Times Insider delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how news, features and opinion come together at The New York Times. I confess I was skeptical when Jake Silverstein, the editor in chief of The New York Times Magazine, told me in late 2014 that I would be editing a new front-of-book column called Letter of Recommendation, about stuff people really like. The column was the brainchild of our staff writer, Sam Anderson, he explained. We would help push against this trend, 900 words a week, 40-something times per year, depending on special issues. Obsessions, meanwhile, are inseparable from our peculiarities as people — we come to love things for often strange, perverse reasons.

Source: New York Times May 13, 2018 16:18 UTC