An Avid Reader

Robert Gottlieb’s An Avid Reader: A Comment

   I am more than two thirds through this most enjoyable book and just interrupted my trek to make a casual check whether others had already made a comment that had popped into my mind. The reviews I looked at were all very favorable—rightly so—check them out, since in no way am I here writing  a review. I must however, briefly tell you what Avid Reader is about.

   While Gottlieb, it’s author, wrote a number of other books, the main thrust of his career was that of editor, first at Simon & Schuster, then for two decades as head of Knopf, followed by a much shorter stint as the boss—to the degree there was such a thing—at the New Yorker, before he returned for a final stint at Knopf. 
   As the editor of a great many books, he of course dealt with a large number of people. But in addition to these, many friends, colleagues and acquaintances of a most sociable author make their appearance in the pages of his book.  If I counted correctly, over six hundred names appear in the index of my e-book of the Avid Reader. If one takes off a generous 15% for persons who are mentioned but are not actors in the narrative—e.g. Theodore Dreiser or Dwight Eisenhower or Marshall Field—we are still left with more than five hundred persons who play one or another role in Robert Gottlieb’s life.

   He was over eighty when he was writing this professional autobiography and it may not be so unusual for someone who has led a long and public life to have amassed that many friends and acquaintances. I don’t really know what might be taken to be normal, or even if there is such a thing. But I am reasonably sure that not that many octogenarians can list anywhere near as many colleagues, friends, and acquaintances and spell their names correctly, variously identify them, and recall the role they played in the author’s Lebenslauf.
   For quite a few there were no doubt records. But I suspect that even those are not to be found in ordered folders housed in labeled file drawers. And for a great many others of the personages named, the there may be stray hints in correspondence or other miscellaneous writings, while a large number of remaining ones had to emerge from a well-stocked memory.

   As you’d expect of a book by a master editor, Gottlieb’s Avid Reader is exceedingly well-written and flows smoothly on, and is never less than interesting.