This year was not kind to the people who write, sell and opine about books.

We marked the death of several major authors, the gutting of several major book review publications, the closings of more independent booksellers and the disappearance of the British boy wizard who created quite a buzz among readers.

A federal arts agency declared the sky was falling on the role of reading in American life as the country seemed to be sinking deeper into an obsession with worthless celebrities, computer games, Facebook and text-messaging.

We had met the barbarians, and they were us. (Apologies to Walt Kelly.)

Yet, somehow in the past 12 months, good things were happening. Book sales were inching up, as were reading scores for grade schools and public funding for libraries.

Thanks to an ever-so-modest boost from the Allegheny County Regional Assets Board, Carnegie Library will open the main library in Oakland beginning Jan. 6 at 9 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays and noon on Sundays, an hour earlier each day.

The region's independent stores stayed in business during the year and a national chain, Borders, opened an outlet in East Liberty.

And while the National Endowment for the Arts continued its doomsday scenarios for the future of reading, plenty of people filled seats at the city's various author and poetry readings all year long. In fact, a good many were standing-room only, especially at several emerging independent series in new and offbeat venues.

Taking advantage of the Internet, literary journals were being published through the region's academic and publishing communities, giving more and more writers outlets.

With the enormous influence of Oprah Winfrey, the serious novel shed its veneer of elitism and entered popular culture when the TV talk queen selected the literary novelist Cormac McCarthy and his apocalyptic "The Road" for her book club.

Sales soared. Another McCarthy novel, "No Country for Old Men," was turned into a Hollywood film, as were Ian McEwan's masterpiece, "Atonement," and George Crile's entertaining history, "Charlie Wilson's War."

More important, 2007 was a great year for excellent new books to read. In fiction, Denis Johnson came into his own with "Tree of Smoke" while Michael Ondaatje, Michael Chabon, Ann Patchett, Marianne Wiggins and Pittsburgh's Stewart O'Nan and Annie Dillard delivered.

Biographies and American history were highlights in nonfiction. Profiles of Charles Schulz, Ralph Ellison, Helen Clay Frick, Thomas Hardy and Edith Wharton competed with such histories as "Legacy of Ashes," "The Day of Battle," "The Coldest Winter" and "The Slave Ship."

The ax was out at newspapers such as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, San Diego Times-Union and Raleigh News-Observer, chopping away at the space and people dedicated to reviewing books as part of an overall retrenchment among the nation's newspapers. The Post-Gazette made no changes.

Protests followed in articles by Steve Wasserman, former L.A. Times book editor, in the Columbia Journalism Review, James Wolcott in the New Republic and other publications, but what was missing from these laments was a willingness to accept that book criticism and coverage were shifting to the Internet, where it's still a Wild West show, but one with a future.

Nationally and here in Pittsburgh, the year marked the deaths of influential and important writers who made the 20th century an interesting place.

Kurt Vonnegut, 85: Age had slowed down the cynical, tough-talking novelist, but he never lost his biting wit and despair with the human animal. Major works included "Slaughterhouse-Five," "Breakfast of Champions" and "Cat's Cradle."

C. Hax McCullough, 81, the oldest brother of the McCullough clan of Point Breeze, chronicled his city through a series of corporate and cultural histories, sadly dying before he could finish the book about his favorite organization, the Pittsburgh Symphony.

Norman Mailer, 84, left the world's stage last month in uncharacteristic fashion -- quietly. Never quite the major American novelist he desperately wanted to be, Mailer instead wrote major works of nonfiction that will ensure his place in U.S. letters.

Ira Levin, 78, was a successful playwright whose few novels, "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Boys From Brazil," were turned into memorable movies. He died last month shortly after a local theater group performed his Broadway hit, "Deathtrap," but, despite rumors started by some who saw the production, the two events are apparently unrelated.

Elizabeth Hardwick, 91, started her writing career as a novelist in the 1940s but soon moved into criticism. She became one of America's most serious and dedicated book reviewers and set high standards with her work in the New York Review of Books, a publication she co-founded in 1963.