This is the fourth in my five-part series on 2023 as my 30th year in the press—part one covers my first paid article in journalism, part two focuses on the interviews and part three reviews my news reporting—since the late 20th century. An early part of my 30 years in journalism involves books. This was a consciously chosen part of my strategy. I was young. I knew I wanted to learn. I knew that reading books, especially books written by authors with whom I disagreed, could help. I also knew that writing about books could put me in the league of literary writing I wanted to master. I sought to meet and interview the world’s greatest authors, which could be afforded by book journalism. I could get to know an author, I figured, during an interview—at my initiation, request or insistence, most of my interviews were conducted in person as was (and is) my general reporting practice—and, as an author myself, I would have an opportunity to learn what writing, promoting and, above all, thinking about a book and its mass market publication means both in theory and in practice—within months of going to press.
Podcast: Thirty Years in the Press