Jonathan Yardley

Jonathan Yardley is an American journalist, author, and longtime book critic. Born in Pittsburgh in 1939, he reviewed books at several newspapers before joining The Washington Post in 1981, where he wrote for more than three decades. He won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism and has authored several books, including Ring: A Biography of Ring Lardner and Our Kind of People: The Story of an American Family, a memoir about his parents.

Yardley was also editor of H.L. Mencken's posthumous memoir, My Life as Author and Editor, and has written introductions to books by Graham Greene, A. J. Liebling, Booth Tarkington and others. He retired from The Post in 2014.

Articles by this Author

Ten Books That Shaped the American Character, April/May 1985 | Vol. 36, No. 3

Walden is here, of course; but so too is Fanny Farmer’s first cookbook.

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