John Leonard

Contributing Editor

John Leonard, the TV critic for New York magazine, a commentator on CBS Sunday Morning and book critic for The Nation, is the author, most recently, of When the Kissing Had to Stop: Cult Studs, Khmer Newts, Langley Spooks, Techno-Geeks, Video Drones, Author Gods, Serial Killers, Vampire Media, Alien Sperm-Suckers, Satanic Therapists, and Those of Us Who Hold a Left-Wing Grudge in the Post Toasties New World Hip-Hop (The New Press 1999),

He has been editor of the New York Times Book Review and literary co-editor of The Nation. Other recent titles include The Last Innocent White Man (The New Press, 1993) and Smoke and Mirrors (The New Press, 1997).

'Who Has the Best Tunes?'

February 25, 2009

Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, blasphemes not only Islam and Hinduism, but Thatcherism and the advertising industry. He's unkind, too, to V.S. Naipaul. For this they want to kill him?

2008

Travels With Toni

November 11, 2008

John Leonard, former literary editor of The Nation, died November 6 at 69. From the archives, his iconic piece on Toni Morrison's Nobel Prize win, in his honor.

2007

The Dread Zone

May 10, 2007

John Leonard, noted critic and former literary editor of The Nation, died Wednesay at 69. This review of Don DeLillo's Falling Man was one of his last pieces published in the magazine.
God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut

April 13, 2007

Kurt Vonnegut, who passed away Wednesday, will be remembered for his brilliant, cynical and often depressing humor.
Tillie Olsen: 1912-2007

January 5, 2007

Celebrating the eloquence of the feminist, activist and writer in whose work memory, history, poetry and prophecy converge.

2006

Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind

November 22, 2006

Thomas Pynchon's Against the Day is actually four stories, each replete with brilliant patter, fancy footwork, wishful thinking and a plaintive ukulele.