by Lindsay Kaplan, Associate Publicist
The New York Times Book Review is the bible, but you wouldn’t know it. On any given Sunday, New York and its most intellectual denizens clutch the publishing industry’s holy text and systematically choose their next subway fashion statement. Sam Tanenhaus may or may not have brought the Bestseller List from Sinai, but he certainly leads his chosen people to the Holy Land better bookstores everywhere.
There are those of us in book publishing who consider Tanenhaus a legend. As Editor, his approval can dictate fireworks. His omission can cause an author to fade into oblivion like a published Ozymandias. His jokes can send nervous waves of laughter through a sea of anxious publicists. His personal phone call might cause a seasoned publisher to swoon.
You get the idea.
The OUP Publicity Department was recently honored to sit in the presence of his Holiness, Mr. Tanenhaus, as he spoke to members of the Publishers’ Publicity Association. Tanenhaus riffed on a multitude of changes in the Book Review, like cutting down the number of Notable Books to a mere 100 titles, and the splitting the paperback Bestseller list into mass market and trade categories. He also cooed about his baby, the section’s blog, tossing around page view numbers as easy as I imagine he would cookbook galleys to the garbage.
You could see his wheels turning as he spoke, pausing for giggles as he doled out nuggets of wisdom such as, “You come out of the shower without any clothes on and nobody’s going to notice you’ve brushed your teeth.” No one here can remember what he was referring to, but truer words have never been spoken.
Without coming out and saying so, Tanenhaus made it abundantly clear that he is a sucker for big names and literary darlings. And why shouldn’t he be? No one would have read an entirely new testament based on the teachings of Frank Christ. Tanenhaus really wants the likes of Stephen King and Joshua Ferris to cozy up for a podcast and inscribe their gospel on the prime real estate of the back-page.
Alas, is there hope for anyone else? To quote Tanenhaus himself, “The geeks will inherit the earth.” Now that is a prophesy I can get behind.
I’m so glad someone finally wrote about how great the new york times book review is. I live by it. Whenever I go buy a book it’s from that list. Ms. Kaplan you took the thoughts right out of my head.
“The geeks will inherit the earth.”
Oh, I do hope so.
I disagree, actually. I loved the Book Review when Chip McGrath ran it and I think it has gone way downhill since Sam came in and focused solely on big names and literary darlings. I think that has made the Book Review just like every other book review page, focusing on the writers everyone already knows about instead of discovering new writers or lauding the obscure greats…
I declare- more regular postings by Lindsay Kaplan, the best Associate Publicist OUP has to offer!