Adam Gopnik

Adam Gopnik
Born	August 1956 (age 68) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Occupation	Writer, essayist and commentator
Nationality	American
Period	1986–present

Adam Gopnik, (born August 24, 1956) is an American writer, essayist and commentator. He is best known as a staff writer for The New Yorker—to which he has contributed non-fiction, fiction, memoir and criticism—and as the author of the essay collection Paris to the Moon, an account of five years that Gopnik, his wife Martha, and son Luke, spent in the French capital.

Background and education

Adam Gopnik was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but was raised in Montreal, Quebec. Gopnik's parents, Irwin and Myrna Gopnik, served as professors at McGill University, from which Gopnik received his Bachelor of Arts degree. While there, he was a contributor for The McGill Daily. He completed graduate work at the New York University Institute of Fine Arts.

Career

Early years

In 1986, Gopnik began his long professional association with The New Yorker with a piece that would show his future range, a consideration of connections between baseball, childhood, and Renaissance art. He has written for four editors at the magazine: William Shawn, Robert Gottlieb, Tina Brown, and David Remnick.

Paris and "Paris Journal"

In 1995, The New Yorker dispatched him to Paris to write the "Paris Journals", in which he described life in that city. These essays were later collected and published by Random House in Paris to the Moon, after Gopnik returned to New York City in 2000. The book became a New York Times bestseller.

Interest in Arts

Gopnik studied art history and with his friend Kirk Varnedoe curated the famous 1990 High/Low show at New York's Museum of Modern Art. He later wrote an article for Search Magazine on the connection between religion and art and the compatibility of Christianity and Darwinism. He states in the article that the arts of human history are products of religious thought and that human conduct is not guaranteed by religion or secularism.

Personal life

Gopnik lives in New York with his wife, Martha Parker, and two children, Luke and Olivia, (and his dog Butterscotch and bird Skyler). His five siblings include Blake Gopnik, the Washington Post art critic, and Alison Gopnik, a child psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley (author of The Scientist in the Crib, UK title: How Babies Think).

Books

In addition to 2000's Paris to the Moon, Random House also published the author's reflections on life in New York, and particularly on the comedy of parenting, Through the Children's Gate, in 2006. (As in the earlier memoir, much of the material had appeared previously in The New Yorker.) In 2005 Hyperion Books published his children's novel The King in the Window, about Oliver, an American boy living in Paris, who is mistaken for a mystical king and stumbles upon an ancient battle waged between Window Wraiths and the malicious Master of Mirrors. A book on Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin, called Angels And Ages, was published in January 2009. A new novel for children, The Steps Across The Water, was published by Hyperion on November 23, 2010.

Honors and appearances

A frequent guest on Charlie Rose, Gopnik has been honored with three National Magazine Awards for Essay and Criticism, and a George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting. His entry on the culture of the United States is featured in the Encyclopædia Britannica.

Adam Gopnik recently wrote and presented BBC Four's Lighting Up New York, a cultural journey through the recent history of New York.

Adam Gopnik is the 11th annual recipient of the Westport Public Library's Booked for the Evening award. Previous award winners include Tom Brokaw, E.L. Doctorow, Calvin Trillin, Wendy Wasserstein, Pete Hamill, Martin Scorsese, Arthur Mitchell, Doris Kearns Goodwin, David Halberstam, and Oscar Hijuelos. Booked for the Evening is the Westport Public Library's annual gala fund raising event. The Library awards an honoree whose work reflects the purpose of the Library—to nurture the love of learning and to enhance our understanding of the world. The funds raised enable the Library to continue to serve as a major community center for the 1600 people a day who walk through its doors.

Gopnik also participates as a member of the Jury for the NYICFF, a local New York City Film Festival dedicated to screening films for children between the ages of 3 and 18.

Works

Books

• Paris to the Moon (2000), ISBN 0-375-75823-2. excerpt
• (editor) Americans in Paris: A Literary Anthology (2004), ISBN 1-931082-56-1
• The King in the Window (2005)
• Through the Children's Gate: A Home in New York (2006), ISBN 978-1-4000-4181-7. excerpt
• Angels and Ages: A Short Book About Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life (2009), ISBN 978-0-307-27078-8

Articles

• Gopnik, Adam (December 8, 2008). "The Critics: A Critic at Large: Man of Fetters: Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale". The New Yorker. 84 (40): 90–96. Retrieved July 9, 2011.
• Gopnik, Adam (September 28, 2009). "Talk of the Town: Comment: Read All About It". The New Yorker. 85 (30): 21–22. Retrieved February 22, 2010.
• Gopnik, Adam (March 15, 2010). "Talk of the Town: Bright Ideas: Plant TV". The New Yorker. 86 (4): 23–24. Retrieved January 15, 2011.
• Gopnik, Adam (April 5, 2010). "No Rules!: Is Le Fooding more than a feeling?". The New Yorker. 86 (7): 36–41. Retrieved April 2, 2010.
• Gopnik, Adam (February 14, 2011). "The Information: How the Internet gets inside us". The New Yorker. 87 (1): 124–130. Retrieved February 21, 2011.

External links

• Adam Gopnik interview at Identity Theory