Gregory Cowles

Senior editor, New York Times Books desk. Reader, dad, ruminative goofball.

[Gregory Cowles @GregoryCowles]

@alexnazaryan It’s a worthwhile book in its own right (as is TIME’S ARROW), smart and stylish and often seething with disdain, but it’s not the equal of his London books to my mind — more careful, less gleefully mischievous except in the undertaking itself.

[Gregory Cowles @GregoryCowles]

In 2018 I interviewed Martin Amis at the Texas Book Festival about his Holocaust novel “The Zone of Interest” (narrated, like “Time’s Arrow,” from the German POV), and he turned the talk memorably to Hitler’s sex life. https://t.co/4CLCwDVkfj

[Gregory Cowles @GregoryCowles]

It’s been seven hours and fifteen days.

[Gregory Cowles @GregoryCowles]

@pmacenulty Thank you!

[Gregory Cowles @GregoryCowles]

@salvetti_matt Thank you!

[Gregory Cowles @GregoryCowles]

SUNFLOWER MYSTERY: My daughter went to bed with five flowers on her shelf, and woke up with four flowers and a stem. Did she eat it in her sleep? Did a deer sneak into her room? Did it spontaneously combust??

[Gregory Cowles @GregoryCowles]

Happy Bloomsday to those who celebrate it.

https://t.co/9qJie7JeG2

[Heather O'Donnell @honeyandwaxbks]

@motokorich My CM story: years ago, when I worked for Bauman Rare Books, he called the gallery. I picked up and he told me that the first edition of Blood Meridian in BRB's NYT Book Review ad was underpriced. I said: "no one has ever called here with that complaint."

[Gregory Cowles @GregoryCowles]

An impeccable stylist, an irascible wit, a stubborn and sometimes maddening provocateur, a great novelist gone. RIP.

[Gregory Cowles @GregoryCowles]

The night before, seemingly very drunk, he had stumbled through his keynote speech at the festival’s gala dinner, mocking Princess Di’s death and defending elitism on the grounds that some people are inherently better than others.

[Gregory Cowles @GregoryCowles]

When we got to the main legislative chamber for the interview, there was Amis: showered, sharp, gracious, utterly charming. Besides Hitler’s sex life he talked a lot that day about the soul and how important it is to honor it.

[Gregory Cowles @GregoryCowles]

Maybe predictably, he wasn’t in the greenroom at the appointed time, and the festival staffer who was dispatched to his hotel room said he was nowhere to be found. The volunteers were panicked. “I guess we’ll walk you over and hope for the best,” one told me.

[Gregory Cowles @GregoryCowles]

“Can you imagine believing a taxi driver is the equal of Christopher Hitchens?” he asked as the crowd looked silently on and I grew increasingly worried about how our interview might go the next day.

[Gregory Cowles @GregoryCowles]

Has there ever been a hornier serious poet than the Sharon Olds of “The Wellspring”?

[Gregory Cowles @GregoryCowles]

@YCabreraOC @columbiajourn @jsmithhopkins So well deserved! Congratulations, @YCabreraOC

[Gregory Cowles @GregoryCowles]

Overheard on the train just now: “The thing about the King James version is the prose is so bad.” Shots fired!

[Gregory Cowles @GregoryCowles]

Are You There, God? It's Me, Adolf
https://t.co/ihrzXlbdcp

[Gregory Cowles @GregoryCowles]

Speaking as an editor, sometimes there’s a very fine line between “cajole” and “cudgel”

[Gregory Cowles @GregoryCowles]

@antoinewilson And Station to Station his most underrated album.

[Gregory Cowles @GregoryCowles]

@jamiattenberg Breasts and Eggs, Mieko Kawakami