Frankfurt Book Fair’s a zoo

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Hephzibah Anderson of Bloomberg News is surprised that, despite the buzz around Doris Lessing’s Nobel Prize win and the forthcoming Man Booker announcement, the Frankfurt Book Fair has been dominated mainly by talk about books featuring animals.

Why animals? Well, book publishing is one of those areas that disregards what every stock investor knows: past history is no indicator of future performance. As a result, publishers are still scavenging for imitators of yesterday’s big hits such as Sara Gruen’s ‘Water for Elephants’ and Yann Martel’s ‘Life of Pi.’ These novels, however, were such big hits because they were sleepers; part of their success had to do with the fact that no one was expecting them. So the next big bestsellers are, by that rule, way off everybody’s radar. But the dealings at Frankfurt suggest that no one is paying attention: Everyone there is still stuck in the past.

Nick Owchar