Celebrating 100 Years: Jia Tolentino and Roz Chast Pick Favorites from the Archive

About this episode

<p>Staff writers and contributors are celebrating <i>The New Yorker’s</i> centennial by revisiting notable works from the magazine’s archive, in a series called <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/takes">Takes</a>. The writer Jia Tolentino and the cartoonist Roz Chast join the Radio Hour to present their selections. Tolentino discusses an essay by a genius observer of American life, the late Joan Didion, about Martha Stewart. Didion’s profile, “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2000/02/21/martha-stewart-joan-didion">everywoman.com</a>,” was published in 2000, and Tolentino finds in it a defense of perfectionism and a certain kind of ruthlessness: she suggests that “most of the lines Didion writes about Stewart, it’s hard not to hear the echoes of people saying that about her.” Chast chose to focus on cartoons by George Booth, who contributed to <i>Th</i>e <i>New Yorker</i> for at least half of the magazine’s life. </p><p>You can read Roz Chast on George Booth, Jia Tolentino on Joan Didion, and many more essays from the Takes series <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/takes">here</a>.  </p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>