The Time of Their Lives: The Golden Age of Great American Publishers, Their Editors, and Authors

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 All Things Great and Small a blockbuster, which also made St. Martin’s a publishing force. And there are stories about the ones that got away (Simon Michael Bessie passed on Lolita ), the struggles of women to move up the editorial ladder and the dissolution of great editorial teams as money got tight and houses were sold. It’s difficult to see the book’s appeal to industry outsiders, but for insiders in a difficult publishing era, it’s a delight to share these recollections of the days before Wall Street ruled Publishers Row. (Aug.)