Jonathan Yardley

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Jonathan Yardley (1939- ) is best-known as a book critic for the The Washington Post, and at one time for the Washington Star. In 1981 he received the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.

Contents 1 Background and education 2 Career 2.1 Criticism 2.2 Books 3 Style 4 Family 5 Honors 6 Bibliography 6.1 As Editor 7 Trivia 8 Notes 9 External links

[edit] Background and education

Yardley was born in Pittsburgh in 1939. His father was a teacher of English and the classics as well as an Episcopal priest and a headmaster at numerous East Coast private schools. Yardley graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was in the literary society, St. Anthony Hall, in 1961.

[edit] Career

[edit] Criticism

After leaving Chapel Hill, Yardley interned at the New York Times as assistant to James Reston. From 1964 to 1974, Yardley worked as an editorial writer and book reviewer at the Greensboro News and Record; during this time, he was also a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, academic year 1968-1969. From 1974 to 1978, Yardley served as book editor for the Miami Herald. From 1978 to 1981, he held a position as book critic at the Washington Star, receiving a Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism in 1981. In 1981, Yardley became book critic and columnist at the Washington Post.

[edit] Books

Yardley is author of several books, among them biographies of Frederick Exley and Ring Lardner. His memoir about his family, Our Kind of People, describes his parents' 50-year marriage and casts a wry eye on the American WASP experience. He edited H.L. Mencken's posthumous literary and journalistic memoir, My Life as Author and Editor.

[edit] Style

Yardley is known simultaneously as a scathingly frank critic and a starmaker. Among the talents he has brought to public light and championed are Michael Chabon, Edward P. Jones, Anne Tyler and John Berendt. In his highly popular series in The Washington Post, "Second Readings," he reconsiders books he admired in the past and asks whether they hold up in the present. It was in this series (in 2004) that he gained attention for his highly critical look at The Catcher in the Rye.^{[citation needed]}

Yardley's “Hoagy Carmichael's Memories, Straight from the Heartland,” published in the Washington Post on September 3, 2007, was plagiarized by Tim Goeglein as “Hoagy Carmichael's songs reflect his deep roots in Bloomington, Indiana”.^[1] When Nancy Nall Derringer discovered Goeglein's plagiarism and revealed it at NancyNall.com on February 29th, 2008, Goeglein resigned his White House job as Deputy Director of the Office of Public Liaison within hours.^[2]

[edit] Family

His sons, Jim Yardley and William Yardley are New York Times reporters. He and his son Jim are one of two father-son winners of the Pulitzer Prize.

Yardley is married to Marie Arana, the editor of Washington Post Book World.^[3]

[edit] Honors

In 1981, Yardley received the Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Criticism.

[edit] Bibliography

• Monday Morning Quarterback. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1998. ISBN 0847692043 ISBN 978-0847692040
• Misfit: The Strange Life of Frederick Exley. New York: Random House, 1997. ISBN 0679439498 ISBN 978-0679439493
• Out of Step: Notes From a Purple Decade. New York: Random House, 1993. ISBN 0517106280 ISBN 978-0517106280
• States of Mind: A Personal Journey Through the Mid-Atlantic. Villard, 1993. ISBN 0394589114 ISBN 978-0394589114
• Our Kind of People: The Story of an American Family. New York: Grove Press, 1989. ISBN 1555841740 ISBN 978-1555841744
• Ring: A Biography of Ring Lardner. New York: Random House, 1977. ISBN 0394498119 ISBN 978-0394498119

[edit] As Editor

• H.L. Mencken, My Life as Author and Editor. New York: Knopf, 1993. ISBN 0679413154 ISBN 978-0679413158

[edit] Trivia

• Yardley is referenced in the Pavement song "Fight this Generation".

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

• Inventory of the Jonathan Yardley Papers, 1792-2006, in the Southern Historical Collection, UNC-Chapel Hill.
• IMDB.com entry on Jonathan Yardley
• Interview at Washington Technology