Just Enough Liebling

The restaurants of the Latin Quarter and the city rooms of midtown Manhattan; the beachhead of Normandy and the boxing gyms of Times Square; the trackside haunts of bookmakers and the shadowy redoubts of Southern politicians--these are the places that A.J. Liebling shows to us in his unforgettable New Yorker articles, brought together here so that a new generation of readers might discover Liebling as if for the first time.

Born a hundred years ago, Abbott Joseph "Joe" Liebling was the first of the great New Yorker writers, a colorful and tireless figure who helped set the magazine's urbane style. Today, he is best known as a celebrant of the "sweet science" of boxing or as a "feeder" who ravishes the reader with his descriptions of food and wine. But as David Remnick, a Liebling devotee, suggests in his fond and insightful introduction, Liebling was a writer bounded only by his intelligence, taste, and ardor for life. Like his nemesis William Randolph Hearst, he changed the rules of modern journalism, banishing the distinctions between reporting and storytelling, between news and art. Whatever his role, Liebling is a most companionable figure, and to read the pieces in this grand and generous book is to be swept along on a thrilling adventure in a world of confidence men, rogues, press barons and political cronies, with an inimitable writer as one's guide.

"As one of the first top New Yorker writers in the 1930s and beyond, Liebling helped set the magazine's sophisticated, urbane tone, and his essays are crackling enough to remain unique decades later. The writer took on a range of subjects, from the earthy to the urbane, and blurred the line between reportage and essay writing. Remnick isolates the qualities that made Liebling a powerful force in the magazine's early years, noting that his work was almost invariably vibrant, no matter the topic. Heady words, considering the breadth of subjects in this volume; Liebling's discourses are stuffed with the observations of a savvy globetrotter. Even as a child, he created a 'small personal Olympus' that included George Washington, Lillian Russell and Enrico Caruso, and he explains the quirks that landed each in his affections. As an adult, Liebling was fond of food, preferably foreign, and boxing, especially bare knuckled. Also included is considerable WWII reporting, blending description with minor detail. Throughout, Liebling's style is zesty, lifting readers up with erudition, but keeping them grounded: 'In the light of what Proust wrote with so mild a stimulus, it is the world's loss that he did not have a heartier appetite.' Fans of gourmand and bon vivant Liebling won't have the same complaint. (Sept.)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"Liebling, it's now apparent, is not just one of the great American reporters but one of the great American writers....There can never be enough Liebling around but Just Enough Liebling is a wonderful start, and a necessary purchase for anyone who cares about American style." Adam Gopnik, author of Paris to the Moon

"All great city reporting begins in the general vicinity of the little desks that pack Liebling's Jollity Building, and, now that I've revisited all those airless offices and always-manned phonebooths yet again, it probably ends there too." Robert Sullivan, author of Rats

"The only thing wrong with this book is its title: No amount of Liebling is ever enough. He had a raptor's eye, a virtuoso's ear, and an enormous heart. He was wildly funny and frequently profound, and he may well have been the greatest American prose stylist of the twentieth century. " Luc Sante, author of Low Life

"[A] useful window on Liebling's vast body of writing and a reminder, to those lucky enough to have read him the first time around, of why he was so beloved." Charles McGrath, The New York Times Book Review

To read these pieces by one of the first great New Yorker writers is to be swept along on a thrilling adventure in a world of confident men, rogues, press barons and political cronies, with an inimitable writer as one's guide.

A. J. Liebling joined the staff of The New Yorker in 1935 and wrote for the magazine until his death in 1963. David Remnick is the editor of The New Yorker.