THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

A capacious history of the influential publication.

To commemorate the 125th anniversary of the New York Times Book Review, current deputy editor Jordan, assisted by Qasim, offers a fascinating selection of reviews, letters, interviews, essays, announcements, book lists, bits of gossip (Colette, on a ship, wore sandals without stockings!), and op-ed pieces published in the supplement since its first appearance on Oct. 10, 1896. Organized chronologically into five sections that comprise around three decades each, and profusely illustrated with author photographs, plates, advertisements, and assorted literary artifacts, the volume amply fulfills the editor’s goal of revealing how the Review“has shaped literary taste, informed arguments and driven the world of ideas in the United States and beyond.” Book critic Parul Sehgal prefaces the selections with an astute essay examining how the Reviewhas covered works by women, writers of color, and writers in the LGBTQ+ community. In its early years, White male perspectives dominated, with reviewers worried about the proliferation and popularity of women writers. Overall, however, the collection amply represents reviewers “contemptuous of anxious gatekeeping,” bringing to their task “nerve, wariness and style.” Anxious gatekeeping, however, as well as wafts of condescension, can be found. For example, in 1904, the reviewer of W.E.B. Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folkremarked, “Many passages of the book will be very interesting to the student of the negro character who regards the race ethnologically and not politically, not as a dark cloud threatening the future of the United States.” In 1933, assessing two feminist histories, the Review’s editor saw the success of the women’s movement as “one of the major tragedies in the history of mankind.” Reviews by acclaimed authors include Eudora Welty on Charlotte’s Web; W.H. Auden on Tolkein’s The Fellowship of the Ring; Kurt Vonnegut on Tom Wolfe; and Margaret Atwood on Toni Morrison’s Beloved. A long list of other famous reviewers appends the volume.

An ebullient celebration of literature.