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Biography & Autobiography. Nonfiction. HTML:A spirited and revealing memoir by the most celebrated editor of his time After editing The Columbia Review, staging plays at Cambridge, and a stint in the greeting-card department of Macy's, Robert Gottlieb stumbled into a job at Simon and Schuster. By the time he left to run Alfred A. Knopf a dozen years later, he was the editor in chief, having discovered and edited Catch-22 and The American Way of Death, among other bestsellers. At Knopf, Gottlieb edited an astonishing list of authors, including Toni Morrison, John Cheever, Doris Lessing, John le CarrĂ©, Michael Crichton, Lauren Bacall, Katharine Graham, Robert Caro, Nora Ephron, and Bill Clintonâ??not to mention Bruno Bettelheim and Miss Piggy. In Avid Reader, Gottlieb writes with wit and candor about succeeding William Shawn as the editor of The New Yorker, and the challenges and satisfactions of running America's preeminent magazine. Sixty years after joining Simon and Schuster, Gottlieb is still at itâ??editing, anthologizing, and, to his surprise, writing. But this account of a life founded upon reading is about more than the arc of a singular careerâ??one that also includes a lifelong involvement with the world of dance. It's about transcendent friendships and collaborations, "elective affinities" and family, psychoanalysis and Bakelite purses, the alchemical relationship between writer and editor, the glory days of publishing, andâ??alwaysâ??the sheer exhilaration of work. Robert Gottlieb photographed by Jill Krementz at his desk in his office at Knopf on September 26, 1972; all rights res… (more)
User reviews
It turns out that Gottlieb had a hand in many of the great books of my formative reading years, in addition to spending five years at The New Yorker. Unfortunately, you have to read between the lines as to why it was Gottlieb who ended up in this position. The book succeeds as a chronicle of the works he published, but Gottlieb seems to have no gift for characterization, not of others and not of himself. Motive is always a black hole, other people are ciphers, and he's a detached and impersonal Zelig. Most frustratingly, Gottlieb evinces no genuine desire to share or educate with the book, just to recount his life and business triumphs. As a result, the story seems empty at its heart.
But still, much as I could never warm up to him personally, his career proved fun to read about. I suppose explains as much as anything why this apparently detached and cold person has so many so-called dear friends -- it's interesting watching him grind his way to triumph, many bodies accumulating by the side of the road, but those he needs being carried with him.
He probably edited or was responsible for most of the books I have read in my life. He clearly knows what makes for good writing, voice,
It is remarkably impersonal, as another reviewer pointed out. Hard to see how he has so many friends, unless his writing just obscures his real self.
Can't think he would have accepted this book if it hadn't been by himself!
Gottlieb is probably one of
After his graduation from Columbia, Gottlieb got on at Simon & Schuster and progressed to editor. Then he took over at the very prestigious Knopf, and then to editorship of the New Yorker, then back to Knopf, where he has been ever since, now semi-retired. Along the way he has worked with some of the brightest literary lights of the past sixty years - Joseph Heller, Toni Morrison, John Cheever, Barbara Tuchman, Harold Brodkey, LeCarre, Alice Munro, and on and on, as well as a host of lesser-known writers, many of whom I have read. There is, of course, a veritable deluge of name-dropping in a memoir like this, and by God, I loved it! I felt like I was walking through a library of books I've read and loved from childhood into old age. (Gottlieb was an Albert Payson Terhune fan as a kid too.)
I could gush on about all the associations Gottlieb's stories brought back, but I won't. I just kinda wish I could sit and talk books and authors with this old guy. The only part I skimmed here was the chapter on his fascination and association with ballet. I'm probably just too dumb to appreciate that. But the books! The authors! LOVED all of that. And in his reflecting back on all of it in the final chapter, "Living," he comes up with a perfect closing line -
"And, yes, the end may very well be hard, but perhaps fate will be kind, and at least let me keep on reading for a while."
Perfect. Very highly recommended, especially for book lovers.
- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER