Avid Reader: A Life by Robert Gottlieb

Avid Reader: A Life Reviews

• 
  Lauren

  Having finished this book, I feel like I've just ended a bad relationship. Things started off well: I was so sure that I would enjoy Avid Reader that I had it, sight unseen, on my wish list, but my library hold came through before I could buy it. I dove in and the first, fortuitous chapter was smooth sailing. Then came the uncertainty. Was this all there was? What I said I'd liked about previous flings with memoir and biography--the gossipy sense of famous people endlessly colliding--was now being used against me in a series of anecdotes that went nowhere and meant nothing. A self-assured, confiding voice turned petty and prideful. Style devolved into tics. We fought, and I contemplated giving up on things for good, but then some little gem of insight or narrative would come along to remind me why I'd picked up the damn thing in the first place. It's over now. I stayed up late to finish reading, not because I couldn't put it down, but because I couldn't bear the thought of having to spend another day reading it.
  
  ...I rated this three stars at the beginning of this review, typed that, and then lowered it down to two. I can easily see why someone would like this book, but I am not that someone.
  
  Avid Reader is Robert Gottlieb's memoir of--mostly--his work: how he started at Simon & Schuster, moved to Knopf, briefly took over The New Yorker, and slid sideways into working for ballet companies and writing dance criticism. As a behind-the-scenes tour of publishing, there's a fair bit here to enjoy--one passage near the end, on "giving the reader a break," nearly justifies the entire book in and of itself: "Keep the price of the book as low as possible. Make sure the type is legible--when possible, generous, readability is all. Don't talk about an important photograph or portrait and then not show it. Deploy useful running heads--the name of a particular story or essay rather than the name of the author (the reader knows the name of the author). Shun running feet as opposed to running heads..." This is great, crunchy insider-detail, Gottlieb taking the lid off to let you see the inner workings. And there are occasional stories here that are charming in the flippant way Gottlieb describes as the folly of editorial memoirs ("Leo! Don't just do war, do peace, too!"). Gottlieb and Joseph Heller struggling to think of a replacement number for Catch-22 because the original, 18, was used too recently in another title; Gottlieb eventually has the epiphany that "twenty-two is even funnier than eighteen," which he admits doesn't quite make sense, and yet somehow does. Or there's Gottlieb's story of working with Bill Clinton as he was writing My Life, and how Gottlieb eventually admitted to Clinton that the experience had changed his life in two significant ways, the second of which was that he would no doubt get a more substantial advance for any memoir he'd ever write because of it. All of this is either interesting or charming.
  
  But, unfortunately, those sections are drowned out by the rest of the book, where a culturally elite Who's Who wander through, briefly encounter Gottlieb, and either get praised by him and adopted into his seemingly endless network of friendships, "palships," "full-service friends," "undeclared closeness," and/or "real intimacy," the source of banal "we ate ice cream together at night" stories or "she stayed in my apartment in Paris" or "I stood in at his wedding" stories... or, alternately, get slapped down and put in their place. The former entries are dull and the latter are surprisingly bitter and frequently hypocritical. Gottlieb is always criticizing people for making any public show against him or daring to air their dirty laundry--I assume, at this point, that I know every word that was ever written against him, because he repeatedly notes that contrary to what was printed/rumored, he actually... instead of just telling his version of events. He has to tell his version of events versus--and then doing the exact same thing. He drags Lillian Ross for writing a memoir about her affair with William Shawn, and then goes on to gleefully describe a screenplay she wrote afterwards which features thinly-veiled versions of Ross, Shawn, and Gottlieb himself: "Can Lillian really have believed that anyone would produce such a movie?" After declining to publish a commissioned New Yorker piece by Jamaica Kincaid about her experience growing up under colonialism because it was too angry (which strikes me as a limited view of colonialism, but okay, buddy), they encounter each other at a funeral and Kincaid (apparently fulsomely) apologizes for having misjudged him and says that she now knows he's a good person--and Gottlieb describes with delight how he socially snubbed her by passive-aggressively pretending not to know what she was talking about. This is, perhaps, the kind of story you tell your friends, who share your annoyances and are in automatic sympathy with you, but being kind of a dick to a woman at a funeral after telling her that she was too upset by her country having been colonized does not really make you come off well. Nor does the story of sending Pauline Kael a sarcastic "thanks for your support, Pauline" note after Kael, who criticized everyone, criticized The New Yorker in an interview. Nor does dragging Katherine Hepburn for her sense of privilege and self-absorption and desire to remain famous, when Gottlieb himself is equally self-absorbed despite not being nearly as famous as Hepburn.
  
  At one point, with no visible irony, Gottlieb pats himself on the back for having "kept his mouth shut" and refused to criticize Tina Brown, the woman who took over his editorial position at The New Yorker ... after a pointed parenthetical mentioning that the magazine hemorrhaged money after he left, a story about how Brown had to ask if a cartoon was funny or not, and some snide commentary about how Brown had been hired "to make the magazine 'hot, hot, hot' (to use a favorite phrase of hers."
  
  More charming bits. Gottlieb knows "with absolute certainty that [John le Carre] was not anti-Semitic, far from it," but decides that what his memoir needs is a prolonged section about his struggle to get le Carre to edit out some, in fact, fairly anti-Semitic language. (His inclusion of this despite his backhanded assertion that it means nothing about le Carre's character or beliefs makes more sense once you know le Carre left Knopf, but that's okay, because Gottlieb is here to tell you that his novels deteriorated.) Both Katherine Hepburn and Lauren Bacall get diagnosed by Gottlieb as being, by virtue of being actresses, desirous of, and "responsive to" firm "direction," and he happily tells stories of them being unreasonable until he decisively tells them what's going to happen, whereupon they, delighted by a strong hand, go along. (I feel like this kind of language could be saved for the bedroom.) And after sidelining his family for the entire book--which, given that this is a work memoir, made sense, or would have made sense if Gottlieb weren't so eager to brag about his friends that seemingly everyone he's ever spoken to makes their way into the pages--the closing pages give us Gottlieb's summation of his son Roger--"He's as nice a man at sixty-three as he was a boy of ten, and I'm very fond of him, but our lives rarely converge"--which is a) one of the most tepid accounts of parental love I've ever read and b) basically how Dexter Morgan (of Dexter, unsurprisingly), a sociopath, described his nascent feeling of affection for his sister. And after reasonable praise throughout the book, Gottlieb's wife Maria gets this lovely bit at the end: "Her intelligence is deep if masked, though it's irksome that Janet Malcolm insists Maria is more intelligent than I am. (I can't believe she really means it.)" What a guy, right?
  
  None of this, honestly, would be a problem in a biography, which may be why I favor biographies over memoirs. Gottlieb's humblebrags (did you know that, unlike other editors, he preferred humble sandwiches in his office to elaborate, expensive lunches? If you don't, you'll surely find out, because he mentions it several times) and celebrity obsession would be anatomized or at least neutrally-presented character quirks and not narrative padding to struggle through. The revolving door of famous and semi-famous intellectual elites would get some context and development and not just drift in and out after they and Gottlieb braid their friendship bracelets and declare their undying loyalty to each other. Generous and undoubtedly genuine praise wouldn't be slightly tainted by the fact that it's the person who received that praise making sure that you know he got it. This is, really, a memoir in search of a proper biographer, because right now, it's too constricted by pettiness to have any real perspective.
  
  Also, in the very last section, we find out that Gottlieb's uncle was a famous Soviet spy. I feel like that could have been given more attention, as it's almost objectively more interesting than anything else here.
• 
  Reading_ Tamishly

  I loved how this memoir started.
  Right from the beginning of the book, it talks about his first experience of reading(or being read to!).
  I wonder how he can remember all those books so vividly.
  No wonder...he is a genius.
  I love how he describes his parents; his father being a non-fiction reader (who would buy books even during difficult times) his mother, a reader who always reads.
  (I wish my family was like his. But who's complaining?!)
  
  He gets a bit critical (way too critical) when it comes to his schooling, his teachers (we can all note a bitter tone here), and the way he was being taught those days.
  I too condemn rote learning. Thanks for that part.
  
  Here's something that I totally loved and can relate to:
  'But my problem with religion didn’t stem from these misadventures. I’ve simply always lacked even the slightest religious impulse—when people talk about their faith, I can’t connect with what they’re talking about. This isn’t a decision I came to, or a deep belief or principle; I’m just religion-deaf, the way tone-deaf people hear sounds but not music. I suppose my religion is reading.'
  
  And another much relevant to my life in real:
  'It was, all in all, an education that kept me unchallenged and unstimulated.'
  
  He knows how to express without the use of unnecessary words.
  
  I can so relate with the author about almost all the topics he has mentioned in this memoir.
  His love of other art forms like the theatre, plays and musicals, and his passion of discovering new 'literary' worlds.
  
  This memoir, at times, turns out to be really intimidating. Sometimes he describes his life so dramatically in details but he sums up his journey at other parts by just mentioning some names(books, authors, acquaintances).
  Somehow I find his relationship and sexuality narrations a bit overwhelming and out of place.
  It diluted the book and and made me wonder what kind of memoir I was holding in my hands.
  
  I thought the book would not pick up. But yes, it did.
  It made me speechless when I actually read his words :
  'Finally, I had no interest in the books Simon and Schuster published: They just didn’t live up to my exquisite literary standards.'
  Oh boy...I need caffiene 🤨
  
  But I love knowing about Simon and Schuster through this memoir: how they worked, the schedule, and the various personalities involved in the making.
  
  I lit up when the book talked about 'Catch-22' damn...I am so happy to know what was behind the bringing out of this book!
  
  One thing though. Each of the chapter are really long that sometimes you will just be happy and satisfied that they are detailed but at other times you will start wondering what he is writing about.
  
  I don't like the parts where the author describes other people in length. I really don't want to know them and I really don't care who these people are and what they were doing.
  I just want to know more about the author's reading journey.
  He could have skipped these parts(distractions alert!).
  
  Why is his working life so elaborately written in 4 freakingly long chapters?
  It could have been represented better with less to read. It took up the major part of the book which I find it disappointing.
  The title could have been something else rather than 'Avid Reader'.
  This part is like a part from another big book.
  I was actually searching for the names of the books and the authors who he must have read during this entire journey.
  And I couldn't find it.
  It's just work, work, work, work, other people and their lives.
  
  And more work chapters as the last few chapters.
  
  I am so done with this memoir.
  Nope.
  Not the kind of memoir you would want to pick up.
  
  But yes, the first few chapters are good! I wanted to love this one so much.
• 
  reading is my hustle

  I am going to set this one aside for now. I do so with great disappointment. I will say that
  Robert Gottlieb's joy and celebration of all things reading is evident but ironically this could use some substantial editing.
• 
  Lew Watts

  Although the book runs out of steam, the middle chapters on Gottlieb's time with Knopf and his experiences when he moved to The New Yorker are fascinating. Sure there is name-dropping galore, and sometimes cringing, half-hearted attempts to seem humble when describing the many accolades and praise he received—but who can blame him? Gottlieb is simply a literary phenomenon, and anyone interested in the human side of editing should read this book. And my goodness, the names, the names, the names!
  I have seen some reviews criticizing his oblique (and sometimes blunt) stabs at people he didn't like, the messes he had to clear up, and his small asides over his successor at The New Yorker, Tina Brown—but these are rare, and for the most part Gottlieb is gracious. I must admit to feeling some sympathy for his wife, Maria Tucci: his aversion to taking vacations, although this didn't stop him going away on two-week shopping trips with his colleague, Martha Kaplan; his habit of working late into the night, most times at home; the mesmerizing list of people he invited to stay, or even outstay. But again, it is clear that he secured deep loyalty from colleagues and friends and was able to build amazing trust, often within minutes of first meetings. Could there have been more insights into his more iconic authors, or descriptions of the actual process of editing some of the most famous books of the 20th Century? Yes, which is the only reason I stopped at 4 stars.
• 
  W. Whalin

  As the former president, publisher and editor-in-chief of Alfred A. Knopf and the former editor of The New Yorker, Robert Gottlieb has had a huge impact on the reading public. For example about 100 pages into AVID READER, Gottlieb writes, "Two completely unknown writers she sent my way early in my Knopf years were Michael Crichton and Robert A. Caro." (Page 109) Here's a bit of behind the scenes look at Crichton saying, "What Michael wasn't was a very good writer. The Adromeda Strain was a terrific concept, but it was a mess--sloppily plotted, underwritten, and worst of all, no characterization whatsoever.His scientists were beyond generic--they lacked all human specificity, the only thing that distinguished some of them from the others was that some died and some didn't. I realized right away that with his quick mind, swift embrace of editorial input, and extraordinary work habits he could patch the plot, sharpen the suspense, clarify the science--in fact, do everything necessary except create convincingly human beings." (page 109). Now that is an inside look at the publishing business since Crichton was transformed into a mega-bestselling author.
  
  These types of fascinating inside stories permeate AVID READER. I loved finding these insights in this well-crafted book. As he writes toward the end about his time at Simon and Schuster, "My love affair with readers was ignited and confirmed by the message that Richard L. Simon expressed to the entire staff of Simon and Schuster by means of bronze paperweights on which were etched these words: GIVE THE READER A BREAK. There was one on my desk waiting for me on the first day of work sixty years ago, and it's on my desk as I type today. This succinct philosophy can be adhered to in many ways. For me: Keep the price of the book as low as possible. Make sure the type is legible--when possible, generous; readability is all. Don't talk about an important photograph or portrait and then not show it. Deploy useful running heads--the name of a particular story or essay rather than the name of the author (the reader knows the name of the author). Shun running feet as opposed to running heads--they drag the reader's eye down the page. Don't deploy fancy ornaments or folios on the page that may distract from the text--in other words, don't over-design. it's easy--just remember the things that irritate you in books you'r reading. Do unto others..." (Page 318-319)
  
  Sage advice is packed into this book and makes it worthwhile reading. I recommend it.
• 
  Beth Anne

  So perhaps Gottlieb got the short end of the stick because I read this book at the same time I was reading the Elizabeth Warren book. And these two are like...opposite ends of the spectrum. I found Gottlieb, while fascinating and very very very well read (duh), to be extremely pretentious. I mean...I read this with my eyes constantly rolling up into my skull.
  
  As other reviewers mentioned, I got some interesting books added to my "to read" list, but the getting there was not worth it to me.
  
  
• 
  David Huff

  I read about Avid Reader this past November in the New York Review of Books and, as others here have remarked, the title was indeed hard to resist. Then, I saw the photos included after the index, discovered that Robert Gottlieb totally LOOKS like a bookworm, and I was hooked!
  
  Now in his mid-80’s, Gottlieb continues a 60+ year career lived at the pinnacle of the publishing industry, with editing tenures at Simon & Schuster, Alfred A. Knopf, and The New Yorker. An interesting parallel thread, covered in no small amount of detail, is his lifelong passion for dance – specifically ballet – and his fascinating association with George Balanchine’s New York City Ballet.
  
  Gottlieb’s autobiography is, in one sense, a decades-long excursion through the high society life of the New York Literary scene, and if Columbia offered a Pulitzer for name dropping, he could walk away with it if he chose. Yet, as I read this book, Gottlieb really didn’t strike me as the arrogant, self-important type; but rather, simply a man with a life-long passion for books whose abilities brought him and his family into the world of the elite.
  
  Consider just a tiny sample of the authors he worked with: Joseph Heller (Catch-22), Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park), Toni Morrison, John le Carre, Bill Clinton, Lauren Bacall, and dozens more. He travelled the world, met many very interesting (and some troubled) writers and their families, and clearly cherished and loved so many of his colleagues and friends. Yes, some of the anecdotes have gossipy overtones, and the man is a workaholic extraordinaire, but most any lover of books and writing will enjoy his story.
  
• 
  Tom

  I picked up Robert Gottlieb's Avid Reader in anticipation of the upcoming "Turn Every Page" documentary, which explores the decades-long partnership between editor Gottlieb and biographer/historian Robert A. Caro, hoping that it would be something of a preview of Lizzie Gottlieb's (Robert's daughter) film. Of course, it wasn't. Gottlieb's lengthy career as publisher, editor and author saw him oversee the works of many writers besides Caro, and Avid Reader is stuffed (some might say overstuffed) with stories about them. Caro has his pages, but there wasn't really anything revealing about Gottlieb's recollections that I hadn't read or heard in some form or another before.
  
  It's the stories of Gottlieb's experiences of other authors and collaborators that were the kernels of interest which lifted up a somewhat flawed book for me. The highlights include Gottlieb supervising the memoir of Bill Clinton (during which Gottlieb gets to cheekily tell the ex-president that he's actually working for Gottlieb), marvelling at the way Katharine Graham came to write her own Pulitzer-winning memoir, changing the title of Catch-18 to Catch-22, suffering and witnessing the barbs of the infamously bitchy Pauline Kael during his New Yorker years, and trying to manage the ambitious and sensitive historian Barbara Tuchman. There are plenty of less interesting anecdotes, too.
  
  If there's a major problem, besides the book being a bit overstuffed and at times boring (my eyes glazed over for the entire "Dancing" chapter), it's that Gottlieb doesn't come across as a straight-shooting narrator. Whenever he takes a course of action that offends or undermines a friend or colleague (including taking one of their jobs), it's a misunderstanding in which he meant no harm. If he claims to hold no ill will towards someone, one can usually double back or read on to discover a petty aside that suggests otherwise. There's a good degree of false modesty on display, too; discussing
  Sarah: The Life of Sarah Bernhardt, his entry into the "Jewish Life" series, Gottlieb writes: "I gather that Sarah is still the bestselling Jewish Life, but I know perfectly well that whatever success it's had hasn't had much to do with me and everything to do with its heroine." OK, buddy.
  
  Overall the book is good, but it's also a slog. There's probably too much excess fat here, which is strange considering the writer is an editor. Does a memoir called Avid Reader need a chapter on ballet? If you're not too much of a completist, I'd recommend stopping after the "Knopf Redux" chapter. By that point you've consumed the best of the book.
• 
  Holly

  As I mentioned in a status update, I enjoyed this well enough once I accepted that it's a memoir made up of name-drops, "thank you's," and (semi-) vapid vignettes. I'd been hoping for at least some sections about editing itself, but for that I need to re-read the Paris Review interview Gottlieb gave on "The Art of Editing" - his interviewee is Joseph Heller himself and the long discussion gets into the nitty gritty of line-by-line editing and developmental editing. I loved that interview.
  
  Gottlieb is a wealthy and well-connected man and a highly regarded editor. But he's paid his dues and settled scores and set the record straight on several rumors the literati might still hold about him. This book is mostly gossip.
  
  I found one glaring contradiction that stood out to me: When describing his work with Bill Clinton on the post-presidency memoir Gottlieb finds it noteworthy to describe a conversation that occurred before starting to work together:

  [Clinton says (in front of his young staff)]: "Ask anyone here. You'll find that I'm very easy to work for."
  
  [Gottlieb]: "Actually," I said [to Clinton], "I have to point out that in this instance I'm not working for you, you're working for me." It was cheeky, it was deliberate. If he didn't understand that in an editorial relationship there had to be an equality, or at least a balance, it was going to fail: Editors can't do their work properly if they're hired hands.

  
  This was just surprising because before and after this exchange Gottlieb reiterates many times that he feels he owes his writers his full attention and full service (and rapid turnarounds on their drafts, which is great). He even cites what he tells students in the Columbia publishing course on the basics of editing as [he] understands them: "Get back to your writers right away." "It's the writer's book not yours." "Spend your strength and your ego in the service of the writer." [...] And over and over again, "It's a service job."
  
  I guess he thought the President was going to take advantage of him? (In the end they had an excellent working relationship.)
• 
  BookBully

  Who among us on this site can resist a book entitled AVID READER? Not me. Plus the author, Robert Gottlieb, has a literary pedigree that makes me salivate. Editor-in-chief at Knopf; editor at The New Yorker; friend and confidante to dozens of authors.
  
  Gottlieb's book has the type of juicy book gossip so many readers enjoy along with stories of editing the likes of Lauren Bacall, Katherine Graham and Bill Clinton. A prolific reader himself he throws out several recommendations including a series that I keep vowing to read: The Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett. (Just purchased the first volume, THE GAME OF KINGS.)
  
  So why only three stars? Well, at times Gottlieb tosses in mini-bios of folks without any real cause to. It's as if someone nudged him and said, "So-and-so's family will be upset if you don't mention them...." Perhaps I'm being unfair, given that the author is now in his mid 80s and many of his dear friends and co-workers have passed.
  
  Also - and this is strictly a personal whine - did we really need an entire chapter on dancing? Gottlieb has written several books on the subject but I would think a page or two would have sufficed in a book with this title.
  
  Overall I'd recommend this to any one who enjoys reading about books and authors. Can't say I enjoyed it as much as say Michael Korda's ANOTHER LIFE or Lynne Tillman's BOOKSTORE but I did think it was better than HOTHOUSE by Boris Kachka.
• 
  Joan Colby

  At first blush, one might say this book includes a lot of name dropping and it does, but Gottleib is so likeable in his account and so clearly proud of his achievements that this fails to be a knock on the autobiography. For anyone who loves books and literary gossip, this book is a feast. I’ve made lists of books that Gottleib admires to check them out. His career has been spent in publishing, from Simon and Schuster,to Knopf to the New Yorker and back to Knopf. It appears he knows every writer and celebrity worth knowing and he’s forthright about them—many he loves as lifelong friends, others were ‘difficult” and some were friends where the relationship ended badly. I like this book a lot—liked the writer and his tastes, his work ethic and his evident devotion to his second wife. He speaks without self-pity of their difficulty with their second child, a victim of Aspergers syndrome and expresses gratitude that they had the means and the connections to find the best help for him. All in all, a highly enjoyable read.
• 
  Rob Neyer

  Feels more like the acknowledgments section from a book about Gottlieb's life than a book about his life itself. More substantively, I would have preferred more pages about working with Joseph Heller and Bill Clinton and fewer about writers now largely forgotten, and I would have preferred many more pages about Gottlieb's stint running The New Yorker, and many fewer about his involvement with various ballet companies. The book's certainly (and obviously) well-written, but it reads (to me) more like a love letter to his legion of close friends than like a real memoir. All those wonderful road trips with women other than his lovely and talented wife ... what was going on, really?
• 
  Morgan

  Robert Gottlieb kind of fell into publishing in his 20’s. From there he carved out a valiant career as editor and publisher with two of the most renowned publishing houses of the time and then on to the venerable “The New Yorker” magazine.
  
  Gottleib’s reminiscences are insightful, sometimes amusing, certainly interesting to anyone who reads and loves books, and ultimately entertaining.
  
  I thought I was an avid reader until I read this book. It turns out I am not even close since there are so many books and authors mentioned therein that I have never even heard of, never mind read, in which case perhaps it is not my place to have anything more to say on the matter except that I found his memoir interesting and enjoyable. What a life!
  
• 
  Steve Peifer

  The obvious cheap shot is that this book needed an editor. It was when he told how he came to terminate the contract of Roald Dahl and how it was a financial mistake because he was a huge money maker for Knopf but that was ok because he was a hero then to his staff that I discovered the fatal flaw: this book wasn't written for his audience, it was written for his friends.
  
  That is the only possible explanation of five pages devoted to Robert Caro and dozens and dozens to obscure friends. A good editor would tell LeBron that a book that focused on his love of chess might miss the point; the same about the lack of focus on writers. What you come to realize is that publishing was his job and dance was his passion and that is sadly why his prose is uninspired with publishing and alive with dance.
  
  A good editor might say that he needed to remember why someone might read this.
• 
  Dylan Perry

  2.5/5
  
  
• 
  Hank Stuever

  Wish there had been more about his approach to editing, techniques, memorable challenges with manuscripts and articles. When he does get into that kind of thing, it's a fascinating book. When he just glances past it, it's sort of just a tedious recounting.
• 
  Erik Fazekas

  All in all it was a good book!
  I did fastread the opening pages about his childhood and first job. Then adorned every single page about his editorial experiences. It did teach me something too, opened my eye. I believe and hope Mr Gottlieb’s memoir made me a better editor ;)
  But i mostly skipped the parts about him being editor in New Yorker amd them dancing, writing, living...
  but those editorial parts made up for everything :)
• 
  Irene

  Love how he tracks the ups and downs of his relationship with the New York City Ballet.
• 
  Mark

  In terms of editors extraordinaire, if the first half of the twentieth century gave us the renowned and revered Maxwell Perkins, then surely the second half gave us the landmark editorial competency and mastery of Robert Gottlieb. Different in temperament and work style, I believe they nevertheless share the prestigious title of being “authors’ editors.”
  
  Multiple times throughout Avid Reader: A Life, Gottlieb makes it his business to repeat his editorial philosophy, which is all about serving writers and their books. “A writer’s chief concern,” Gottlieb says, “is, and should be, protecting himself and his books as he thinks fit. If the editor and publisher don’t provide that sense of security, they’re not doing their job, which is first, last, and always a service job. What we’re there for is to serve the writer and the book.”
  
  I like the way Gottlieb structures his book, beginning with Reading, then Learning, then four successive chapters delineating his working life at Simon & Schuster, Alfred A. Knopf, The New Yorker, and a return to Knopf in a somewhat different capacity to the usual editor-in-chief position he held at all these companies. Gottlieb’s concluding three chapters are Dancing, Writing, and Living.
  
  The style of the narrative reflects Gottlieb’s dynamic character and irrepressible energy. The content is sharply focused on writers and books. The average reader, as consumer, buys and reads books repeatedly. While dust jacket blurb and other reviews may provide additional information, it is never “the story behind the story of the book.” Gottlieb’s preferred style of working with writers is close, intimate, and hands-on, and thus, his delicious and detailed accounts of what ultimately brings a book into print are like a quenching nectar to avid book readers thirsty for behind-the-scenes information.
  
  Granted, I was personally less interested in his work and writing on dancing, or even some of his quirky pastimes (collecting handbags!), but the lion’s share of the book’s content is on writers and books. Not surprisingly, Gottlieb’s editing prowess is his primary skill, but his excellent writing is simply a joy to read. It is as fluid and entertaining and fast-paced as if he talked the whole thing out to you during an interminable coffee-shop session.
  
  I would have favored a different and more comprehensive index to the book, rather than what simply looks like a Who’s Who of twentieth-century writers. Nevertheless, Avid Reader: A Life is a must-read for book lovers. They will find themselves gobbling up seeming trivia about the writing and publishing of books, but when that trivia happens to relate to their own favorite authors and books, it becomes an enormously satisfying pleasure.
• 
  jrendocrine

  3.5 stars? This is the unexpected gossip pages covering most authors you have read over the last 50 years. Gottlieb knows, and purportedly likes every famous author of the SO MANY that he edited. He must be one helluva'n editor, and one helluva great friend (he shares his house with everyone, who shares back). He gives me a great respect for editors and... THERE AREN'T ENOUGH OF THEM (good editors!)
  
  When I finally started reading the book, I couldn't remember why I had it on my list until on page 185 he starts talking about my favorite of favorites... Dorothy Dunnett! He says that he got her to write the Niccolo series and suggested the zodiac theme. So, I bow down before you, Bob, your association with Dame Dunnett made my adult reading life!
  
  Also, this bit on page 93 made me laugh - talking about anti-semitism - someone's demented elderly aunt who was "uyieldingly disagreeable about Jews" trying to explain her prejudice "They dart out of alleys!... They cluster on lawns!" Yup, that about explains it for this Jewish gal.
• 
  Jo Marie

  Fascinating memoir by a man whose whole career was spent reading, editing, and publishing books. Loved reading about the process of editing and publishing, and loved the anecdotes about authors and books I've read and all the ones I now have to add to my to read list. Was a little slow going at times and there's an awful lot of name dropping but then Gottlieb has met and worked with many authors and editors.
• 
  Jeff Scott

  ​
  There is nothing like a good tell all. Not just to tell one's own story, but to set the record straight. Robert Gottlieb has scores to settle in his autobiography Avid Reader. A fun linear narrative that gets away with a great deal of gossip since many of the people in question are dead.
  
  Robert Gottlieb's life is a narrative on publishing and literature in the past 60 years. He has been a part of history's biggest fiction and non-fiction as editor of Simon and Schuster, Knopf, The New Yorker, and other publishers. Gottlieb's memoir is a no holds barred take on his life. His off the cuff manner describes many run-ins with famous authors. It would seem part of the reason to have this memoir is to defend himself. His rejection of John Kennedy O'Toole's Confederacy of Dunces may have led to the author's suicide. However, Gottlieb revisits the work to see if it had been drastically changed. He finds that his opinion on it has not. In being appointed as head of the New Yorker, the staff famously published a letter in opposition to his appointment. He says unkind things about his predecessor and his successor. He seems to underplay his involvement in many of literature's most famous works. However, he praises many works that only baby boomers of the high literary sort would remember.
  
  What was most revealing to me was the editorial process. It can be summed up in two stories. One, when he is asked to edit Bill Clinton's autobiography he makes clear to the former president that he works for the editor, not the other way around. Second, his work on Catch-22 when Joseph Heller repeatedly praises his editorial skills, he calls to tell him to knock it off. He has this line to top off that exchange: "I felt then, and still do, that readers shouldn't be made aware of editorial interventions; they have a right to feel that what they're reading comes direct from the author to them." p63 I think that part becomes especially important as books like Go Set a Watchman are put out. I would agree that the readers would prefer to think that work comes out of an author's head like Zeus from the mountain. Works that have been published without the mystique is like looking behind the curtain before the Wizard of Oz even begins.
  
  The structure is very linear with some narrative arcs that split the memoir mostly into his working life. In between he tells of his marriages, children, and friends. Overall, the work is an excellent highlight of his life and show the incredible work he has done in his lifetime.
• 
  Bayneeta

  Maybe 4.5 stars, but clearly this was a book for me! The man must not ever sleep, and he's clearly compulsive. He stumbled in to the perfect career field for his skills, loved his jobs, loved his co-workers, loved his employees, and loved most of the writers he worked with over his long and stellar career. Simon and Schuster, Knopf, the New Yorker. Joseph Heller, Toni Morrison, John Cheever, Doris Lessing, John le Carre, Michael Crichton, Katherine Graham, Nora Ephron, Dorothy Dunnett, Bill Clinton, and on and on. Only really slow part for me was 30 pages near the end where he shares his passion for ballet and dance. I have little knowledge or appreciation for this art while he's been a devoted fan from childhood.
• 
  Jorge García

  A juzgar por los comentarios exagerados que ensalzan el libro ("el mejor libro del año", "una viva y reveladora memoria del mayor editor de nuestro tiempo"), hay que prevenir al lector español que sienta curiosidad por este libro.
  
  En primer lugar, se trata de una autobiografía. Si estás de acuerdo con Roberto Bolaño ("no tengo nada contra las autobiografías, siempre y cuando quien las escriba tenga un pene de 30 centímetros en erección"), este no es tu libro. Ni el tema (su propia vida) ni el estilo (sencillo y cuidado, como se espera de un editor) harían que este libro destaque por encima de otras biografías o autobiografías. Tampoco tiene una vocación universal ni pretende convetirse en un testigo de su siglo. Tan solo habla de su vida y sobre todo de su oficio.
  
  Ah, ¿pero no habla de libros? Sí, se trata por supuesto de las memorias de un editor, y los principales capítulos se centran en su trabajo para las grandes editoriales Simon and Schuster, Knopf, y para la revista The New Yorker. Hay que añadir que Robert Gottlieb lo ha leído todo (el título no engaña) y ha conocido y trabajado con muchísimos escritores. Si te interesan las relaciones entre los editores y los autores, y eres de naturaleza cotilla, es un libro bastante recomendable. El capítulo que más he disfrutado ha sido sin duda el largo capítulo sobre su primera experiencia como editor en la prestigiosa editorial fundada por Alfred A. Knopf, en el que vemos desfilar a muchos grandes escritores del siglo XX. Por el contrario, el libro se le puede hacer pesado al lector si desconoce a muchos de los autores mencionados, o cuando le hablen de temas más ajenos o que le resulten indiferentes (hay un breve capítulo dedicado a la danza, por ejemplo).
  
  Como la edición de Navona carece de índice onomástico, os voy a enumerar a algunos de los autores que se mencionan en el libro: Joseph Heller (el autor de "Trampa 22"), Jessica Mitford, John Cheever, Toni Morrison, Barbara Tuchman, Roald Dahl (un borde), Doris Lessing, Salman Rushdie (un creído), Irene Mayer Selznick, Katherine Hepburn (tan brillante como egocéntrica), Lauren Bacall, John Le Carré, John Updike, Nora Ephron (amiga muy querida del autor), Elia Kazan, James Thurber (iracundo y borracho)... Cabe mencionar por último esa esa sombra o mancha en la vida de este editor, que supuso el rechazo (y posterior suicidio del escritor) de La conjura de los necios de J.K. Toole (en la página 125). Casi todos los grandes editores tienen una mácula en su historial, aunque raras veces tiene trágicas consecuencias.
  
  Como me interesa el
  mundo de la edición, y leer libros escritos por editores (de ese lado del Atlántico, recomiendo los breves ensayos de André Schiffrin y Jason Epstein editados en su día por Anagrama), reconozco que me ha interesado descubrir a este editor.
• 
  Mary

  So much fun to read! This is the perfect memoir for a book geek, chock full of behind-the-scenes stories from the editing and publication of so many famous and beloved books as well as from the venerable publishing houses Simon and Shuster and Knopf and The New Yorker. As you would expect, the writing was a pleasure to read--Gottlieb has an easy, avuncular style and it was an absolute pleasure to spend time with him. I particularly liked the Simon and Schuster, Knopf, New Yorker and Knopf Redux sections--my to-read list grew dramatically as I read about book after book that Gottlieb shepherded along. (Keep your Goodreads account handy while reading for frequent updates!) My only criticisms are that the Dancing section feels like it should be in another book (but it's part of Gottlieb's life, even though not his life as the "Avid Reader" of the title, so who am I to quibble?) and that there were a few rather lurid stories about writers and associates that I wish had been omitted in keeping with the spirit of generosity which characterizes the rest of the book. These are small reservations, however; read and enjoy.
• 
  Terry

  I "really" liked parts of this books; some parts were "okay"; and I merely "liked" other parts. I guess three stars, to average it all out.
  
  I listened to the audiobook, and the author did a very good job. I enjoyed listening to his voice, and his emphasis.
  
  I loved some of the vignettes about famous authors, especially the Bill Clinton section, the Joseph Heller section, and the Robert Caro section (which was not nearly long enough!). I was not interested at all in the LONG section on Dance, his involvement with dance companies, and all his books on dance.
  
  I became tired of him describing nearly every woman he worked with as "a beauty," and so, so many of the people he edited as becoming "family."
  
  Nevertheless, I found his enthusiasm for his authors compelling, and came away from this book with many, many additions to my list of books to explore. I am in awe of his compulsion/ability to stay up all night reading, and his habit of reading EVERYTHING a writer has written, one right after the other.
  
  Very glad I read this memoir. Now I am even more eager to see the documentary his daughter just produced, "Turn Every Page."