestingly, that the engimatic novels of the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami have begin to disappear at a fast clip. His explanation: "In his own way, Murakami is a subversive writer with an outlaw sensibility. His characters have this everyman thing going on, but they are also working against the grain."