new york times book review 125

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

Edited by tina jordan with noor qasim. clarkson potter, $50 (368p) isbn 978-0-593-23461-7.

Reviewed on: 09/08/2021

Genre: Nonfiction

Hardcover - 443 pages - 978-0-8129-2858-7

Hardcover - 385 pages - 978-0-8129-1880-9

Hardcover - 463 pages - 978-1-57912-801-2

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The New York Times Announces Their Readers’ Pick for Best Book of the Past 125 Years

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The New York Times Book Review marked their 125 year anniversary by asking readers to nominate the best book of the past 125 years. Those submissions were narrowed down to a list of 25 , which were voted on by more than 200,000 readers. The list included classics like The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, as well as more recent publications like A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara.

The winner was To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. A NYT critic says of the choice, “As an adult, I can perceive why the novel might hold enduring appeal for many and enduring repulsion to perhaps just as many. I cannot fathom the complexities of teaching it to elementary school students in 2021, especially after reading online accounts from teachers on both the ‘pro’ and ‘against’ sides.”

The runners up were:

2) The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien 3) 1984 by George Orwell 4) One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez 5) Beloved by Toni Morrison

You can read more about why these books were voted for as well as more nominations at The New York Times .

Find more news and stories of interest from the book world in  Breaking in Books .

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

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. Since 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. Now 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. With 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.

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THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

125 years of literary history.

edited by Tina Jordan & Noor Qasim ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 2, 2021

An ebullient celebration of literature.

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 Review has 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 Folk remarked, “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.

Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-593-23461-7

Page Count: 368

Publisher: Clarkson Potter

Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021

HISTORY | UNITED STATES | GENERAL NONFICTION

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KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON

The osage murders and the birth of the fbi.

by David Grann ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 18, 2017

Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.

Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.

During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann ( The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession , 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.

Pub Date: April 18, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017

GENERAL HISTORY | TRUE CRIME | UNITED STATES | FIRST/NATIVE NATIONS | HISTORY

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BOOK TO SCREEN

A WEALTH OF PIGEONS

A cartoon collection.

by Steve Martin illustrated by Harry Bliss ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 17, 2020

A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.

The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.

Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker . So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny .” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.

Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9

Page Count: 272

Publisher: Celadon Books

Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020

ART & PHOTOGRAPHY | GENERAL NONFICTION | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | ENTERTAINMENT, SPORTS & CELEBRITY

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by Steve Martin ; illustrated by Harry Bliss

by Steve Martin

by Steve Martin & illustrated by C.F. Payne

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The new york times book review: 125 years of literary history audible audiobook – unabridged.

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.

Since 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.

Now 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, this 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.

Listeners 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.

• Listening Length 13 hours and 39 minutes
• Author The New York Times, see all
• Narrator Robert Petkoff, see all
• Audible release date November 2, 2021
• Language English
• Publisher Random House Audio
• ASIN B08ZJRL6T6
• Version Unabridged
• Program Type Audiobook
• See all details

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The New York Times Book Review Celebrates Their Anniversary with a Vote

To kill a mockingbird chosen as the best book of the past 125 years.

By Amanda Cleveland • January 04, 2022

The New York Times Book Review turned 125 years old. To celebrate their momentous anniversary and their dedicated readership, they asked their readers to nominate the best books of the past 125 years. They narrowed thousands of nominations down to 25 finalists . Those finalists were then voted on by their readers.

The book community has been waiting and, finally, the winner of their vote was announced. It's official:

Lee's masterpiece did have some competition. The New York Times says the win was by a narrow margin. Here, in order, are the four runners-up, any one of which could have held the title of the best book of the past 125 years:

The other books that made up the full 25 finalist ballot included well-known classics like The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck , The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald , and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith . The oldest book on the list was Ulysses by James Joyce , pulished in 1922, with the first serialization in 1918.

But the list was not bound by any one decade, or even century. With several recent releases making the cut, it really proves that a truly great story can become an instant classic. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara , published in 2015, Amor Towles's A Gentleman in Moscow , published in 2016, and Richard Power's The Overstory , published in 2018, were the three most recent books to make the ballot.

While many of the titles up for vote were literary fiction, the 25 finalists were not restricted to nor dominated by any one genre. Science-fiction, romance, fastasy, and even a western were included. Two children's books made the cut, with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Charlotte's Web each taking a spot in the top 25.

Seeing Charlotte's Web make the finalists is extra special to ThriftBooks, as that was the first book we ever sold . And, interestingly enough, To Kill a Mockingbird and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone have been in competition before on our own site. In our first ever Novel Knockout  tournament, the winner was Harry Potter, with To Kill a Mockingbird tieing for third place.

Choosing a definitive best book of the past 125 years is a daunting task. Whatever your personal selection would have been, these 25 finalists are all amazing reads and make a great reading list to start off the new year. Here are more of the finalists so you can start to buld your list:

• All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
• Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
• The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
• A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
• A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
• Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
• The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
• Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
• Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
• Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
• A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

Check out The New York Times for their full list of finalists and to read more on their event .

Read more by Amanda Cleveland

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The Best Book of the Past 125 Years, According to The New York Times

The results are in!

In honor of 125 years of Book Review, the New York Times book column, the Times asked their readers to nominate the best book from that time period. They received more than 1300 titles, and the top 25 most-nominated were then voted on by more than 200,000 subscribers.

The results? To Kill A Mockingbird won by a narrow margin, which shouldn't surprise anyone who remembers that it was also chosen as America's favorite book by PBS's Great American Read competition in 2018.

Following To Kill A Mockingbird , the runners up were The Fellowship of the Ring , 1984 , One Hundred Years of Solitude , and Beloved .

While America's love for Harper Lee's classic is well known, the competition revealed plenty of other interesting insights. For example, people's idea of "best" ran the gamut from science fiction and fantasy ( Parable of the Sower, by Octavia Butler) to cookbooks ( The Joy of Cooking, by Irma S. Rombauer) to children's books ( Where the Wild Things Are , by Maurice Sendak) and classics ( Dracula , by Bram Stoker).

Some authors also stood out as favorites, with multiple works nominated. William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck each had a whopping seven titles nominated; Margaret Atwood, James Baldwin and Virginia Atwood each had five; and Joan Didion received nominations for four books: Play It As It Lays, The While Album, Slouching Toward Bethlehem, and The Year of Magical Thinking. 

Related: Joan Didion: Her Books, Life and Legacy

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New york times under fire again — this time over bestseller list after elon musk tweet: ‘pure propaganda’.

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The New York Times is facing fresh controversy over its influential bestseller book list after Elon Musk posted on X about a years-old lawsuit that accused the paper of tweaking its rankings according to subjective criteria.

“The New York Times is pure propaganda,” Musk, the CEO of X, wrote on Sunday in response to a post that said the list is “editorial content,” not based on sales figures.

“Like everything else in Sulzberger’s paper, the NYT bestseller list is fake,” wrote Balaji Srinivasan, the former chief technology officer of Coinbase and former general partner of venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz.

Srinivasan, who is also the author of “The Network State,” continued: “They were forced to admit in court that it is not a ranked list. It’s actually ‘editorial content’ and they can exclude books they don’t like.”

In his post, Srinivasan provided a link to a “Kill Zone,” a blog devoted to top thriller and mystery writers, which recounted the story of William Peter Blatty, who wrote “The Exorcist” and its sequel, “Legion.”

In 1983, Blatty sued The Times for $6 million in Los Angles Superior Court, claiming the Grey Lady “ignored actual sales figures” from his publisher for “Legion,” alleging that it was kept off the list because of “either negligence or intentional falsehood.”

The blog said that The Times, which claimed the list was derived from sales, countered in court that its list “was not mathematically objective but was editorial content and thus protected under the Constitution as free speech.”

A rep for The Times declined to comment on Tuesday but shared the same link it shared with Esquire to its methodology, which says the weekly lists are “determined by sales numbers” from a variety of sellers across the country. It does not specify how The Times uses that information to determine where a book lands on the list.

The California court dismissed Blatty’s case but it was reinstated by the Court of Appeal in LA, saying the author was entitled to go to trial to try to prove the paper falsely represented the list as accurate and unbiased.

The Times brought the case to the state Supreme Court, saying the appellate ruling could open a Pandora’s Box to widespread legal claims by other authors that being off the list had cost them some kind of “prospective advantage.”

The Supreme Court declined to hear the case, leaving the lower court’s ruling that The Times bestseller list was “editorial content, not objective factual content,” which gave the paper license to exclude whatever book they deemed fit.

The ruling still surprises critics who assumed the list was a direct reflection of books with the highest sales.

Content strategist Jason Levin, who wrote “Memes Make Millions,” replied to Musk’s post: “NYT Bestseller list = Our favorites because we have better taste than the average American because we’re smarter Forbes 30 Under 30 = Forbes 30 Dumbasses We Tricked into Paying Us TIME Person of the Year = hahah remember when Hitler was person of the year yeah me too.”

Free Press founder and editor Bari Weiss added : “‘BAD THERAPY’ by @AbigailShrier is the #1 book on all of Amazon. But didn’t make the @nytimes bestseller list.”

While the bestseller list debuted in October 1931, the confusion about its methodology endures today.

The opaque path to making The Times’ bestseller list has been widely written about over the years, and includes several lists covering paperbacks, audiobooks, e-books, children’s books and business titles among others, as well as serious marketing and PR campaigns from book publishers.

In Equire’s 2022 piece “The Murky Path to Becoming a New York Times Best Seller, ” scribe Sophie Vershbow, chronicled the confusing methodology.

“No one outside The New York Times knows exactly how its best sellers are calculated—and the list of theories is longer than the actual list of best sellers,” Vershbow wrote.

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8 New Books We Recommend This Week

Suggested reading from critics and editors at The New York Times.

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Our recommended books this week include three very different memoirs. In “Grief Is for People,” Sloane Crosley pays tribute to a lost friend and mentor; in “Replay,” the video-game designer Jordan Mechner presents a graphic family memoir of three generations; and in “What Have We Here?” the actor Billy Dee Williams looks back at his life in Hollywood and beyond.

Also up this week: a history of the shipping companies that helped Jewish refugees flee Europe before World War I and a humane portrait of people who ended up more or less alone at death, their bodies unclaimed in a Los Angeles morgue. In fiction we recommend a posthumous story collection by a writer who died on the cusp of success, along with a ripped-from-the-headlines thriller and a big supernatural novel from a writer previously celebrated for her short fiction. Happy reading. — Gregory Cowles

WHAT HAPPENED TO NINA? Dervla McTiernan

Despite its title, this disturbing, enthralling thriller is less concerned with what happened to 20-year-old Nina, who vanished while spending the weekend with her controlling boyfriend, than it is with how the couple’s parents — all broken, terrified and desperate in their own ways — respond to the exigencies of the moment.

“Almost painfully gripping. … The last scene will make your blood run cold.”

From Sarah Lyall’s thrillers column

Morrow | $27

THE UNCLAIMED: Abandonment and Hope in the City of Angels Pamela Prickett and Stefan Timmermans

The sociologists Pamela Prickett and Stefan Timmermans spent some 10 years studying the phenomenon of the unclaimed dead in America — and, specifically, Los Angeles. What sounds like a grim undertaking has resulted in this moving project, in which they focus on not just the deaths but the lives of four people. The end result is sobering, certainly, but important, readable and deeply humane.

“A work of grace. … Both cleareyed and disturbing, yet pulsing with empathy.”

From Dan Barry’s review

Crown | $30

THE BOOK OF LOVE Kelly Link

Three teenagers are brought back from the dead in Link’s first novel, which is set in a coastal New England town full of secrets and supernatural entities. The magic-wielding band teacher who revived them gives the kids a series of tasks to stay alive, but powerful forces conspire to thwart them.

“It’s profoundly beautiful, provokes intense emotion, offers up what feel like rooted, incontrovertible truths.”

From Amal El-Mohtar’s review

Random House | $31

GRIEF IS FOR PEOPLE Sloane Crosley

Crosley is known for her humor, but her new memoir tackles grief. The book follows the author as she works to process the loss of her friend, mentor and former boss, Russell Perreault, who died by suicide.

“The book is less than 200 pages, but the weight of suicide as a subject, paired with Crosley’s exceptional ability to write juicy conversation, prevents it from being the kind of slim volume one flies through and forgets.”

From Ashley C. Ford’s review

MCDxFSG | $27

NEIGHBORS AND OTHER STORIES Diane Oliver

This deceptively powerful posthumous collection by a writer who died at 22 follows the everyday routines of Black families as they negotiate separate but equal Jim Crow strictures, only to discover uglier truths.

“Like finding hunks of gold bullion buried in your backyard. … Belatedly bids a full-throated hello.”

From Alexandra Jacobs’s review

Grove | $27

WHAT HAVE WE HERE? Portraits of a Life Billy Dee Williams

In this effortlessly charming memoir, the 86-year-old actor traces his path from a Harlem childhood to the “Star Wars” universe, while lamenting the roles that never came his way.

“He writes with clarity and intimacy, revealing the person behind the persona. And he doesn’t scrimp on the dirty details.”

From Maya S. Cade’s review

Knopf | $32

THE LAST SHIPS FROM HAMBURG: Business, Rivalry, and the Race to Save Russia’s Jews on the Eve of World War I Steven Ujifusa

Ujifusa’s history describes the early-20th-century shipping interests that made a profit helping millions of impoverished Jews flee violence in Eastern Europe for safe harbor in America before the U.S. Congress passed laws restricting immigration.

“Thoroughly researched and beautifully written. … Truth as old as the Republic itself.”

From David Nasaw’s review

Dutton | $35

REPLAY: Memoir of an Uprooted Family Jordan Mechner

The famed video-game designer (“Prince of Persia”) pivots to personal history in this ambitious but intimate graphic novel. In it, he elegantly interweaves themes of memory and exile with family lore from three generations: a grandfather who fought in World War I; a father who fled Nazi persecution; and his own path as a globe-trotting, game-creating polymath.

“The binding theme is statelessness — imposed by chance, antisemitism and personal ambition — but memoirs are about memory, and so it is also a book about the subtleties and biases of recollection.”

From Sam Thielman’s graphics column

First Second | $29.99

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