Even the most fervent, optimistic newspaper readers had to be humbled by this fatal dose delivered this week by AP: “Regional and national newspaper publishers, already staggering with a drop in ad revenue more severe than the industry has seen since the Great Depression, say the second half of 2008 may be even worse.” Which makes the situation for book-lovers out west even more troubling, given that the Los Angeles Times is folding its standalone Sunday book review section, and thus reducing its celebrated Festival of Books to a “hollow joke,” says Steve Wasserman, a former editor of the Book Review. A sad one, too.