Biography

lamster1

I am a writer on the arts and culture, my primary fields of interest and expertise being architecture and design. My work appears widely in print and online (recent work can be found here); I am a contributing editor to Design Observer, a frequent book reviewer for the Los Angeles Times, and a member of the National Book Critics Circle.

I am presently at work on a biography of the late architect Philip Johnson, to be published by Little, Brown. My previous book, Master of Shadows, is a political biography of the artist Peter Paul Rubens, who led a double life as a diplomat and spy. It was published in 2009 by Nan A. Talese/Doubleday in the United States, and in Dutch translation as De meester van de schaduw by De Bezige Bij. A paperback edition will follow in the US in October 2010, from Anchor. Additional foreign-language editions are in production. My first book, Spalding’s World Tour, was an Editor’s Choice selection of the New York Times Book Review.

For more than a decade I served as a senior editor at the publishing house Princeton Architectural Press, where I had the great pleasure to work with many distinguished writers and to develop a list of commercially successful, highly regarded titles. Before joining PAPress, I served as an editor for George Braziller, the distinguished independent publisher of literature and illustrated books.

I have written extensively on current affairs, history, and sports (baseball in particular). In 2003, I co-founded the baseball blog YFSF.org, to which I occasionally contribute. I am on the editorial board of “Base Ball,” an academic journal devoted to the game’s early history. My sports writing has appeared widely on the web and in print.

I’m an occasional guest on the CBC radio program WireTap, with Jonathan Goldstein.

I hold degrees from Johns Hopkins (BA), and Tufts (MA), and I am a native New Yorker currently resident in Brooklyn with my wife and daughter.

You can find my CV here here.

And yes, it’s true, I am the holder of a world record.