The weekend Gawker team delivers an extensive summary of a Harvard lecture by NYTBR editor Barry Gewen, pulling back the curtain on the New York Times Book Review. So if you missed the Book TV documentary late last year, Gewen offers a slightly less neutral perspective, as in his description of how Sam Tanenhaus‘ “early intentions of creating ‘fireworks’ in the Book Review and breaking the editorial staff of its habitual timidity have since given way to mild-mannered realism.” Well, I wouldn’t begin to analyze the psychology of the Review staff, but even I have to admit that if there’s one thing Tanenhaus and his team have done, it’s to create fireworks. Not all of them good, initially, but considering that yesterday’s edition was the second Review this month to put a paperback original novel on the cover (as well as giving a second PBO a full-page review inside), it’s safe to say that some major shifts have taken place.
Gewen also (jokingly) told his audience that while the Review offices weren’t nearly as nice as the ones the Magazine crew had at the other end of the floor, “we’re smarter than we are,” and admitted that despite working for the paper for nearly two decades, he’s never met Michiko Kakutani.