There was a time in the mid 20th century, the literary historian Gayle Feldman reminds us, when the book business was cool. Back then, New York publishing resembled Silicon Valley tech and the Mark Zuckerberg of his day was the Random House founder Bennett Cerf. In her new biography of Cerf, Nothing Random, Feldman tells the story of this celebrity entrepreneur, noting that he helped pioneer the publishing industry’s venture capitalist style business model which enabled hit authors like Ayn Rand or Dr Seuss to finance start-up writers like Cormac McCarthy. Those were the days, a slightly wistful Feldman reminisces. She’s right. If only today’s corporate publishing industry could recapture some of that Cerfian magic. Then books might become cool again.

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