A.O. Scott

I’m a critic at large for The New York Times Book Review, writing about literature and ideas.

What I Cover

While I occasionally review new fiction and nonfiction, I mostly write essays of varying length that explore the intersection of culture, history, technology and myth. I’m interested in the ways that writers, thinkers and artists hold a mirror up to the world, and how their work illuminates the issues that bedevil our social and political life, often in unexpected ways. I also try to expand the parameters of criticism to include material that isn’t considered “literary” at all: texts, letters, social media posts — pieces of writing packed with meaning and rhetorical complexity that merit closer attention than they often receive.

My Background

Criticism has been my vocation and my passion for as long as I can remember. I even wrote a book about it, “Better Living Through Criticism: How to Think About Art, Pleasure, Beauty and Truth.” When I was growing up, hanging out in record stores, libraries and movie theaters, my companions were the writers who shared my obsessions and helped me understand them. Later, I tried to practice criticism in an academic setting, spending too many years in graduate school studying English and American literature.

In the mid-90s, I abandoned academia for journalism, writing mostly about books for The Nation, The New York Review of Books, Newsday, Slate and The New York Times, which hired me as a film critic at the beginning of 2000. I spent more than 23 years in that job, reviewing thousands of movies, attending film festivals, making Oscar predictions and interviewing the likes of Robert De Niro, Jennifer Lopez and the Coen Brothers. I loved every minute, but I also missed writing about books, and wanted to explore new forms of critical writing, so in 2023 I joined the Book Review — a homecoming of sorts, and also a new adventure.

Journalistic Ethics

Like every other journalist at the Times, I’m committed to upholding the standards outlined in our Ethical Journalism Handbook. Even though criticism is necessarily opinionated, argumentative and subjective, it also must be truthful, independent and fair. I avoid writing about anyone I know, and keep an appropriate distance from the industries I cover. While my job is to pass judgment, I strive to do so in a way that is respectful of the work and the people who make it.

Since I’ve come to believe that social media is a threat to all that is decent and noble in the modern world, I no longer participate in it.

• Email: aoscott@nytimes.com

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