The Time of Their Lives: The Golden Age of Great American Publishers, Their Editors, and Authors
Al Silverman, . . St. Martin?s/Talley, $35 (512pp) ISBN 978-0-312-35003-1
Al Silverman recalls the days when books were books (not products or digital downloads).
From upstarts like Barney Rosset’s Grove Press to stalwarts like Harper (in various incarnations) under the decades-long direction of Cass Canfield, the great houses of what Silverman sees as publishing’s heyday are nostalgically portrayed, from the end of WWII through the early 1980s. Silverman, former longtime head of the Book-of-the-Month Club, calls his book a “love letter” to editors, and though he’s frank about people’s foibles (like Alfred and Blanche Knopf’s mercurial tempers), the tone is largely sentimental. Based on interviews with all the principals, he recounts feats of editorial genius, like how Tom McCormack made
Reviewed on: 07/07/2008
Genre: Nonfiction
Other - 512 pages - 978-1-4299-8921-3