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We know we live in difficult times when news breaks that some publishers are cancelling their all-important midday meal, is Robert McCrum's assessment of the troubled times in the Observer. "This week the crisis I have long predicted erupted with sudden fury in the shocking dismissal of Sam Leith as literary editor of the Daily Telegraph," he writes.
"The book world is in full-blown transition. Blogs are rampant; Google is digitising every text going; e-readers are transforming the experience of reading. Books (and book reviewing) have been pushed to the margin. It doesn't help that in a global recession publishing is also feeling the pinch."
He adds: "Privately, senior figures in publishing are beginning to ask if the boom is over."