The normally at-least-semi-lucid New York magazine media critic Michael Wolff has gone mildly insane in his most recent essay.

He took the firing of an editor at a big NYC book company, something that happens darn near every month at one of those places, and whipped up a big concoction of a piece claiming the whole book biz is an old-media dinosaur stuck in a permanent death spiral.

This is the sort of fluff I’ve been hearing for eight years from the Wired dorks (hey, just ’cause their own book division went sternum-up…) and for over twenty years from the disgruntled-hippie-curmudgeon set. But from where I sit, books (as a fiscal if not a creative endeavor) are about as strong as any media endeavor during our current Great Depression Lite.

When the Kmart Corp. began its current tailspin, what was the first asset it sold, the one most certain to fetch a premium price? The Borders bookstores. That tactic’s what the financially sicker-than-sick AOL Time Warner is doing now. The AOL Internet racket wound’t fetch ’em the price of a measly banner ad; but the conglomerate’s book units (including Little, Brown and Time-Life Books) would, so they’re what AOLTW’s putting up for sale.

The ol’ dead-tree-lit biz has certain advantages in the current marketplace. Unlike websites, it puts out a tangible physical product (that can even be resold on the used market). Unlike periodicals, its products have relatively indefinite shelf lives. Unlike periodicals or broadcasters, books aren’t dependent upon slump-prone ad sales. Books can be “affordable luxuries,” little treats you can give yourself or loved ones.

Wolff claims there’s no need to romanticize The Book anymore, because it’s become just another lowest-common-denominator, dumbed-down product. But then he claims nobody’s buying books (or at least caring about them) except a little Northeastern elite (that happens to coincide with his own readership). There wouldn’t be mass-market books if mass markets weren’t buying them.

There are a few problems besetting the book biz these days, above the general economic malaise. Wolff’s just mistaken about what they are.

First, book publishing can’t be run on a healthy, long-term basis on the kind of profit margins demanded by media conglomerates obsessed with The Almighty Stock Price. Thus, even the making and selling of highly commercial titles is best handled by independent firms. (Thus, the spinoff of AOLTW’s book arm might be better for both the seller and the sold.)

Second, there’s the little matter known as Serious Literature. Like “independent” film and “alternative” music, it’s a niche genre that appeals to customers who think they’re hipper and smarter than any dumb ol’ corporation. (Whether the customers really are all that hip or intelligent doesn’t really matter.) They’re a piece of the business even more apt to be better serviced by the non-conglomerates.

Wolff sneeringly dismisses serious-lit lovers as passé crackpots, out of tune with the 21st century. Actually these are the gals n’ guys who, when they’re doing their jobs right (as writers, editors, sellers, and readers), unearth and reveal the truths about our age.

It’s the media hype speed-freaks like Wolff who, from this corner, seem more like relics of a discredited time.