new york times book review writers

By the Book: Writers on Literature and the Literary Life from The New York Times Book Review

Pamela paul  ( editor ) , scott turow  ( foreword ).

336 pages, Hardcover

First published October 28, 2014

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Pamela Paul

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Staff News From Books

The fall book season is upon us, and what better time to announce three exciting developments on the Books desk, bringing good news to readers and those who follow literary journalism.

First, please join us in welcoming not one but two new book critics who will join Dwight Garner and Jennifer Szalai as staff Times critics.

Molly Young comes to us from New York magazine, where she has been the literary critic for the past two years and all-around literary superstar — in addition to her stylish reviews, she has written essays (like this gem on garbage language , truly a public service) and profiles, like this excellent one of Katie Kitamura . Since 2015, she has also been a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine, where she has written about subjects ranging from Jonah Hill to escape rooms (yes!) to pandemic yoga t o celebrity wellness . She is the co-author, with Joana Avillez, of “D C-T” (Penguin, 2018) and — a special bonus — has written two crossword puzzles for The Times. Molly will be writing book reviews, a newsletter, profiles and essays about language and literature, and contributing to “The Book Review Podcast.”

Alexandra Jacobs is a familiar name to Times readers and to readers of the Book Review, for which she has freelanced for more than a decade. Alexandra comes from the Styles desk, where she has been the deputy editor since 2018. Alexandra has been reviewing books since her first job in journalism, opening boxes of them for Tina Jordan at Entertainment Weekly, and has never stopped, through stints as a features editor and fashion critic. At The New York Observer, she profiled authors including the feminist Susan Faludi and the naturalist James Prosek; wrote about publishing trends such as the rise of the media coach in the world of literary fiction; and was an editor of ”The Kingdom of New York,” an anthology of the publication’s glory years. For The Times, she has written about a glitzy edition of “Our Bodies, Ourselves ,” the “Eloise” illustrator Hilary Knigh t and the triumphant resurgence of a certain first-person pronoun , and about works by Barbara Ehrenreich, Jackie Collins, Mary Cheney and dozens of memoirists, novelists and showbiz figures. She is herself the author of “Still Here,” an acclaimed biography of Elaine Stritch, and has also contributed to The New Yorker, The Washington Post Book World and many other publications.

And now, some happy news from the Book Review:

Jennifer Wilson , one of the smartest freelance literary critics working today, will also become a contributing essayist for the Book Review. Readers of the Book Review will have encountered Jennifer’s reviews and essays in recent months, including pieces about Yan Lianke , Dostoevsky’s wife and more. Jennifer is a contributing writer at The Nation magazine, where she writes for the Books & the Arts section. She holds a Ph.D. in Russian literature from Princeton University, and currently directs the Arts & Culture Reporting concentration at the CUNY Newmark School of Journalism. She will be writing essays and book reviews for us on a regular basis.

Please join us in celebrating and welcoming these three talented women to our report. Molly, Alexandra and Jennifer will take on these new roles this month.

Pamela Paul, John Williams and Tina Jordan

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Celebrating 15 years of “the book review” podcast, jennifer szalai named new nonfiction critic, new poetry columnist for book review.

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The ‘New York Times Book Review’ Mixes It Up

When Pamela Paul stepped down as editor of the New York Times Book Review in April 2022, the news came as a shock to many of her colleagues. Paul had joined the Book Review , the paper’s standalone Sunday book reviews section, in 2011, and served as its editor since 2013. In 2016, Dean Baquet, who was then executive editor of the Times , decided to bring all of the paper’s books coverage—the daily Books section, book news, publishing industry news, and the Book Review —under Paul’s aegis.

“Everyone was surprised,” said Tina Jordan, deputy editor of the Book Review , of Paul’s departure. “She’d been there almost 10 years. We weren’t expecting it.” (Soon after leaving, Paul joined the paper’s Opinion section as a columnist, where she has developed a bit of a reputation in media circles for her subject matter and style.) While the search for Paul’s successor was underway, Jordan took over on an interim basis.

In July 2022, Gilbert Cruz was named to succeed Paul, having previously served, since 2018, as the culture editor at the paper. Like Paul before him, Cruz oversees all books coverage at the Times . He started the job in August, when the book publishing industry is notoriously quiet, but nevertheless immediately set to work. The transition in leadership, Jordan said, was “pretty seamless.”

First on Cruz’s to-do list was to solidify the Book Review as the face of all of the paper’s books coverage. Overseeing a team of more than 20 editors, critics, and reporters, he has spent the past year “making sure the staff feels like a whole”—that is, a single unit united under one banner. “Something I’ve been telling the entire staff is that there’s one brand here, and it’s the New York Times Book Review ,” he explained. “Everyone on this desk works for the New York Times Book Review —even if you’re a reporter, and your stuff never appears in the Book Review because it closes 10 days before it hit stands, you still work for the Book Review . Because when most people think of our books coverage, the Book Review is the thing that stands out in their mind.”

The Book Review is the nation’s largest and most storied standalone newspaper book reviews section, having been in print since 1896—and it’s one of the few remaining. At a time when books coverage has been slashed at papers around the country and reviewers on Goodreads and BookTok hold increasing sway over sales, what role the Book Review plays in today’s publishing ecosystem is something of an existential question.

One way to retool the Book Review for the current age, Cruz said, is to grow its digital readership. “That’s really what I came here to do,” he added. For him, this means doubling down on digital efforts and launching new digital franchises, as well as “trying to think about audiences that we’re not reaching right now.”

Under Cruz, the Book Review is also streamlining its coverage. It no longer runs “double-reviews” (two reviews by different critics of a single book), which Cruz felt “sends a mixed message to the reader.” It has also begun running reviews by the paper’s staff book critics—Dwight Garner, Alexandra Jacobs, Jennifer Szalai, and Molly Young, who had traditionally only appeared in the daily paper, which Cruz saw as a missed opportunity. (“We have this amazing product that is more than 100 years old, and our main voices on books never appeared in there!”)

Moreover, the Book Review has started publishing different kinds of features, such as author profiles and a new “Read Your Way Around the World” series, which is spearheaded by deputy news and features editor Juliana Barbassa. Barbassa has also led much of the Times ’ coverage of industry news, including the proliferation of book bans and AI’s impact on publishing.

Though the Book Review covered an estimated 2,300 books last year, its print editions have noticeably slimmed down in recent years. While occasional special issues—its summer reading and holiday issues, for instance—remain robust, Cruz doubts it will ever return to the larger page counts of yore.

“I can’t tell the future,” he said, “but I would challenge anyone to show me a print publication that has gotten bigger” over time. Nevertheless, he hopes that during his tenure, “people who primarily experience the Book Review through the print product get their money’s worth.”

In describing his vision for books coverage at the Times , Cruz repeatedly used the word experiment . He spoke of testing new things, keeping what works and scrapping what doesn’t. He believes that over the course of many experiments that “the Book Review is going to become more of a book publication.” One of his primary goals, in this first year at the helm, “is to try a lot of stuff.” His other goal: “not to mess this up.”

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THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

125 years of literary history.

edited by Tina Jordan & Noor Qasim ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 2, 2021

An ebullient celebration of literature.

A capacious history of the influential publication.

To commemorate the 125th anniversary of the New York Times Book Review , current deputy editor Jordan, assisted by Qasim, offers a fascinating selection of reviews, letters, interviews, essays, announcements, book lists, bits of gossip (Colette, on a ship, wore sandals without stockings!), and op-ed pieces published in the supplement since its first appearance on Oct. 10, 1896. Organized chronologically into five sections that comprise around three decades each, and profusely illustrated with author photographs, plates, advertisements, and assorted literary artifacts, the volume amply fulfills the editor’s goal of revealing how the Review “has shaped literary taste, informed arguments and driven the world of ideas in the United States and beyond.” Book critic Parul Sehgal prefaces the selections with an astute essay examining how the Review has covered works by women, writers of color, and writers in the LGBTQ+ community. In its early years, White male perspectives dominated, with reviewers worried about the proliferation and popularity of women writers. Overall, however, the collection amply represents reviewers “contemptuous of anxious gatekeeping,” bringing to their task “nerve, wariness and style.” Anxious gatekeeping, however, as well as wafts of condescension, can be found. For example, in 1904, the reviewer of W.E.B. Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folk remarked, “Many passages of the book will be very interesting to the student of the negro character who regards the race ethnologically and not politically, not as a dark cloud threatening the future of the United States.” In 1933, assessing two feminist histories, the Review ’s editor saw the success of the women’s movement as “one of the major tragedies in the history of mankind.” Reviews by acclaimed authors include Eudora Welty on Charlotte’s Web ; W.H. Auden on Tolkein’s The Fellowship of the Ring ; Kurt Vonnegut on Tom Wolfe; and Margaret Atwood on Toni Morrison’s Beloved . A long list of other famous reviewers appends the volume.

Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-593-23461-7

Page Count: 368

Publisher: Clarkson Potter

Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021

HISTORY | UNITED STATES | GENERAL NONFICTION

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Kirkus Reviews' Best Books Of 2017

New York Times Bestseller

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KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON

The osage murders and the birth of the fbi.

by David Grann ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 18, 2017

Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.

Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.

During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann ( The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession , 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.

Pub Date: April 18, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017

GENERAL HISTORY | TRUE CRIME | UNITED STATES | FIRST/NATIVE NATIONS | HISTORY

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BOOK REVIEW

by David Grann

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BOOK TO SCREEN

THE BACKYARD BIRD CHRONICLES

by Amy Tan ; illustrated by Amy Tan ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 23, 2024

An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.

A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.

In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“ Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression .” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”

Pub Date: April 23, 2024

ISBN: 9780593536131

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | NATURE | GENERAL NONFICTION

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The Complete List of New York Times Fiction Best Sellers

Go beyond just the current list of New York Times Fiction Best Sellers to discover every bestselling book listed on the NYT Bestseller List in 2024.

Since 1931, The New York Times has been publishing a weekly list of bestselling books. Since then, becoming a New York Times bestseller has become a dream for virtually every writer.

When I first started reading adult fiction, one of the first places I went for book recommendations was the New York Times Fiction Best Sellers. I wanted to know what books were the most widely read, and start with those.

However, scrolling through the list week by week on The New York Times website is rather annoying. I just wanted all the bestselling fiction books gathered together in one place.

When I couldn’t find it, I decided to create it.

Here are all the New York Times fiction bestsellers from this year. I’ve got the current #1 and this week’s bestselling list, both of which you can find all over the place.

This list also compiles every book that appears on the New York Times Fiction Best Sellers list in 2024 for Hardcover Fiction. Every week I update it so you can get the most accurate view of the year in one place.

Since this is a bit of a sprawling post, feel free to jump to the section that most interests you or take your time scrolling through the complete list of New York Times fiction best sellers.

Quick Links

• Current #1 NYT Bestseller
• Current New York Times Fiction Best Seller List
• Previous #1 Fiction Best Sellers
• Heavyweights (10+ Weeks)
• Fan Favorites (5+ Weeks)
• Honorable Mention (2+ Weeks)
• One Hit Wonders

Don’t Miss a Thing

Current #1 New York Times Best Seller

Kristin Hannah

( 27 Weeks ) The Women   is the story of one woman gone to war, but it shines a light on all women who put themselves in harm’s way and whose sacrifice and commitment to their country has too often been forgotten. A novel about deep friendships and bold patriotism,  The Women   is a richly drawn story with a memorable heroine whose idealism and courage under fire will come to define an era.

Publication Date: 6 February 2024 Learn More: Goodreads | StoryGraph | More Info Buy Now: Amazon | Apple Books

Current List of New York Times Best Sellers

In 1965, a nursing student follows her brother to serve during the Vietnam War and returns to a divided America.

At Hollow’s Grove University, a school for magic that suffered a bloody massacre decades ago, 13 gifted students confront ghosts from the school’s past.

The 23rd book in the Scot Harvath series. A mess of trouble involving double agents, international intrigue and a potential global firestorm forces Harvath to choose between his country and his conscience.

Violet Sorrengail is urged by the commanding general, who also is her mother, to become a candidate for the elite dragon riders.

The second book in the Jane Smith series. A double triple homicide complicates matters for Smith.

A woman who is down on her luck forms an unexpected bond with the bride at a wedding in Rhode Island.

The second book in the Empyrean series. Violet Sorrengail’s next round of training might require her to betray the man she loves.

When a 13-year-old girl disappears from an Adirondack summer camp in 1975, secrets kept by the Van Laar family emerge.

Dafyd Alkhor is taken from the Anjiin society to serve on the Carryx homeworld, where a complex game must be played in order to survive.

Questions arise when a boy saves the daughter of a wealthy family amid a string of disappearances in a Missouri town in 1975.

Nantucket residents are alarmed when a home, recently sold at an exorbitant price, goes up in flames and someone goes missing.

The Big Island of Hawaii comes under threat by a volcano at the same time a secret held by the military comes to light.

When the Great Library of Alyssium is set aflame, Kiela and Caz take the spellbooks and bring magic to Kiela’s childhood home.

A dozen short stories that explore darkness in literal and metaphorical forms.

A widow working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium is aided in solving a mystery by a giant Pacific octopus living there.

See what Upcoming Releases are coming out soon!

Previous #1 New York Times Fiction Best Sellers

Lessons in Chemistry

Bonnie garmus.

(99 Weeks) Elizabeth Zott has always defied stereotyping, especially as the only woman chemist at the Hastings Research Institute in the 1960s. After falling in love with another chemist who sees her for who she is, life throws her a curveball. Now as a single mom, she unexpectedly finds herself the host of a tv cooking show. When Elizabeth’s unusual approach to cooking charms her audience, the women who watch her begin to question the status quo in their own lives, making Elizabeth a target of those who find the change unwelcome.

Publication Date: 5 April 2022 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Fourth Wing

Rebecca yarros.

( 66 Weeks ) Violet Sorrengail is all set to live a quiet life among her books until her mother orders her to become a candidate for the highly competitive dragon riders. But dragons usually prefer to kill rather than bond with weak humans like Violet. With half the competition willing to kill her to improve their odds and the other half hating her because of her mother, Violet must use all her wits to survive the war college. 

Publication Date: 2 May 2023 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

( 40 Weeks ) In the highly anticipated sequel to Fourth Wing, Violet Sorrengail returns for her second year at Basgiath War College. No one expected her to survive this long, much less bond with one of the strongest dragons in existence and a second dragon as well. Now that she knows the secret the nation has been hiding, it will take all her wits to survive her second year, especially with the new vice commandant determined to make her betray the man she loves. 

Publication Date: 7 November 2023 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Ann Patchett

( 24 Weeks ) In 2020, three grown daughters return to their family orchard in Michigan to isolate with their mother. They beg her to tell them about a story from her youth when she fell in love with famous actor Peter Duke while they performed together at the Tom Lake Theater Company. As Lara ponders her life, her daughters begin to wonder about their own choices.

Publication Date: 1 August 2023 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Stephen King

(18 Weeks) Holly is meant to be on leave due to the myriad of personal struggles she is facing, but something about the plea to find a missing daughter is impossible to turn down. Mere blocks from where the girl disappeared live a respectable couple who harbor a chilling secret in their basement, and Holly must outwit and outmaneuver them in this frightening new novel from Stephen King.

Publication Date: 16 May 2023 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

The Exchange

John grisham.

(16 Weeks) In a sequel to his debut thriller, The Firm , John Grisham returns to tell you what happened to Mitch and Abby McDeere after they exposed the crimes of his corrupt Memphis law firm. Fifteen years later, Mitch and Abby are living in Manhattan where Mitch is a partner in the world’s largest law firm. When Mitch gets caught up in another sinister plot with worldwide implications, he must do all he can to stay one step ahead of his enemies.

Publication Date: 17 October 2023 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Funny Story

Emily henry.

( 14 Weeks ) Daphne and her fiancé Peter have the perfect cute story of how they met, up until Peter leaves her for his childhood best friend Petra. Stranded in Peter’s lakeside Michigan hometown with a job as a children’s librarian she loves, Daphne needs a roommate to help pay the bills. Who better than Petra’s ex, Miles, who is completely Daphne’s opposite? And no big deal if they happen to post misleading photos to make their exes jealous, because there’s no way they would ever actually fall in love.

Publication Date: 23 April 2024 Learn More: Goodreads | StoryGraph | More Info Buy Now: Amazon | Apple Books

House of Flame and Shadow

Sarah j. maas.

( 13 Weeks ) In the third Crescent City book, Bryce Quinlan struggles to find her way back to Midgard. Stranded in a new world, she must decide who she can trust. Meanwhile, Hunt Athalar is in the Asteri’s dungeons, again, with no clue what happened to Bryce. If he wants to find her, he must first escape the Asteri’s leash.

Publication Date: 30 January 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

You Like It Darker

( 12 Weeks ) Stephen King’s readers always ask for something a little darker and King is glad to oblige. A collection of twelve short stories, You Like It Darker delves into the darker side of life. A psychic vision runs lives. A widower receives an inheritance with strings attached. A vet answers a job ad that leads him to places no one should go. Whether discussing fate, luck, mortality, or parts of the universe best left unexplored, King is a master storyteller who isn’t afraid to delve into the darker side of things.

Publication Date: 21 May 2024 Learn More: Goodreads | StoryGraph |  More Info Buy Now: Amazon  

Camino Ghosts

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Michael Crichton and James Patterson

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Elin Hilderbrand

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A Death in Cornwall

Daniel silva.

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Red Sky Mourning

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Publication Date: 18 June 2024 Learn More: Goodreads | StoryGraph Buy Now: Amazon | Apple Books

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Heavyweights (10+ Weeks on the NYT Bestseller List)

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Barbara kingsolver.

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Publication Date: 18 October 2022 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Remarkably Bright Creatures

Shelby van pelt.

( 54 Weeks ) After her husband died, Tova Sullivan began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium. Thirty years ago, Tova’s son Erik disappeared on a boat in the Puget Sound, and cleaning the aquarium helps her cope. When she befriends Marcellus, the aquarium’s giant octopus, Marcellus discovers what happened to Erik and must find a way to show Tova the truth before it’s too late.

Publication Date: 3 May 2022 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

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Gabrielle zevin.

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Abraham verghese.

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James mcbride.

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First Lie Wins

Ashley elston.

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Mitch albom.

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Fan Favorites (5+ Weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List)

Gothikana by RuNyx

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By the Book: Writers on Literature and the Literary Life from The New York Times Book Review Kindle Edition

Sixty-five of the world's leading writers open up about the books and authors that have meant the most to them Every Sunday, readers of The New York Times Book Review turn with anticipation to see which novelist, historian, short story writer, or artist will be the subject of the popular By the Book feature. These wide-ranging interviews are conducted by Pamela Paul, the editor of the Book Review, and here she brings together sixty-five of the most intriguing and fascinating exchanges, featuring personalities as varied as David Sedaris, Hilary Mantel, Michael Chabon, Khaled Hosseini, Anne Lamott, and James Patterson. The questions and answers admit us into the private worlds of these authors, as they reflect on their work habits, reading preferences, inspirations, pet peeves, and recommendations. By the Book contains the full uncut interviews, offering a range of experiences and observations that deepens readers' understanding of the literary sensibility and the writing process. It also features dozens of sidebars that reveal the commonalities and conflicts among the participants, underscoring those influences that are truly universal and those that remain matters of individual taste. For the devoted reader, By the Book is a way to invite sixty-five of the most interesting guests into your world. It's a book party not to be missed.

• Print length 337 pages
• Language English
• Sticky notes On Kindle Scribe
• Publisher Henry Holt and Co.
• Publication date October 28, 2014
• File size 3707 KB
• Page Flip Enabled
• Word Wise Enabled
• Enhanced typesetting Enabled
• See all details

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Editorial Reviews

“Invaluable.” ― Vanity Fair “The effect is like being at a very well-attended cocktail party, or peeking onto the nightstand of a favorite author… At times delightful and always entertaining, this book can be taken in large gulps, or small sips. Reading it will surely result in a monstrous and fascinating reading list.” ― Library Journal (starred) “A captivating hodgepodge of literary musings.” ― Publishers Weekly

About the Author

Pamela Paul is the editor of The New York Times Book Review and oversees books coverage at The New York Times. She is also the host of the weekly podcast, Inside The New York Times Book Review. Prior to joining the Times , she was a contributor to Time magazine and The Economist; her work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post , Slate , and Vogue . She is the author of My Life with Bob: Flawed Heroine Keeps Book of Books, Plot Ensues ; By the Book ; Parenting, Inc. ; Pornified ; and The Starter Marriage and the Future of Matrimony .

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction by Pamela Paul

We all want to know what other people are reading. We peer at strangers’ book covers on an airplane and lean over their e-books on the subway. We squint at the iPhone of the person standing in front of us in the elevator. We scan bestseller lists and customer reviews and online social reading sites. Asking someone what she’s read lately is an easy conversational gambit—and the answer is almost bound to be more interesting than the weather. It also serves an actual purpose: we may find out about something we want to read ourselves.

When I launched By the Book in The New York Times Book Review , it was an effort to satisfy my own genuine, insatiable desire to know what others—smart people, well-read people, people who are good writers themselves—were reading in their spare time. The idea was to stimulate a conversation over books, but one that took place at a more exalted level than the average watercooler chat. That meant starting big, and for me that meant David Sedaris. Who wouldn’t want to know which books he thinks are funny? Or touching or sad or just plain good?

In coming up with the questions for David Sedaris, and then for those who followed, I decided to keep some consistent—What book would you recommend to the president to read?—while others would come and go. If you’re going to find out what books John Grisham likes, you’ve got to ask about legal thrillers. When talking to P. J. O’Rourke, you want to know about satire.

Similarly, the range of writers for By the Book had to sweep wide, to include relative unknowns and new voices alongside the James Pattersons and Mary Higgins Clarks. That meant poets and short story writers and authors of mass market fiction. And while the most obvious, and often most desirable, participants would be authors themselves, I didn’t want to limit the conversation to book people.

For that reason, I went to Lena Dunham (not an author at the time) next. I asked musicians like Pete Townshend and Sting, scientists and actors, the president of Harvard, and even an astrophysicist. Cross-pollination between the arts—and the sciences—is something many of us haven’t experienced since our college days, and I wanted to evoke some of that excitement of unexpected discovery—in the subjects, in the questions, and in the answers.

Once the ball got rolling, an unexpected discovery on my part was the full-throttle admiration our most respected public figures have for one another. Colin Powell marveled over J. K. Rowling’s ability to endure the spotlight. Michael Chabon, Jeffrey Eugenides, and Donna Tartt were all consumed by the Patrick Melrose novels of Edward St. Aubyn. (He, in turn, was reading Alice Munro.) Writer after writer extolled the reportorial prowess of Katherine Boo. And then Boo, who told me she read the column religiously, praised Junot Díaz and George Saunders and Cheryl Strayed when it was her turn.

When I’d meet writers at book parties or literary lunches, they’d thrill over what other By the Book subjects had said about their work. In her interview, Donna Tartt told me how much she looked forward to reading Stephen King’s new novel—before he’d raved about The Goldfinch on our cover. In a world that can feel beset by cynicism, envy, and negative reviews, By the Book has become a place for accomplished peers to express appreciation for one another’s art.

Then there are the humanizing foibles. The books we never finished or are embarrassed never to have picked up, the books we hated, the books we threw across the room. It’s not just us. Many writers confess here to unorthodox indulgences (Hilary Mantel adores self-help books) and “failures” of personal taste (neither Richard Ford nor Ian McEwan has much patience for Ulysses ).

Reading the interviews gathered together for the first time, I found myself flipping back and forth between pages, following one author to another, from one writer’s recommendation to another’s explication of plot, like browsing an endlessly varied, annotated home library in the company of thoughtful and erudite friends. I learned about mutual loves, disagreements, surprise recommendations, unexpected new voices, forgotten classics. Let the conversation begin.

Copyright © 2014 by Pamela Paul

Product details

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00J1E72W0
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Henry Holt and Co.; First edition (October 28, 2014)
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 28, 2014
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• File size ‏ : ‎ 3707 KB
• Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
• Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
• Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 337 pages
• #647 in Books & Reading Literary Criticism
• #2,336 in Literary Subjects & Themes
• #3,365 in Biographies & Memoirs of Authors

About the author

Pamela paul.

Pamela Paul is the editor of The New York Times Book Review, which she joined as the children's books editor in 2011, and oversees books coverage at The New York Times, where she hosts the weekly Book Review podcast.

She is the author of seven books: ” The Starter Marriage and the Future of Matrimony” was named one of the best books of 2002 by The Washington Post; her second book, “Pornified,” was named one of the best books of 2005 by The San Francisco Chronicle. She is also the author of “Parenting, Inc.”, “By the Book: Writers on Literature and the Literary Life from The New York Times Book Review,” “My Life with Bob: Flawed Heroine Keeps Book of Books, Plot Ensues" and most recently, “How to Raise a Reader,” co-written with Maria Russo. Her first picture book for children, "Rectangle Time," came out in February 2021.

Paul's next book, "100 Things We've Lost to the Internet," will be published by Crown on October 26th, 2021 (and can be preordered now!).

Paul has been a contributor to Time magazine and The Economist, and a columnist for The New York Times Sunday Styles section and Worth magazine. Her work has also appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times Magazine, The Economist, Vogue, and other publications.

You can follow Paul on Twitter @PamelaPaulNYT and on Instagram @PamelaPaul2018.

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Family Is a Lot of Trouble in August’s Graphic Novels

Generational connections — and divides — abound in four new volumes that take vastly different approaches to storytelling.

Credit... Sonny Figueroa/The New York Times

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• Share full article

By Sam Thielman

Sam Thielman is a reporter and critic based in Brooklyn. In addition to his monthly column for The Times, he has written about comics and graphic novels for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Slate and The Guardian.

• Aug. 14, 2024

The warp and weft of a single life is impossible to describe because there’s no such thing as a single life. Perhaps that’s why family stories are such a satisfying microcosm — they ask us not to consider one person’s vast depths, but to think about how a collection of people form and change one another over their shared lives.

The people in Sole Otero’s remarkable MOTHBALLS (Fantagraphics, 336 pp., $29.99) are so simply delineated that their facial features are almost individual characters. Our narrator, Rocío, has a gap in her teeth that sometimes makes her mouth into an inside-out Q; her tragic great-uncle Antonio’s hairline is a pair of conjoined W’s. But their interlocking lives are complex in inverse proportion to their visual simplicity, as are the amazing architectural habitats and panel layouts Otero has designed for them to live in during their triumphs and miseries.

The most vivid character in “Mothballs” is Rocío’s estranged grandmother, Vilma, whose funeral opens the book. Vilma’s life is a sweeping melodrama that crosses generations, but that story is framed as Rocío’s recollection as she moves into her grandmother’s old house and tries to get acquainted with now-unfamiliar surroundings. The huge changes of Vilma’s life accrete into a family history, and little incidents in Ro’s sections form parallels. Beneath it all lurks Vilma’s possibly literal ghost.

The spirit of the great anarchic underground cartoonist S. Clay Wilson is alive and well in Leo Fox’s BOY ISLAND (Silver Sprocket, 168 pp., $29.99) , where family is also important, but in far wilder ways. Fox’s book is a parable about identity and transition, and while he writes dialogue that sounds so real it could have been lifted from a supper-table argument, his imagery is ferociously imaginative. The book follows Lucille, who realizes he is a boy and must leave his mother and Girl Island for Boy Island, two places that were once one. His head looks like a blue executioner’s mask covered in spikes, but he is tenderhearted; when he finally confronts Fairy, the butterfly-winged spirit of conformity, conservatism and oppression, he confusedly accepts Fairy’s invitation to come inside and have a cup of tea and talk things through.

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