If you read magazines and live on the North half of the East Coast there is a good chance that you believe that The New Yorker is the ne plus ultra of magazine writing and if you believe that there's a good chance you run around using phrases like ne plus ultra.
With The New Yorker's Olympian status goes a certain preciousness One of the reasons there's nothing else quite like The New Yorker is The New Yorker deeply believes that to be true and communicates it to us in subtle ways.
In fact, the magazine's most famous cover, Sol Steinberg's 1976 view of the world from 9th Avenue is also sort of a joke about The New Yorker, the magazine and its legendary staff of writers and editors look most Olympian when viewed from midtown Manhattan.
Today, one of those writers, Daniel Menaker, gives us a not entirely flattering look at Olympus, along with his own battle with cancer and the burden of family guilt in his new memoir, My Mistake.
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GUESTS:
- Daniel Menaker spent more than 40 years in the publishing business, the first 26 as an editor at The New Yorker magazine and more recently at both Random House and HarperCollins. He's the author of 6 books including his recently released memoir, My Mistake.