Book critic at The New York Times; author of STILL HERE: The Madcap, Nervy, Singular Life of Elaine Stritch.

Joined August 2011
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The 5 stages of writing: 1)This is gonna be so great. 2)No story here; what was I thinking. 3)Existential despair. 4)Smugness. 5)Corrections
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She’s back, baby. Wordle 740 2/6* 🟩🟨🟨⬜🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
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Wordle 1,796 2/6* ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
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Wordle 1,817 2/6* ⬜🟩⬜🟨🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
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Alexandra Jacobs retweeted
Mayor Mamdani reading Gods of New York!! @jonathanmahler the 🐐
What he's reading game continues at City Hall. @NYCMayor says he's reading 'The Gods of New York' - "quite fascinating" From NYT: "Jonathan Mahler’s new book portrays the city’s rebirth as a glitzy capital of global finance — and a petri dish of ego, ambition and class division"
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Alexandra Jacobs retweeted
John Updike invented The Elaine.
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Alexandra Jacobs retweeted
@jimwindolf the Walpack Township Titan, the first guy on the tarmac, the apple of your Gammy's eye, Hickey's understudy in every road production of "The Iceman Cometh" below the 38th parallel, the stirrer in your coffee, the schnorrer at the wedding feast, the last guy to drop a dime on a guy...
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An amazing piece of the old school that would be well worth paying for, but why not get the freebie?
Three more days to read this online at @GrantaMag before it slinks back into its paywall cave—
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Alexandra Jacobs retweeted
This is excellent exactly right, from John Williams, former editor of WaPo's shuttered Book World theatlantic.com/books/2026/0…
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Alexandra Jacobs retweeted
“But you can take the measure of a man by the nicknames he is given as well as the ones he dishes out. Bennett was Sonny to his pops, Beans (as in ‘full of’) to college chums, Cerfie to his co-founder and closest friend...” — Alexandra Jacobs nytimes.com/2026/01/18/books…
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