Overview
Dorothy Parker's complete weekly New Yorker column about books and people and the rigours of reviewing. When, in 1927, Dorothy Parker became a book critic for the New Yorker, she was already a legendary wit, a much-quoted member of the Algonquin Round Table, and an arbiter of literary taste. In the year that she spent as a weekly reviewer, under the rupic 'Constant Reader', she created what is still the most entertaining book column ever written. Parker's hot takes have lost none of their heat, whether she's taking aim at the evangelist Aimee Semple MacPherson ('She can go on like that for hours. Can, hell does'), praising Hemingway's latest collection ('He discards detail with magnificent lavishness'), or dissenting from the Tao of Pooh ('And it is that word ""hummy"", my darlings, that marks the first place in The House at Pooh Corner at which Tonstant Weader Fwowed up'). Introduced with characteristic wit and sympathy by Sloane Crosley, Constant Reader gathers the complete weekly New Yorker reviews that Parker published from October 1927 through November 1928, with gimlet-eyed appreciations of the high and low, from Isadora Duncan to Al Smith, Charles Lindbergh to Little Orphan Annie, Mussolini to Emily Post
Full Product Details
Author: Dorothy Parker , Sloane Crosley
Publisher: McNally Jackson Books
Imprint: McNally Jackson Books
Dimensions:
Width: 12.70cm
, Height: 1.40cm
, Length: 21.50cm
Weight: 0.163kg
ISBN: 9781961341258
ISBN 10: 1961341255
Pages: 224
Publication Date: 19 December 2024
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Available To Order 
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Table of Contents
Foreword by Sloane Crosley Oct 1, 1927: The Highly Recurrent Mr. Hamilton—Al Smith, and How He Grew—Bad News of May Sinclair Oct 8, 1927: Mrs. Colby’s Second Novel—The Private Papers of the Dead—The Philosopher Takes a Long Look at Himself Oct 15, 1927: An American Du Barry—A Biography of Henry Ward Beecher Oct 22, 1927: Re-enter Margot Asquith—Something Young—A Masterpiece from the French Oct 29, 1927: A Book of Great Short Stories—Something About Cabell Nov 5, 1927: The Professor Goes in for Sweetness and Light—Short Stories from One Who Knows How to Do Them—Sketches, Mostly Unpleasant—A Biography of a Much-Talked-About Lady Nov 12, 1927: Mr. Morley Capers on a Toadstool—Mr. Milne Grows to Be Six Nov 19, 1927: Adam and Eve and Lilith and Epigrams—Something More About Cabell Nov 26. 1927: Madame Glyn Lectures on It, with Illustrations Dec 3, 1927: The Most Popular Reading Matter Dec 10, 1927: The Socialist Looks at Literature—A Lyricist Looks at His Neighbors Dec 17, 1927: The Short Story, Through a Couple of the Ages Dec 31, 1927: Mrs. Post Enlarges on Etiquette Jan 7, 1928: More Troubles for Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh Jan 14, 1928: Poor, Immortal Isadora Jan 28, 1928: Re-enter Miss Hurst, Followed by Mr. Tarkington Feb 4, 1928: A Good Novel, and a Great Story Feb 11, 1928: Literary Rotarians Feb 18, 1928: Excuse It, Please—Americans at Play—This Sentimental Grand Vizier Feb 25, 1928: Our Lady of the Loudspeaker Mar 10, 1928: Unfinished Endeavors Mar 17, 1928: The Compleat Bungler Mar 24, 1928: Ethereal Mildness Mar 31, 1928: A Very Dull Article, Indeed Apr 7, 1928: Mr. Lewis Lays It On with a Trowel Apr 14, 1928: Mrs. Norris and the Beast Apr 21, 1928: These Much Too Charming People May 19, 1928: Hard-Boiled Virgins Are Faithful Lovers May 26, 1928: Mr. See Sees It Through Aug 25, 1928: Back to the Book-Shelf Sep 15, 1928: Duces Wild Sep 29, 1928: How It Feels to Be One Hundred and Forty-Six Oct 20, 1928: Far from Well Nov 17, 1928: Wallflower’s Lament
Reviews
"""All I wanted in this world was to come to New York and be Dorothy Parker. The funny lady. The only lady at the table. The woman who made her living by her wit . . . Who always got off the perfect line at the perfect moment, who never went home and lay awake wondering what she ought to have said because she had said exactly what she ought to have.""--Nora Ephron ""Esquire"" ""It is through Parker's refusal to claim authority, then, that her book reviews achieve it. She presents readers with an unpretentious, sometimes self-mocking voice that, while it expresses strong opinions, pretends no Olympian knowledge or status. Her use of humor is even-handed: she uses it to make fun of shallow, silly, or just plain bad published work, but she also turns it on herself . . . And, as a bonus, the reviews contain some of her own best, most spirited writing, which is the reason, finally, that we continue to read them with such pleasure.""--Nancy A. Walker ""Studies in American Humor"" ""Length doesn't increase depth, necessarily, and just because her little characterizations of a book were short doesn't mean they weren't true."" --Gloria Steinem"
""Does anyone know how hard it is to be that funny? . . . Read her book reviews. Read them now and see how good they are.""--Fran Lebowitz ""A bestselling poet who moved on to fiction, Dorothy Parker . . . was equally innovative as a critic, pioneering a first-person style and busting the taboo on hatchet jobs by women . . . She was arguably the first female celebrity wit since the 17th century, outperforming her illustrious male peers.""--John Dugdale ""The Guardian"" ""In Parker's hands, the humble book review becomes an instrument as expressive as a lyric poem.""--Nicholas Frankel ""Wall Street Journal, Five Best Books by Great Wits"" ""The Constant Reader columns are not really book reviews; they are standup-comedy routines. You don't have to listen to her opinion, she says. If she didn't like the book, maybe that's just her hangover speaking.""--Joan Acocella ""New Yorker"" ""All I wanted in this world was to come to New York and be Dorothy Parker. The funny lady. The only lady at the table. The woman who made her living by her wit . . . Who always got off the perfect line at the perfect moment, who never went home and lay awake wondering what she ought to have said because she had said exactly what she ought to have.""--Nora Ephron ""Esquire"" ""It is through Parker's refusal to claim authority, then, that her book reviews achieve it. She presents readers with an unpretentious, sometimes self-mocking voice that, while it expresses strong opinions, pretends no Olympian knowledge or status. Her use of humor is even-handed: she uses it to make fun of shallow, silly, or just plain bad published work, but she also turns it on herself . . . And, as a bonus, the reviews contain some of her own best, most spirited writing, which is the reason, finally, that we continue to read them with such pleasure.""--Nancy A. Walker ""Studies in American Humor"" ""Length doesn't increase depth, necessarily, and just because her little characterizations of a book were short doesn't mean they weren't true."" --Gloria Steinem
Author Information
Dorothy Parker nee Rothschild (1898-1967), grew up on New York's Upper West Side. She became famous for her comic poems, her short stories, her reviews, and her repartee, as recorded by the columnist Wolcott Gibbs over lunches at the Algonquin hotel. A prolific magazine contributor in her youth and a successful screenwriter (she co-wrote the original A Star is Born), she struggled all her life with alcoholism and wrote very little in her later decades, though continued to be a vocal champion of progressive causes, especially civil rights. Sloane Crosley is the author of the essay collections I Was Told There'd Be Cake (a 2009 finalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor), How Did You Get This Number, and Look Alive Out There (a 2019 Thurber Prize finalist); the novels The Clasp and Cult Classic; and, most recently, her memoir, Grief Is for People. A contributing editor at Vanity Fair, she lives in New York City.
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