Lenny Picker

New York

Freelance Reviewer at Publishers Weekly

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Articles

From Second Banana to Dirty Harry: PW Talks with Shawn Levy

3 weeks ago | publishersweekly.com | Lenny Picker

In Clint: The Man and the Movies, the film critic digs into the life and times of the legendary Hollywood actor and director. Was there something from your research that really surprised you? The big surprise about Clint Eastwood is that his is one of the longest careers in Hollywood, either in front of or behind the camera. This is a man who, at age 94, released a movie last year, funded by a studio.
‘How Do You Go On?’: PW Talks with Kelsey Grammer

1 month ago | publishersweekly.com | Lenny Picker

In Karen: A Brother Remembers (Harper Select, out now), actor Kelsey Grammer recalls the vibrancy of his younger sister's life, as well as the horrific circumstances of her murder in 1975, when she was almost 19. In the book, you tell the story of Karen's life. What would you like readers to most know about her? That she was lightning in a bottle. She was a wonderful, loving, fantastic person—a very brave person. She faced life, and drank it with all the gusto that a person can.
Emerging Authors and Genre Legends Honored at 79th Edgar Awards

1 month ago | publishersweekly.com | Lenny Picker

The 79th Edgars Awards, held last night at Manhattan's Marriott Marquis in Times Square, featured a mix of humor and gravitas, as the Mystery Writers of America honored two new Grand Masters, Laura Lippman and John Sandford; presented 15 awards, mostly to emerging authors; and announced that the 2026 ceremonies would include the debut of a new Hall of Fame award, honoring writers who died before they could be honored as Grand Masters.
Plan Like a Raven, Write Like a Fox: PW Talks with Antonia Hodgson

1 month ago | publishersweekly.com | Lenny Picker

In The Raven Scholar, the first volume of the Eternal Path trilogy, award-winning historical mystery author Antonia Hodgson masterfully combines epic fantasy and a fair-play whodunit. How long had you been thinking about what ultimately became this trilogy? Since 2019. I had pretty much finished working on the previous series, the Thomas Hawkins quartet of mysteries set in Georgian England. At that point, I felt that it was time for me to do something else, and I'd always wanted to write fantasy.
‘I Love to Play with Bad Girls’: PW Talks with Krysten Ritter

2 months ago | publishersweekly.com | Lenny Picker

In Retreat, Jessica Jones star Krysten Ritter follows up her fiction debut, the suspenseful legal mystery Bonfire, with a twisty thriller centered on the con artist Liz Dawson, who seizes an unexpected opportunity to start a new life on the Mexican coast. We spoke with Ritter about coming up with the idea for the novel, her attraction to complex women protagonists, and more. What gave you the idea for this novel?
Why Learning Styles Need to Go Away: PW Talks with Thomas Fallace

Mar 7, 2025 | publishersweekly.com | Lenny Picker

In You Are Not a Kinesthetic Learner, the education scholar debunks the idea that everyone has an optimal “learning style.”What led you to this subject? I once had a student who wrote lesson plans based on psychologist Howard Gardner’s identification of seven cognitive capacities: linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal.
A Path Forward for Liberals: PW Talks with Derek Thompson

Mar 7, 2025 | publishersweekly.com | Lenny Picker

In Abundance (Avid Reader, Mar.), co-authors Thompson, a staff writer for the Atlantic, and Ezra Klein, a New York Times opinion columnist, argue for liberalism’s potential to address problems such as the housing shortage and inadequate health care, which they argue they are the result of unnecessary “chosen scarcity.”Has your concept of the abundance agenda changed since you first wrote about it for the Atlantic in 2022?
Probability Doesn’t Exist (Probably): PW Talks with David Spiegelhalter

Jan 10, 2025 | publishersweekly.com | Lenny Picker

In The Art of Uncertainty: How to Navigate Chance, Ignorance, Risk and Luck (Norton, Mar.), the statistician explores how to think about what one doesn’t know. You devote a chapter to exploring uncertainty’s role in science. Can you explain that a bit? Science should be taught not as a set of established facts but as a way of looking at things.
Unfree Speech: PW Talks with David Enrich

Jan 3, 2025 | publishersweekly.com | Lenny Picker

In Murder the Truth: Fear, the First Amendment, and a Secret Campaign to Protect the Powerful (Mariner, Mar.), the New York Times editor exposes a right-wing push to undo journalists’ protection from libel lawsuits by overturning the Supreme Court’s 1964 decision in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan. When did you first think of writing this book? Some colleagues and I noticed that the frequency with which we were getting threatened with lawsuits at the New York Times really seemed to be spiking.
Exploring God’s Covenant: PW Talks with Rabbi Irving 'Yitz' Greenberg

Dec 18, 2024 | publishersweekly.com | Lenny Picker

In his recently published book The Triumph of Life: A Narrative Theology of Judaism (The Jewish Publication Society) prominent modern Orthodox theologian Rabbi Irving (Yitz) Greenberg explores the evolving nature of God's covenant with humanity, theodicy, and the Jewish vision of a perfected world, in which humans have managed "to overcome poverty, hunger, oppression, war, even sickness, and thus roll back the realm of death." PW caught up with Greenberg to talk about his new book, and the...