Senior editor, New York Times Books desk. Reader, dad, ruminative goofball.
Darien, CT
Joined February 2013
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SUNFLOWER MYSTERY: My daughter went to bed with five flowers on her shelf, and woke up with four flowers and a stem. Did she eat it in her sleep? Did a deer sneak into her room? Did it spontaneously combust??
Gregory Cowles retweeted
My CM story: years ago, when I worked for Bauman Rare Books, he called the gallery. I picked up and he told me that the first edition of Blood Meridian in BRB's NYT Book Review ad was underpriced. I said: "no one has ever called here with that complaint."
In 2018 I interviewed Martin Amis at the Texas Book Festival about his Holocaust novel “The Zone of Interest” (narrated, like “Time’s Arrow,” from the German POV), and he turned the talk memorably to Hitler’s sex life. statesman.com/story/news/201…
The night before, seemingly very drunk, he had stumbled through his keynote speech at the festival’s gala dinner, mocking Princess Di’s death and defending elitism on the grounds that some people are inherently better than others.
When we got to the main legislative chamber for the interview, there was Amis: showered, sharp, gracious, utterly charming. Besides Hitler’s sex life he talked a lot that day about the soul and how important it is to honor it.
Maybe predictably, he wasn’t in the greenroom at the appointed time, and the festival staffer who was dispatched to his hotel room said he was nowhere to be found. The volunteers were panicked. “I guess we’ll walk you over and hope for the best,” one told me.
“Can you imagine believing a taxi driver is the equal of Christopher Hitchens?” he asked as the crowd looked silently on and I grew increasingly worried about how our interview might go the next day.
Overheard on the train just now: “The thing about the King James version is the prose is so bad.” Shots fired!
Are You There, God? It's Me, Adolf
nytimes.com/2023/03/07/books…
Wordle 613 X/6
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Broke my streak of 118, and my 100% solve record since the NYT’s acquisition
Radio is playing “Crocodile Rock” right now and all I can think of during the falsetto is “Elmo’s World.”
Gregory Cowles retweeted
2022 Headline of the Year nominee (September)
ALT Coffey urges staff to be positive, be precise, and not use Oxford commas --The Guardian, 15 September 2022
Just started the audio version of “Jazz,” read by Toni herself, and the teeth-sucking first word (or first noise?) is a clinching argument for the glory of audiobooks.
Text from my son
ALT Screenshot of a text: Lots of plum icebox jokes on Mastadon the last week. That’s how you know that the Twitter users have all moved over