new york times book review staff

Today's Digital Daily

site categories

Parent item expand the sub menu, paris provisional calendar is out: dries van noten to present his final men’s show, the best street style from milan design week, l catterton acquires majority stake in kiko milano, media people: pamela paul of the new york times book review.

With 10 years at The Book Review, Paul talks about what got her there, forced discomfort and the current worth of literary criticism.

• Share this article on Facebook
• Share this article on X
• Share this article on Flipboard
• Share this article on Pin It
• Share this article on Tumblr
• Share this article on Reddit
• Share this article on LinkedIn
• Share this article on WhatsApp
• Share this article on Email
• Print this article
• Share this article on Talk

There are roundabout ways into journalism and then there’s the way Pamela Paul, editor of The New York Times Book Review, came to it.

First it was going to be advertising, partly inspired by her mother who became a copywriter the same year as the fictional Peggy Olsen did in “Mad Men.” Then it was teaching and library work on a sojourn in Asia. Then children’s book publishing at Scholastic, having applied on “a whim.” Then business development for documentary films and what was then Turner Broadcasting and Time Inc. Then it was following “a guy” to London. Then, finally, she got some freelance work there for The Economist. That eventually led to her first book deal for The Starter Marriage, which was something of a sensation upon its 2002 release.

“It was kind of a novel idea for people at the time,” Paul said of the book, which looked at the budding phenomenon of short-lived and childless first marriages, inspired in part by her own to Bret Stephens.

Related Articles

Chanel beauty, dolce & gabbana, david yurman, others join new saks media network.

But a career writing was always the one she wanted, Paul says over Zoom, sitting in front of appropriately book-filled shelves.

Even after moving to Thailand in an effort to put herself through something uncomfortable, then traveling through some of China having decided to stop eating anything but one serving of rice a day for weeks because she hadn’t suffered enough in life to “appreciate” things appropriately, Paul didn’t let herself try writing for a living. Eventually she succumbed, just as she did to proper food after almost a month without.

“I quit my job and wrote my first book and kept writing for The Economist and I realized I won’t ever, ever, ever not do this again,” she said.

But full-time staff work was not something she was going for when an opportunity to join The Book Review came up 10 years ago. Paul was happy writing books and freelancing, frequently for The Times, in her pajamas from home (a muscle that snapped back into form when the pandemic hit). But ultimately she realized it was an opportunity she shouldn’t pass up if the position could be made part-time.

“I Dick Cheney-d my way in,” Paul joked. “[The editor] asked me to help find someone and I’m like ‘How ‘bout me!’”

Now having just written her first children’s book, “Rectangle Time” (a longtime wish), along with three other books since joining The Times, Paul reflects on what finally brought her to writing, what’s changed in book publishing and journalism since she started in the Aughts and the effects of literary criticism being harder to find, but maybe more important, than ever.

WWD: So when you were younger was media the goal? Did you just want to be a writer?

Pamela Paul: I did want to work in something that was word-oriented and I thought ad copywriting sounded like a lot of fun and I loved the idea of publishing. But I really couldn’t afford to work in publishing when I graduated.

WWD: How did you get to The Economist?

P.P.: When I graduated from college, I moved to northern Thailand and was planning to then move to Hong Kong. I knew Hong Kong would be harder [financially], so I came home and drove up to my college alumni office to look up some names of people who lived in Hong Kong so I could have some contacts to get a job. And while I was there, there was a job listing for a position at Scholastic in New York. So I applied on a whim thinking “Well, if I were to not go to Hong Kong, this is the kind of thing I’d want to do because it’s books for kids and parents and it’s something I could feel good about myself doing.”

One of the reasons I moved to Thailand is I found that some of the jobs I was looking at felt like they were compromises in terms of what I wanted to be doing with my life.

WWD: And you decided to teach English or you just always wanted to go there?

P.P.: What happened was I was interviewing for jobs in advertising and I was in the middle of an interview with someone from Quaker Oats and I remember saying to the interviewer, “I really like Cap’n Crunch but only when there’s Crunch Berries.”

The interviewer was like, “Um, OK, a lot of us here like Cap’n Crunch, but why do you want to work here?” And it was one of those experiences where you see yourself from a birds-eye view and I thought, “What the f–k are you saying.” Then said to him, “Actually, I’m sorry I don’t want to work here and I’m sorry I wasted your time,” and I walked out and canceled all my interviews. It was sort of my John Cusack moment.

So I decided to force myself into a situation where everything I would be doing would be things I thought I wouldn’t want to do.

WWD: Huh, OK…

P.P.: I was not interested in Asia so I picked Asia. I wanted to go somewhere where I didn’t know anyone, where I had no connections. No job. No friends. I didn’t speak the language. It wasn’t the same ethnicity or religion or anything. And I assumed I would teach English, but it turns out I’m terrible at teaching English. I’m also just a terrible teacher, to clarify that.

WWD: I’m not sure I’ve heard of someone doing something like this to such an intentional extreme. Where did the urge even come from? Was this advice?

P.P.: No. I don’t know where it comes from. I think sometimes I have some kind of very mean inner voice, which is just like “You never had to walk 10 miles back and forth from school, who do you think you are complaining?!” I believe in the value of challenging yourself. Two things I’d done earlier, which were not nearly as tough, but I was a very unathletic kid — truly, I could not and I’ve never ever hit a ball with a bat — so as a challenge to myself in college I joined the rugby team.

WWD: Again, maybe the most extreme thing you could have done.

P.P.: Yeah. But I enjoyed it. And I joined a gospel choir even though I’m an atheist and I can’t sing. I guess I do have a streak of wanting to put myself in situations that are uncomfortable and challenging and like, can you take it? Maybe it’s also that I grew up with seven brothers so I always feel like I’m such a wuss. I’m a wimp and I have to tough it out.

When I was in China, I ended up snowed-in in a blizzard in April. I ended up finishing a book in that yurt called Wild Swans by Jung Chang. I had this sudden feeling of “I’m never going to be able to appreciate things the way she can because I’ve never really had any kind of deprivation.” So, I decided to deprive myself of the thing I love most, which is food.

WWD: OK…

P.P.: So for the rest of my time in China, I decided I would not eat except for one serving of rice or bread a day, depending on what area I was in, and one clear broth every two days, to make sure I got enough vitamins.

WWD: And how long was this for?

P.P.: I was going to do it for six weeks but, cut to the chase, it lasted about three-and-a-half weeks. I was walking out of the Forbidden City, there was a noodle stand and I was like, “F–k this.” So that was the end of that.

WWD: It’s funny that you referred to yourself as a wimp. I would say you’re borderline masochistic.

P.P.: No, I’m super indulgent. But that’s why I tried, because I am that person. I have a full drawer of candy at my desk at all times.

WWD: How did you not end up writing “The Master Cleanse” or something and becoming a millionaire? 

P.P.: Oh, God. No. I went Scholastic. I went from there to Time Inc. and from there I actually moved to London for a year.

WWD: Still with Time?

P.P.: No. I followed a guy. And I didn’t have working papers and could only freelance so that’s how I ended up writing for The Economist. I did a monthly column for them on global arts and that sort of moved into film and theater criticism and later book reviewing. But I moved back to the U.S. after a year and worked briefly in documentary film, also on the business side. Then I went to Turner, also in new business development. All the while really kind of wanting to be a writer. I had actually written a proposal and a good chunk of a book when I came back from Asia about that experience, which I thank my lucky stars was roundly rejected everywhere, as it should have been. I hope it will never ever see the light of day.

WWD: It’s kind of a fascinating story though. You just think the writing was bad?

P.P.: You know it’s nonfiction, so maybe I just didn’t like me at that time. I would’ve given me a bad review. And the writing was bad. But in 2000, I quit my job and wrote my first book and kept writing for The Economist and I realized I won’t ever, ever, ever not do this again. So after that I took my first real job in media working for a trade magazine.

WWD: Which one?

P.P.: American Demographics. Which was a magazine that I loved. After that magazine went under, I went freelance and the second and third books I wrote were based off of stories for Time. I went from writing mostly for The Economist to writing mostly for Time to then writing mostly for sections of The New York Times .

WWD: How did you get that first book deal? Did you use connections from publishing?

P.P.: I had no connections. The only thing I had was an agent from that first book and the reason I had one was because when I was living in Thailand, I would write these letters home called “Pam-a-grams.” I would write one letter and I would send it to my mom with a list of names to send it on to and she would photocopy it. One of the “Pam-a-grams” got in front of a book editor and that’s how I got an agent. Other than that, I had no name. The Economist had no bylines but based on my proposal and my work there, I was able to get that first book deal.

WWD: And that book, “The Starter Marriage,” kind of popped off.

P.P.: You never know when it’s your first book what’s normal and what’s not, but what was not normal was the amount of attention it got. I think it was kind of a novel idea for people at the time. At the end of 2002, in Time’s Man of the Year issue, now Person of the Year, they also have terms of the year and one of the terms was Google and one of the terms was Starter Marriage. And one went on to make millions and millions of dollars!

WWD: If only you’d had the presence of mind to start a marriage search engine.

P.P.: It was a good lesson to have early on, the value but also the limits of the media. There was a week where I’d done all these TV shows and radio interviews and I walked out of my apartment one morning like, “I am so famous, everyone is going to be like, ‘What is Pamela Paul doing just walking down the street in Murray Hill?!’” And of course nobody knows. You can think you’re everywhere and no one knows who you are.

WWD: When you really started writing and freelancing, do you look back on it like it was a totally different time in media culture or are some things the same?

P.P.: Oh, no. It’s totally different. Completely different. It was the Aughts and there were still lots of magazines and lots of editors. I remember sending snail mail pitches with clips that I’d cut out and send along and getting snail mail responses. Early on it was considered disrespectful to email someone. There was a greater number of outlets that were interested in writing. There was less emphasis on what would go viral and hit with an audience and more on what was an interesting piece of writing and what was of value and worth doing and important.

But it’s easier now to have some kind of visibility. You can kind of hang out your shingle on Twitter or have some kind of digital presence. In the early Aughts you were just another name in someone’s mailbox.

WWD: Do you think there’s an issue now of quantity over quality? The accessibility has led to a difficulty in cultivating good writers or more deeply reported pieces of journalism?

P.P.: The Internet is really big and there’s obviously a glut of writing. One of the functions of magazines, especially, used to be a kind of curation and triage that no longer exists to the same extent. I’m generally kind of pessimistic. I tend to think that a lot of the pieces I really loved to read in magazines are harder to find.

WWD: This idea that news outlets and media in general have an overarching focus on virality, do you think that’s in book publishing as well, printing those books that will get a lot of coverage?

P.P.: It’s hard to know what their motivations are, but I do think the book editors I know are all incredibly passionate and principled people who are really in it because they’re trying to produce great work or get great work out there. It’s generally an industry filled with people who are trying to do good in the world. I feel that way about journalism, too.

WWD: Since you’ve been with The Book Review, do you feel the book industry has changed in any meaningful way?

P.P.: Book publishing always changes and shifts to reflect the times. Micro-generations of writers that happen and then recede. I like to think of books as agenda setting, but in other ways there’s a bit of a lag. You have societal changes and the books follow.

WWD: And you wrote three books while freelancing before you joined The Times. Was it a hard decision to go back to an employer or were you ready?

P.P.: No. I was never going to work in an office again. I really liked working at home in my pajamas. In that respect, quarantine is like, “Oh, here I am again.” At the time, I was pretty pleased to be working from home. Then the editor of the Book Review at the time was looking for a full-time children’s book editor and he asked me for advice. I suggested a number of people but none of them were the right fit. Then I was in L.A. with my husband and kids and I wanted to go to this picture book and illustration gallery store, Every Picture Tells a Story, now closed. So I had this epiphany, “If I actually care this much about children’s books, maybe I should consider this job myself.” So I emailed the editor and said, ‘If there’s any chance you could make this part-time, I might be interested.’

Three weeks later I was working at The Times. I Dick Cheney-d my way in. [The editor] asked me to help and I’m like “How bout me!”

WWD: What is it about children’s books that’s so alluring to you?

P.P.: Oh, I mean, at every level. That’s when we become readers. That’s when you’re first drawn in. Those are the books that fundamentally make you a reader, that open your eyes to what words can do. With picture books, there’s an aesthetic to it, a whole other kind of story-telling.

WWD: I’m curious about the process at The Times. How do you decide to review a book?

P.P.: It’s a very collaborative desk. For the daily paper it’s the staff critics who decide what to review. And I think it should be the critics because they’re making a decision to write about books they deem important and they feel like they have something to say. And that they also think The Times as an institution should weigh in on. It’s hard to write about something that is not important to you.

For the Book Review [not done by staff critics], it’s a little bit the opposite. There, it’s the editors and the editors we call previewers, who each have areas of expertise. They bring to senior editors, including me, the books they think we should review and ideas of people they think could be good at reviewing and then we have a conversation. Then we make a determination to assign this book at this length and go to these people to review first, second and third.

WWD: With those reviews, typically by big names, is that something that this newer, maybe friendlier era of the book review has brought in?

P.P.: There are a few things that guide us. We never want to do a takedown. We don’t deliberately set up a book to be slammed. If we just wanted clicks, we could do that, but that’s not what The Times is about and it’s not journalistic or ethical. When we’re assigning a review, we’re looking at a number of measures, one of which is “Would this reviewer appreciate this book?” We want someone to give a fair assessment who will be open to it.

WWD: It seems like this tone is different than in previous years or decades.

P.P.: My immediate predecessors were Sam Tanenhaus and before him Chip McGrath and I feel like that’s part of what they were doing.

This is a section of ideas and books. A kind of Swiss neutral territory. We’re kind of halfway between the newsroom, which does not insert opinion, and the opinion section, which is just opinion. We assert opinion through the lens of books. The way we’re trying to achieve that has been fairly consistent over the last couple of decades.

WWD: In present terms, what is the purpose or value of criticism? 

P.P.: There’s a value in really good literary criticism, now more than ever, because there are so many opinions. What The Times is doing is a kind of rigorous criticism that is increasingly rare. Most local news outlets no longer have staff critics or even books pages or reviews of any kind.

If you talk to an author of fiction who’s been working for a couple of decades, they used to be able to count on getting a good 20 to 30 reviews in Ohio, Illinois, Florida, Texas. Now, you’re lucky to get one or two reviews. There used to be pages of book reviews in Vogue, for example, now there is one column on one page…

WWD: Of summaries.

P.P.: Yeah. There’s a real dearth of quality literary journalism. And I’m not trying to say anything negative about our competition, but there isn’t enough competition. And there aren’t enough resources. And particularly at a local level. It used to be that the San Francisco papers would review local authors. The L.A. Times would give a lot of space to writers based in California. Readers are losing out with the disappearance of that coverage.

WWD: Do you think the kind of dying breed of the professional critic has a degenerative effect on the arts-books-culture ecosystem on the whole?

P.P.: Yeah. If you don’t have enough people who can rise up and make a living writing book criticism, getting that experience of doing all that reading, there’s no pipeline. What would I say to someone today who says, “I want to be a book critic?”

WWD: But people do still read. There have been a couple of different eras of whoever saying “Books are over,” but do you see the appetite for reading books being about the same as it’s always been?

P.P.: I think books will endure. I like TV and film and theater as much as the next person, but to my mind, books are the most powerful vehicle for storytelling for the reason that with a book, the reader is creating the experience as much as the writer is delivering it. You’re creating as much as you’re consuming and those stories stick with you because they become your own.

Sign up for WWD news straight to your inbox every day

Ethan Hawke, Maya Hawke & Laura Linney Talk ‘Wildcat’

WWD and Women's Wear Daily are part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2024 Fairchild Publishing, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Fashion Expand fashion menu

• Fashion Trends
• Fashion Features
• Fashion Scoops
• Designer & Luxury
• Ready-To-Wear
• Accessories

Business Expand business menu

• Government & Trade
• Mergers & Acquisitions
• Marketing & Promotion
• Human Resources
• Business Features
• Real Estate

Beauty Expand beauty menu

• Beauty Features

Men's Expand mens menu

• Mens Accessories
• Mens Clothing Furnishings
• Mens Designer Luxury
• Mens Lifestyle
• Mens Retail Business
• Mens Sportswear
• Mens Fashion

Runway Expand runway menu

• Men’s Fall 2024
• Pre-Fall 2024
• Spring Ready-to-Wear 2024
• Fall Couture 2023
• Resort 2024

Denim Expand denim menu

Sustainability expand sustainability menu.

• Environment
• Social Impact

Home/Design Expand home-design menu

• Interior Design
• Architecture

WWD Weekend Expand wwd-weekend menu

Events expand events menu, eye expand eye menu.

• Celebrity Real Estate

Shop Expand shop menu

More expand more menu.

• Fairchild Live
• RetailRx Community

Verify it's you

Please log in.

Jump to navigation Skip to content

Search form

• P&W on Facebook
• P&W on Twitter
• P&W on Instagram

Find details about every creative writing competition—including poetry contests, short story competitions, essay contests, awards for novels, grants for translators, and more—that we’ve published in the Grants & Awards section of Poets & Writers Magazine during the past year. We carefully review the practices and policies of each contest before including it in the Writing Contests database, the most trusted resource for legitimate writing contests available anywhere.

Find a home for your poems, stories, essays, and reviews by researching the publications vetted by our editorial staff. In the Literary Magazines database you’ll find editorial policies, submission guidelines, contact information—everything you need to know before submitting your work to the publications that share your vision for your work.

Whether you’re pursuing the publication of your first book or your fifth, use the Small Presses database to research potential publishers, including submission guidelines, tips from the editors, contact information, and more.

Research more than one hundred agents who represent poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers, plus details about the kinds of books they’re interested in representing, their clients, and the best way to contact them.

Every week a new publishing professional shares advice, anecdotes, insights, and new ways of thinking about writing and the business of books.

Find publishers ready to read your work now with our Open Reading Periods page, a continually updated resource listing all the literary magazines and small presses currently open for submissions.

Since our founding in 1970, Poets & Writers has served as an information clearinghouse of all matters related to writing. While the range of inquiries has been broad, common themes have emerged over time. Our Top Topics for Writers addresses the most popular and pressing issues, including literary agents, copyright, MFA programs, and self-publishing.

Our series of subject-based handbooks (PDF format; $4.99 each) provide information and advice from authors, literary agents, editors, and publishers. Now available: The Poets & Writers Guide to Publicity and Promotion, The Poets & Writers Guide to the Book Deal, The Poets & Writers Guide to Literary Agents, The Poets & Writers Guide to MFA Programs, and The Poets & Writers Guide to Writing Contests.

Find a home for your work by consulting our searchable databases of writing contests, literary magazines, small presses, literary agents, and more.

Poets & Writers lists readings, workshops, and other literary events held in cities across the country. Whether you are an author on book tour or the curator of a reading series, the Literary Events Calendar can help you find your audience.

Get the Word Out is a new publicity incubator for debut fiction writers and poets.

Research newspapers, magazines, websites, and other publications that consistently publish book reviews using the Review Outlets database, which includes information about publishing schedules, submission guidelines, fees, and more.

Well over ten thousand poets and writers maintain listings in this essential resource for writers interested in connecting with their peers, as well as editors, agents, and reading series coordinators looking for authors. Apply today to join the growing community of writers who stay in touch and informed using the Poets & Writers Directory.

Let the world know about your work by posting your events on our literary events calendar, apply to be included in our directory of writers, and more.

Find a writers group to join or create your own with Poets & Writers Groups. Everything you need to connect, communicate, and collaborate with other poets and writers—all in one place.

Find information about more than two hundred full- and low-residency programs in creative writing in our MFA Programs database, which includes details about deadlines, funding, class size, core faculty, and more. Also included is information about more than fifty MA and PhD programs.

Whether you are looking to meet up with fellow writers, agents, and editors, or trying to find the perfect environment to fuel your writing practice, the Conferences & Residencies is the essential resource for information about well over three hundred writing conferences, writers residencies, and literary festivals around the world.

Discover historical sites, independent bookstores, literary archives, writing centers, and writers spaces in cities across the country using the Literary Places database—the best starting point for any literary journey, whether it’s for research or inspiration.

Search for jobs in education, publishing, the arts, and more within our free, frequently updated job listings for writers and poets.

Establish new connections and enjoy the company of your peers using our searchable databases of MFA programs and writers retreats, apply to be included in our directory of writers, and more.

• Register for Classes

Each year the Readings & Workshops program provides support to hundreds of writers participating in literary readings and conducting writing workshops. Learn more about this program, our special events, projects, and supporters, and how to contact us.

The Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award introduces emerging writers to the New York City literary community, providing them with a network for professional advancement.

Find information about how Poets & Writers provides support to hundreds of writers participating in literary readings and conducting writing workshops.

Bring the literary world to your door—at half the newsstand price. Available in print and digital editions, Poets & Writers Magazine is a must-have for writers who are serious about their craft.

View the contents and read select essays, articles, interviews, and profiles from the current issue of the award-winning Poets & Writers Magazine .

Read essays, articles, interviews, profiles, and other select content from Poets & Writers Magazine as well as Online Exclusives.

View the covers and contents of every issue of Poets & Writers Magazine , from the current edition all the way back to the first black-and-white issue in 1987.

Every day the editors of Poets & Writers Magazine scan the headlines—publishing reports, literary dispatches, academic announcements, and more—for all the news that creative writers need to know.

In our weekly series of craft essays, some of the best and brightest minds in contemporary literature explore their craft in compact form, articulating their thoughts about creative obsessions and curiosities in a working notebook of lessons about the art of writing.

The Time Is Now offers weekly writing prompts in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction to help you stay committed to your writing practice throughout the year. Sign up to get The Time Is Now, as well as a weekly book recommendation for guidance and inspiration, delivered to your inbox.

Every week a new author shares books, art, music, writing prompts, films—anything and everything—that has inspired and shaped the creative process.

Listen to original audio recordings of authors featured in Poets & Writers Magazine . Browse the archive of more than 400 author readings.

Ads in Poets & Writers Magazine and on pw.org are the best ways to reach a readership of serious poets and literary prose writers. Our audience trusts our editorial content and looks to it, and to relevant advertising, for information and guidance.

Start, renew, or give a subscription to Poets & Writers Magazine ; change your address; check your account; pay your bill; report a missed issue; contact us.

Peruse paid listings of writing contests, conferences, workshops, editing services, calls for submissions, and more.

Poets & Writers is pleased to provide free subscriptions to Poets & Writers Magazine to award-winning young writers and to high school creative writing teachers for use in their classrooms.

Read select articles from the award-winning magazine and consult the most comprehensive listing of literary grants and awards, deadlines, and prizewinners available in print.

• Subscribe Now

Q&A: The Editor Behind the Book Review

• Printable Version
• Log in to Send
• Log in to Save

485 episodes

The world's top authors and critics join host Gilbert Cruz and editors at The New York Times Book Review to talk about the week's top books, what we're reading and what's going on in the literary world. Listen to this podcast in New York Times Audio, our new iOS app for news subscribers. Download now at nytimes.com/audioapp

The Book Review The New York Times

• 4.1 • 3.3K Ratings
• APR 26, 2024

Book Club: Dolly Alderton's 'Good Material'

In this week’s episode, MJ Franklin discusses Dolly Alderton's hit book "Good Material" with his colleagues Emily Eakin and Leah Greenblatt. (Caution: Spoilers abound!)

• APR 12, 2024

100 Years of Simon & Schuster

The publisher has gone through a lot of changes since its founding in 1924. Its current chief executive, Jonathan Karp, talks about the company’s history and its hopes for the future.

• APR 5, 2024

Looking Back at 50 Years of Stephen King

This month marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Stephen King’s first novel, “Carrie.” On this week’s episode, host Gilbert Cruz talks to the novelist Grady Hendrix, who read and re-read many of King’s books over several years for a writing project, as well as King superfan Damon Lindelof, the TV showrunner behind shows such as “Lost” and “The Leftovers.”

• MAR 29, 2024

Books That Make Our Critics Laugh

Dwight Garner, Alexandra Jacobs and Jennifer Szalai weigh in on 22 of the funniest novels since “Catch-22.”

• MAR 22, 2024

Talking to Tana French About Her New Series

The great Irish crime novelist Tana French joins Sarah Lyall to talk about her new novel "The Hunter," a sequel to 2020's "The Searcher."

• MAR 15, 2024

Talking ‘Dune’: Book and Movies

The Times’s critic Alissa Wilkinson discusses Frank Herbert’s classic science fiction novel and Denis Villeneuve’s film adaptations.

• © 2023 The New York Times Company

Customer Reviews

3.3K Ratings

Old format > New format

The old format wasn’t broken, why fix it? I enjoy Cruz, just bring back the old segments on publishing world, what critics are reading, etc.

Still good but room for improvement

I still find smart and interesting discussions here but I miss news from the publishing world and especially miss hearing what people at the Books desk are reading,

Go back to old format

I’ve listened to this podcast for years and I really miss the old format and length. It was great hearing from authors or reviewers about new books coming out and hearing about old books I forgot about or hadn’t heard of before in the what are we reading section. This new format feels like it forgot about the listeners and is just catered to the editor and his likes. It’s also way too short! Go back to the old format and make MJ Franklin the host!

Top Podcasts In Arts

You might also like, more by the new york times.

Advertisement

Supported by

editors’ choice

9 New Books We Recommend This Week

Suggested reading from critics and editors at The New York Times.

• Share full article

Parenting and its attendant anxieties underlie a number of our recommended books this week, from Jonathan Haidt’s manifesto against technology in the hands of children to Emily Raboteau’s essays about mothering in an age of apocalypse to Clare Beams’s novel about a haunted hospital for expectant mothers.

Also up: a double biography of the Enlightenment-era scientists and bitter rivals who undertook to catalog all of life on Earth, a book arguing that the ancient Greeks’ style of debate holds valuable lessons for the present, and a surprising history of America before the Civil War that shows how German philosophers helped shape abolitionist thinking. In fiction, we recommend an Irish novel about a bungled kidnapping, a political novel based on Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign and a three-part novel of ideas about the hidden costs of our choices. (That one also deals with parenting anxieties, in its way.) Happy reading. — Gregory Cowles

EVERY LIVING THING: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life Jason Roberts

Most of us have heard of the 18th-century taxonomist Carl Linnaeus and his systems of categorization; less familiar is his rival, the French mathematician and naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon. In Roberts’s view, this is an injustice with continued repercussions for Western views of race. His vivid double biography is a passionate corrective.

“Roberts stands openly on the side of Buffon, rather than his ‘profoundly prejudiced’ rival. He’s frustrated that human society and its scientific enterprise ignored the better ideas — and the better man.”

From Deborah Blum’s review

Random House | $35

THE ANXIOUS GENERATION: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness Jonathan Haidt

In “The Coddling of the American Mind,” Haidt took a hard stand against helicopter parenting. In this pugnacious follow-up, he turns to what he sees as technology’s dangers for young people. Haidt, a digital absolutist, cedes no ground on the issue of social media. Sure to provoke both thought and discussion, his book rejects complacency.

“Erudite, engaging, combative, crusading. … Parents, he argues, should become more like gardeners (to use Alison Gopnik’s formulation) who cultivate conditions for children to independently grow and flourish.”

From Tracy Dennis-Tiwary’s review

Penguin Press | $30

AN EMANCIPATION OF THE MIND: Radical Philosophy, the War Over Slavery, and the Refounding of America Matthew Stewart

In this absorbing intellectual history of the lead up to the Civil War, Stewart shows how German philosophers like Ludwig Feuerbach and Karl Marx influenced the American abolition movement.

“Engaging and often surprising. … Two decades before the outbreak of war, abolitionism was still a skulking pariah, a despised minority in the North as well as the South. The abolitionists clearly needed help. Enter the Germans.”

From S.C. Gwynne’s review

Norton | $32.50

CHOICE Neel Mukherjee

Narratives linked to a frustrated London book editor explore the gap between wealth and poverty, myopia and activism, fact and fiction, in an exquisitely droll heartbreaker of a novel.

“Full of characters deciding how much truth to tell. … To be in the company of his cool, calm, all-noticing prose is to experience something like the helpless wonder his characters experience.”

From Jonathan Lee’s review

Norton | $28.99

THE ANCIENT ART OF THINKING FOR YOURSELF: The Power of Rhetoric in Polarized Times Robin Reames

To bridge our nation’s political divide, we must learn to argue not less but better, contends Reames, a professor of rhetoric, in this wryly informative primer on ancient Greek and Roman oratorical techniques and the Sophists and sages who mastered them.

“Reames’s conceit for the book is intriguing. … In our era of Fox News and chants of ‘from the river to the sea,’ it is difficult not to gaze in admiration upon a people so committed to soberly debating ideas rather than settling for sloganeering.”

From John McWhorter’s review

Basic Books | $30

LESSONS FOR SURVIVAL: Mothering Against “The Apocalypse” Emily Raboteau

The perils — political, racial, climatic — multiply fast in this collection of elegant and anguished essays, by Raboteau, a writer and mother struggling to retain hope for the future while bearing witness to the encroaching threats all around her.

“A soulful exploration of the fraught experience of caretaking through crisis. … Her central concern is how to parent responsibly in perilous times, when the earth is warming, the country is divided and even the grown-ups feel lost and afraid.”

From Tiya Miles’s review

Holt | $29.99

THE GARDEN Clare Beams

Maternal body horror finds its eerie apotheosis in Beams’s pleasingly atmospheric novel, in which an isolated home for expectant mothers circa 1948 turns out to contain more life-giving powers than its medical staff lets on. (If you’re thinking “Pet Sematary” meets “Rosemary’s Baby” with a literary sheen, carry on.)

“The genius of the novel is the way Beams continually intertwines fictional elements with true-to-life obstetric practices. … Humor blooms at the least expected junctures. [But] make no mistake, this is a serious story.”

From Claire Oshetsky’s review

Doubleday | $28

WILD HOUSES Colin Barrett

In Barrett’s debut novel, a poorly planned kidnapping upends the lives of several young characters in a rural Irish town. Barrett, the author of two standout story collections, shifts gracefully between the kidnappee, who’s being held in a basement by two unstable brothers, and his intrepid girlfriend, who sets out to find him.

A “heartbreaker of a debut. … The lives of a small collective of mournful souls become vibrant before us, and their yearning is depicted with wistfulness, no small amount of humor and one dangerously ill-tempered goat.”

From Dennis Lehane’s review

Grove | $27

GREAT EXPECTATIONS Vinson Cunningham

In this impressive first novel, a Black campaign aide coolly observes as aspiring power players angle to connect with a candidate who more than resembles Barack Obama.

“Dazzlingly written. … Captures the grind and the mundanity of the campaign with precision and humor.”

From Damon Young’s review

Hogarth | $28

Explore More in Books

Want to know about the best books to read and the latest news start here..

How did fan culture take over? And why is it so scary? Justin Taylor’s novel “Reboot” examines the convergence of entertainment , online arcana and conspiracy theory.

Jamaica Kincaid and Kara Walker unearth botany’s buried history  to figure out how our gardens grow.

A new photo book reorients dusty notions of a classic American pastime with  a stunning visual celebration of black rodeo.

Two hundred years after his death, this Romantic poet is still worth reading . Here’s what made Lord Byron so great.

Harvard’s recent decision to remove the binding of a notorious volume  in its library has thrown fresh light on a shadowy corner of the rare book world.

Bus stations. Traffic stops. Beaches. There’s no telling where you’ll find the next story based in Accra, Ghana’s capital . Peace Adzo Medie shares some of her favorites.

Each week, top authors and critics join the Book Review’s podcast to talk about the latest news in the literary world. Listen here .