The New York Times Book Review: 125 Years of Literary History

Product Description
From the longest-running, most influential book review in America, here is its best, funniest, strangest, and most memorable coverage over the past 125 years.\nSince its first issue on October 10, 1896,
The New York Times Book Review has brought the world of ideas to the reading public. It is the publication where authors have been made, and where readers first encountered the classics that have enriched their lives.\nNow the editors have curated the
Book Review’s dynamic 125-year history, which is essentially the story of modern American letters. Brimming with remarkable reportage and photography, this beautiful book collects interesting reviews, never-before-heard anecdotes about famous writers, and spicy letter exchanges. Here are the first takes on novels we now consider masterpieces, including a long-forgotten pan of
Anne of Green Gables and a rave of
Mrs. Dalloway, along with reviews and essays by Langston Hughes, Eudora Welty, James Baldwin, Nora Ephron, and more.\nWith scores of stunning vintage photographs, many of them sourced from the
Times’s own archive, readers will discover how literary tastes have shifted through the years—and how the
Book Review’s coverage has shaped so much of what we read today.
Review
“A fascinating selection of reviews, letters, interviews, essays, announcements, book lists, bits of gossip and op-ed pieces published in the supplement since its first appearance on Oct. 10, 1896 . . . An ebullient celebration of literature.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)\n“[A] meticulously crafted celebration of the written word . . . Each chapter is full of entertaining reviews and book covers, plus delightful photos. Literature lovers are in for a real treat.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
About the Author
Tina Jordan is the deputy editor of
The New York Times Book Review. Before joining
The
Times, Tina was the longtime books editor at
Entertainment Weekly, where she worked since the magazine's founding.\nNoor Qasim is a writer and editor. From 2020 to 2021, she served as the editing fellow of
The New York Times Book Review.\nThe New York Times
is dedicated to helping people understand the world through on-the-ground, expert, and deeply reported independent journalism. Their mission is simple: They seek the truth and help people understand the world. This mission is rooted in their belief that great journalism has the power to make each reader's life richer and more fulfilling, and all of society stronger and more just.
The Times has received 130 Pulitzer Prizes.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
A Review of the Review\nHalfway through
Lolita, Humbert Humbert—relaxed, triumphant and a mere pinch of pages away from his downfall—stops to extol the wonders of America. He has dragged his 12-year-old quarry on a road trip across the country, a perversion of a honeymoon. He slips into French to marvel at all they have seen. “
Nous connûmes,” he purrs, borrowing “a Flaubertian intonation”—
we came to know—and enumerates each guesthouse and motel, each unsmiling landlady.\nNous connûmes—we came to know. It has felt like the mood of the moment, with the reappraisal of monuments, real and metaphorical, in our midst—writers included. There have been fresh considerations of William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, David Foster Wallace and others, as their private papers and private lives have come to light.
Nous connûmes Nabokov himself; this past year brought forth a swarm of studies and, in March, an anthology dedicated to
Lolita alone. The morality of the novel, and of its creator, are litigated with hot urgency, as if Nabokov, dead some 40 years, lingers in the dock somewhere.\nNot a surprising moment, then, to be asked to explore the archives of The New York Times Book Review on the occasion of its 125th anniversary, a moment for celebration but also for some more challenging introspection, a moment to examine t