The turn of the year is traditionally the time for reviewing one’s life, and perhaps for making some resolutions as to what to concentrate on in the coming year; and for many years past I have taken advantage of the holiday period to review my own goal and ambition.
One thing I do decide to do this year, with some unwillingness, is to give up writing the Grumpy Old Bookman column in this magazine. It’s not that I’ve lost interest in the book world, you understand. But Leonard Woolf, husband of writer Virginia Wool, used to say that a man should change his career every seven years. Though personally I would say that changing your whole career so often is going a bit far, I do find, during my own working life, that it acts as a great refresher if you can occasionally try a new job within the same organization or line of business.
It is in fact well over 15 years since our editor wrote to me and asked if I would be interested in writing a regular piece about what was, even then, a rapidly changing publishing scene. He approached me because since 2004 I had been writing a regular blog called, amazingly enough, Grumpy Old Bookman.
As my monthly survey of developments in both traditional and digital publishing continued, in this magazine, I began to realize that writers in this century, of both fiction and non-fiction, are living in something close to a paradise. Once, you struggled for years to find a publisher—or an agent if you wanted one—but now you can publish your own stuff, either digitally or in paperback, without it costing you a penny piece. Amazing.
After about five years of producing such columns, at just under a thousand words a time, it occurred to me that, rather than let these essays drift away on the seas of time, it might be of value to potential readers to publish my thoughts and comments in book form. Hence, in 2014, I published the first 69 GOB columns in paperback format, using Amazon’s Create space facilities. Title: Writers Rejoice! A monthly diary of the dawn of the digital age, which was my first trial. And now I sincerely wish a new 2022.
4. Why does the author want to give up writing the column?
A.He follows Leonard Woolf’s suggestion. |
B.He is very keen on trying something new. |
C.He is fed up with the career linked to books. |
D.He’s used to changing his job every seven years. |
5. According to the author, what can be inferred from Paragraph 4?
A.It is a blessing to live in the present times. |
B.Publishing industry is a profitable business. |
C.It is rather hard to publish books nowadays. |
D.Now it is amazing to find a publisher easily. |
6. What do you think of the author?
A.Purposeful and good at self-reflecting. |
B.Dedicated but easy to doubt himself. |
C.Emotional and good at controlling himself. |
D.Ambitious but reluctant to change himself, |
7. What does the author mainly want to tell us?
A.Giving up timely is another virtue. |
B.The beginning of a year is a new start. |
C.Reflection can drive us to push forward. |
D.Changing the job means a new opportunity. |