I think Peter Ackroyd started it in 2001 with London: The Biography: that is, the idea that places and things have biographies rather than histories or, more simply, stories.

American publishers, as is their wont, have latched on to the formula. In recent months I’ve had Philip Ball’s Universe of Stone: A...Read More

What’s in My Bookbag: The Forever War (Knopf, Sept. 17). New York Times reporter Dexter Filkins’s account of his time as a correspondent in Afghanistan and Iraq promises to be one of the year’s major books on America’s war on terror. It could be the Imperial Life in the Em-erald City of the fall season. PW’s review will appear in the June 30 issue.

Whether going through the detritus at the  bombed-out al-Qaeda camp in Tora Bora (“I picked up a paperback book with seared pages that was the size of the New York phone book. It was Al-Qaeda’s training ma...Read More

Yesterday, The London Telegraph published the results of their poll of “the greatest novels of all time.”  In the #1 position was Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (followed by Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings; C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice; and Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code).

Joel Rickett, deputy editor of The Bookseller, is quoted in the article saying, “People tend to come back to their favourites.”  That statement got me thinking. Without a doubt, To Kill a Mockingbird is my favorite novel of all time, and although its rare for me to go back and re-read ...Read More

Met with Brenda King from Yale yesterday to go over the press’s fall list.The press turned 100 this year, and its upcoming lead title is by noted bibliophile Nicholas Basbanes: A World of Letters: Yale University Press, 1908–2008.

But the book on Yale’s list that I’m most looking forward to is Joseph Epstein’s on Fred Astaire for the Icons of America series.

Still, the title they’re most optimistic about saleswise is Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Com-mander’s War in Iraq by Peter R. Mansoor. Previewing fall university press books on inside-highered.com, ...Read More

I spent last night waiting for David Sedaris. The Barnes & Noble in Union Square was the first stop on his 29-cities-in-29-days tour for his new collection, When You Are Engulfed in Flames (Little, Brown). Since the event started at 7 p.m., I arrived at 5:45 to find that not only was the fourth floor of the bookstore standing room only, but that Sedaris had started signing books at 5 p.m.

I would later learn that Sedaris got to the last person in line at 2 a.m. Little, Brown publicist Marlena Bittner guesstimated that he signed 1,000 copies of the ne...Read More

What’s in My Bookbag: Al Silverman’s The Time of Our Lives: The Golden Age of Great American Publishers, Their Editors, and Authors (Truman Talley, Aug.). From his perch at the once-mighty Book-of-the-Month Club, where he spent 16 years as editorial director and then president, and later as publisher at Viking/Penguin, Silverman had an unparalleled view of the publishing industry during the second half of the 20th century.

Happily, this book is not just his own memoir (“Too many people are writing memoirs,” he says)—it is the collective memoir of the many editors and authors Silverman interviewe...Read More

What’s in My Bookbag: Benny Morris’s just-published 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War (Yale Univ.), in honor of Israel’s 60th anniversary (celebrataed yesterday). To some, it might seem a strange celebration to read a book that relates horrors committed by Israelis as well as Pal-estinians. But for me, this tale embodies. But Israel’s conflicted story is deeply ingrained in me. 

T...Read More

Reviewers

It goes without saying that I spend a lot of time thinking about what makes a good book re-view. In general, it requires a smooth blend of description and evaluation. But, like most readers, I don’t want a review—especially of fiction—to tell me everything that happens. When I ask what a book is about, even (perhaps especially) a novel, I’m asking not who did what to whom but the meaning of those events. I want to know about the author’s voice, style and worldview.

A good nonfiction review must also assess the author’s information and analysis, the organi-zation and presentation, and whether the author has something new to say. In the case of an oft-told tale, say, a history of the California gold rush, does the author render it in a fresh, ex-citing and stylish narrative that might bring the story to a new audience?

Finall...Read More

The Junot Diazes of 2028 are already honing their literary skills in high schools around New York City. And I might have just read a short essay by one of them.

I’ve had the privilege (and it is a privilege) of serving as a judge in the memoir category of the Random House Inc. Creative Writing Competitioin for NYC Public High School Seniors, meticulously and enthusiastically organized by Random House’s Melanie Fallon-Houska. More than $100,000 in scholarship prizes will be awarded to the winners on June 9. (Above: pictures of last year's winners.)

Reading these brief memoirs opens a window onto a world I have no first-hand knowledge of. Actually, it opens windows onto...Read More