Should be required reading for people going into publishing. Writers would learn a lot from it too. Very interesting book.

Berg’s National Book Award-winner (1980) flips the page on literary bios for an editor’s point of view. Perkins famously published Fitzgerald, Hemingway & Wolfe—writers more conservative editors wouldn’t touch. A fastidious Yankee stoic, his idea of flashy was keeping his hat on indoors. I didn’t find his quirks endearing. (He criticized woman for everything from acting on stage to using Worcestershire sauce.) His flock of needy, brilliant, ruthless authors are the real stars. Perkins shepherded them through the torturous writing process & the insecurities that plague even the titans of literature. Dying is easy, writing is hard.

An amazing biography. Excellent read for writers in general and fans of Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Wolfe in particular. A more detailed review to come.

Seldom have I encountered a biography that balanced facts with style as this one does. I devoured this book like "Crime and Punishment" or "The Da Vinci Code". Max Perkins would have approved.

What an amazing man Max Perkins was. A giant among editors - I think possibly the last of the breed of true gentlemen who saw editing as a "calling" rather than an occupation. Brilliant biography, meticulously researched and jam packed with fascinating vignettes of Perkins's most famous authors - Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, Tom Wolfe and many others. A small cross-section of the wealth of advice Perkins gave his writers which is still so relevant today:

"Generalizations are no use - give one specific thing and let the action say it …"
"When you have people talking, you have a scene. You must interrupt with explanatory paragraphs but shorten them as much as you can. Dialogue is action …"
"You can't know a book until you come to the end of it, and then all the rest must be modified to fit that."
"If an author worried too much about plot … he might become 'sort of muscle-bound,'whereas he must be flexible'. 'A deft man may toss his hat across the office and hang it on a hook if he just naturally does it … but he will always miss if he does it consciously."

OH BOY, this is a hefty book, but I would consider it a must-read for book lovers or for those who love the publishing industry as much as I do.

A rare glimpse into the life of an editor, Max Perkins: Editor of Genius reminds us that behind every best-selling author is a long-suffering editor. Max Perkins was an extraordinary human being who recognized that genius is an often frail and needy child but encouraged his charges nonetheless because he believe in their talent and knew that the public needed to believe in it too.

Taking my writerly-dorkiness to a whole new level because I loved reading about the life of this editor. He worked with Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Marjorie Rawlings, and a million more. It was nice to see the neuroses of famous writers filtered through their editors eyes. Was super surprised because I couldn't put it down.

I only give five stars to books that I think are essential reading for everyone. This book is not that, but it is masterful, engaging, entertaining and so sad. The literary history that passed through Maxwell Perkins' hands is immense, and this book covers a lot of it, looking at the books, their authors and Perkins' life through the manuscripts he edited.

While it mostly focuses on the superstars of the 1920s and '30s -- Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Wolfe -- many others are covered as well.

A great book for editors, writers and readers. It inspired me to want to read more and write more.

I started reading this book nearly ten years ago after I had written my undergraduate capstone paper on depictions of the editorial profession and then graduated and wanted to explore what this work might have in store for me after grad school. And then I started grad school and couldn't finish. Well, that's not entirely true. I came back to this book several times and made some progress but then ultimately put it down again and again for another book. Last year, I thought I'd finish it, but I didn't. This year, I plugged away and got closer to the end, little by little. I am so proud to finally move this book from Currently Reading to Read!

Now, as for the rating, I need to point out that the main struggle I had with finishing this book is how dry it can be because it's essentially a lot of conversations, stories, and letters stitches together with very little transition. I feel like more of an effort could have been put into creating section headings or simply utilizing transitional phrases to connect different groups of paragraphs together. That would help connect ideas and build momentum through the very long chapters.

Ultimately though, because I originally wanted a career in the publishing industry, I enjoyed reading about an early era of the business and what amazing work Perkins accomplished as an editor of writers like Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Wolfe. It also confirmed my decision to go into higher education instead because I would probably not have been able to devote as much time to work as Perkins and enough time to the networking relationships needed to be successful.

If you enjoy intricate descriptions of history and enjoy books, this one might interest you. If you have hard time sustaining attention across dry prose with LOTS of names and primary source quotations, it might not be your cup of tea.