Ici Radio-Canada

The CBC has two book shows: The Next Chapter, hosted by Shelagh Rogers, and Writers & Company, hosted by Eleanor Wachtel. Why two, you ask, when the CBC only needs one of everything? Elementary, my Dear Reader, in the case of Roger's kindergartenesque show, where the cancer that allowed an author the time to write a book takes precedence over whatever the author is or isn't doing to advance the literature, while in the case Wachtel's show, something akin to an honours thesis supervisor asking questions of an undergrad while picking at a salade niçoise.

Never one to displease, Rogers, 67, has supplied every answer imaginable when asked why she is leaving the CBC after 43 years, one of which is to make way for someone new, while Wachtel, 76, is, as one might expect, openly vague about her future, seeing it not as an end but as a change of pace.

Query: Will the CBC maintain these shows and bring in new hosts? Not likely. Nor will it combine them into one book show, as medium-specific-anything (see the demise of every major Canadian city newspaper's "Book Section") has been suffocated by that weighted blanket of connoisseurship known as the Pop Culture Panel (PCP). Whither books? Yes, they'll continue to be written, sometimes purchased, even read, while shows about books will have left their detached homes for yardless condos and single-paver patios.