Remembering Robert Gottlieb, editor extraordinaire

From 2016, when Gottlieb published his memoir, here's an interesting interview:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/sep/27/robert-gottlie...

The essential quality of an editor, he told me, is sympathy. “You don’t take on books with which you do not have a sympathy,” he says early in our conversation. “Only trouble can arise if instead of wanting to make a book that you like even better than it is, you want to change it into something that it isn’t.” The most disastrous thing that can happen in an editing process is for an editor to insist on making the book their own.

Incredibly sad to see Robert Gottlieb pass. His work as an editor has shaped some of my favorite books. In particular, he brought Robert Caro to national attention.

For anyone interested in learning more about Robert Gottlieb, I highly recommend the documentary "Turn Every Page" by his daughter: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14071694/

It's about Gottlieb's relationship with the author Robert Caro and provides a fascinating insight into the pair that produced some truly incredible books.

Not a substantive comment, but I hope Caro will be able to finish his book.

Editor Extraordinaire? Perhaps, but Remnick does a shit job of making the case. He retells stories too often told, and without doing the work of the writer: to make us see something we could not have otherwise imagined.

The N Yorker suffers from chronic digititis: the loss of quality in the pursuit of senseless quantity