Old School as New School

Philip Terzian, the literary editor of The Weekly Standard since 2005, has become one of the deans of the book-reviewing trade. He is much admired for his ability to make taste and set trends by suggesting but rarely imposing his own highly cultivated views on matters both aesthetic and ideological. His supervision of the magazine’s back-of-the-book pages is not only old-school but unfashionable, in that he produces the section for readers rather than fellow reviewers. amTerzian is also admired, and in some quarters envied, for having persuaded the Standard’s proprietor to pay him a living wage to read books — a pursuit, his friends suggest, that would consume his day even if he were unemployed and destitute. Unabashedly, Phil Terzian loves books, even arguably unlovable books, and his affections are contagious. Among readers, that is. He stands in resolute opposition to digital marketers and, especially, to Big Data. He doesn’t want to be told what will “fit” with his personal interests; he doesn’t want to be told what he should read because a computer once recorded his enthusiasm for a similar book. He wants to be surprised and delighted by a book he stumbles across, by a book that may not consolidate an old interest but kindle a new one. He is by his own admission an undisciplined reader and encourages his flock to be equally amateurish.