In the New Yorker...

[Front-Ranger]

I would add John McPhee and Elizabeth Kolbert.

[Jeff Wrangler]

My list would share a lot of names with yours. I'm not familiar with the work of Ben Taub or Peter Hessler, but I like all the others. (Well, I don't really "like" David Remnick -- he seems like kind of a jerk and I'm not that interested in Russia, which he writes about a lot -- but I give him credit as editor.)

I would add David Sedaris, Zadie Smith, Jia Tolentino, Emily Nussbaum, Ariel Levy, Leslie Jamison. I'd probably read Ronan Farrow and David Grann. I'd include Anne Applebaum and Elizabeth Kolbert because I respect their expertise, but most global politics and the environment are duty articles for me. I used to include Anthony Lane but I got kind of sick of his sometimes forced humor. Simon Rich (son of longtime New York Times' columnist Frank Rich) and Jack Handey sometimes write Shouts & Murmurs that are actually funny.

Not all of those are must-reads, with the exception of Sedaris, Menand, Gopnik, Chast and Smith. But the others I'd at least check out.

I'm surprised you don't know Ben Taub. I thought we discussed him here ages ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Taub_(journalist)

I think I've heard David Remnick described as a jerk elsewhere. I don't remember reading anything by him about Russia. He's on my list because whenever the editorial in The Talk of the Town appears above his name, I read it.

I forgot Sedaris, Smith, Tolentino, and Levy. I don't recognize Leslie Jamison or Anne Applebaum. Since I'm so far behind, I've been skipping the movie, theatre, and TV articles. (In the past I have found Anthony Lane funny. I've never felt anything was forced.) (I did read Emily Nussbaum on "The Lost Boys," but only because the movie had Kiefer Sutherland and Jason Patric when they were both young and hot.    )

Like FRiend Lee, I'd add Elizabeth Kolbert and John McPhee. I'd also add Lauren Collins and another woman writer whose name was on the tip of my tongue an hour ago, and now I can't think of it.    I'll add her when I think of her name. 

[serious crayons]

I'm surprised you don't know Ben Taub. I thought we discussed him here ages ago.

I just went through a list of his articles for the New Yorker, and while several sounded mildly interesting they all sounded pretty dutiful and I wasn't tempted to click on them.

I think I've heard David Remnick described as a jerk elsewhere. I don't remember reading anything by him about Russia. He's on my list because whenever the editorial in The Talk of the Town appears above his name, I read it.

I once saw or heard him in a conversation with Jonathan Franzen where they observed that (then deceased) David Foster Wallace was never published in the New Yorker. "Not for lack of trying," Remnick added, which struck me as gratuitous, snooty and dismissive of a writer I really like. Another time he equated something like concern for shared mother-father parenting as something of interest "to people who like artisanal cheese," which seemed to blow off what I consider an important issue as something trivial and elitist. (Remember our whole discussion about "artisanal"?  )

He writes a fair amount about Russia because he was a Moscow correspondent for the Washington Post for a while.

I don't recognize Leslie Jamison or Anne Applebaum.

Jamison is an essayist but not a staff writer. Turns out Applebaum writes for The Atlantic -- oops!

(I did read Emily Nussbaum on "The Lost Boys," but only because the movie had Kiefer Sutherland and Jason Patric when they were both young and hot.    )

I have always liked Emily Nussbaum's writing, but when she retweeted a 2012 tweet of mine ("Like many writers, I have rituals. Before writing, I pour coffee, open the window by my desk, and attempt to read the entire internet."), helping it become by far my most retweeted tweet, she won my lifelong loyalty. It got retweeted 2,600 times, a number that to someone like, say, Kim Kardashian would be embarrassingly small, but was pretty thrilling for me. I saw it retweeted as recently as 2021. Some British radio comic retweeted it and a stranger formed a Twitter profile just to ask whether he was going to credit me! (It was the stranger's only tweet, and I never knew who it was.) The comic apologized and said he'd written it in a notebook and later saw it there and thought he'd made it up himself. So he apologized and discussed it on his radio show, thrilling me even more.

Like FRiend Lee, I'd add Elizabeth Kolbert and John McPhee.

Is McPhee still on the staff? Not saying he's not, but I would have put him in the category of Calvin Trillin.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Is McPhee still on the staff? Not saying he's not, but I would have put him in the category of Calvin Trillin.

I really must be losing it. I'm very far behind, but when each issue arrives, I look over the TOC and mark articles I want to read when I get to that issue. I thought I saw McPhee's by-line in one of the issues I haven't yet read, but I just searched through all the issues I have on hand, including two already in the recycle bag, and I can't find it.     

Anyway, apparently McPhee is still with us.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McPhee

And that author whose name I can't remember? I still haven't remembered it. It's one of those things that usually come to me when I'm not thinking about it.

I think her first name is Margaret, but maybe I'm imaging her--like the McPhee article. 

I always associate McPhee with an article published in TNY decades ago under the heading "Annals of the Former World." I had no idea he wrote five books about that. Unless I'm imagining that article, too. 

On the other hand, the Wikipedia article about him contains this sentence:

"Many of his 31 books include material originally written for The New Yorker, where he has been a staff writer since 1965."

I definitely remember the article about Bill Bradley, who went on the play basketball professionally and eventually became a U.S. Senator from New Jersey.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Bradley

[Front-Ranger]

McPhee is writing a series called "Tabula Rasa" which seems to be his memoirs. Some of it is interesting; some not.

[Front-Ranger]

Margaret Talbot?

I read the whole article about Greenland. Even though it was long and I knew about most of it already, I felt that it was important to know the players and how everything developed. It could stand as the "playbook" for other of his initiatives. What astounds me is the power that assorted grifters and petty thieves with no morals have now in this country. We truly are toast. 

[serious crayons]

Anyway, apparently McPhee is still with us.

Oh, I knew he was still alive, as is Trillin. What I meant was, weren't they both among the New Yorker's most prominent contributors some years ago and now still write occasionally but not very often?

And apparently that is the case, although according to his list of bylines on the site, McPhee has published something there every six months to a year, including as recently as April. Trillin's contributions have dwindled from a few a year in the late teens to about once every year or two now. Both are described as staff writers.

And that author whose name I can't remember? I still haven't remembered it. It's one of those things that usually come to me when I'm not thinking about it.

I think her first name is Margaret, but maybe I'm imaging her--like the McPhee article. 

Lee is probably correct; you must be thinking of Margaret Talbot. I've always liked her, although now I can't remember why. I must have really liked something she wrote a long time ago.    Anyway, looks like she contributes something every few months.

About eight years ago, Talbot wrote something about the singer Kate Bush, which interested me because I'm not very familiar with Kate Bush and only recently discovered her song Wuthering Heights. WH was one of my favorite books in childhood -- I read it about 12 times, or about the same as Gone With the Wind and The Godfather (kind of an odd mixture, I know). Anyway, her song is weird and kind of spooky, better capturing the book's spirit, so to speak (she imagines scenes involving Cathy after her death), than the overromanticized film adaptations, including the recent one with Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi (which I haven't seen but can tell from the trailer is not very true to the book). I did a quick scan of Talbot's article and see that she mentions the song and video, so I'll read the article later.