Narratives at length

Even though we're in the business of editing down novels, we are firm believers in the long form of narrative. We love books, and we believe in books. That we create a shorter version of books is as much as anything a reflection of that love of books, an attempt to put them in another format for another sort of reader who might not see these books otherwise. So it's nice to read a piece, like this one in the Washington Post, that agrees with our own thought that the need for narrative is part of what it means to be human. And that the whole everything-is-getting-shorter brigade may not exactly be right.

WP: It's not simply the appreciation of fiction that's adaptive. It's the appreciation of any kind of narrative. Kids at bedtime don't specify true or false: They just say "tell me a story."... Kids today have no attention span, we are told -- and then devour all seven of the Harry Potter books multiple times. More...