Like many of you, I grew up with the Washington Post in my house every single day. It was a fixture; its delivery got the morning started. Some of my earliest memories are of my mother at our kitchen table as she read it stem to stern each day. The Post’s journalistic courage in covering the Pentagon Papers and Watergate made schoolkid me proud. It took until I was an adult out in the world to appreciate that other people’s hometown newspapers were local; mine was international.

Also like many of you, I’ve been watching in true dismay as the ownership and managerial spine of the Post melts like the Wicked Witch of the West in a rainstorm, but yesterday was a particularly savage blow.

Of all the many outrages announced (though nowhere on the Post’s homepage) — a third of the newsroom laid off, including the foreign correspondents covering critical spots like Ukraine — the shuttering of all book coverage is particularly painful for those of us who love, live, and breathe books.

As I mentioned here just a few days ago, the Independent was born out of the folding of the Post’s standalone Book World back in 2011. Now, with the AP out of the review business and the Post kicking it all to the curb, we’re more determined than ever to bring you the very best in thoughtful, engaging, delightfully opinionated book coverage. Be sure to bookmark us and visit every morning to see what wondrous new work is here for you to discover.

I won’t lie: It’s incredibly tough running an independent literary publication. There are days when it feels a bit like shouting into the abyss. But there are other days, like yesterday, that remind us independence has some pretty cool advantages: There’s nobody up there in the C-Suite pulling the strings. We are ourselves, alone.

We ask that you join us in the fight and support us in our mission. No matter what, we’re together in this lifelong love affair with books.

Jennifer Bort Yacovissi’s novel, Up the Hill to Home, tells the story of four generations of a family in Washington, DC, from the Civil War to the Great Depression. She reviews regularly for the Independent and serves on its board of directors as president. Follow Jenny on Bluesky at @jbywrites.bsky.social.