Patricia Cohen

Patricia Cohen is the author of In Our Prime: The Invention of Middle Age. She is a reporter and editor for The New York Times, and has worked at Rolling Stone, the Washington Post, and New York Newsday. Her work has been included in The Longman Writer, a writing textbook, and she contributed to the four-volume series, The New York Times Guide to the Arts of the 20th Century.

Her reply to my recent query about what she was reading:

When I was working on my book, I didn’t have much time to read fiction, so I have really indulged since I finished. I thought Amy Waldman’s book The Submission was wonderful. In her story, a committee holds a contest for a design for the 9/11 Memorial and the winner turns out to be a Muslim. Waldman, who was a reporter for The New York Times, uses her incredible reportorial skills and observational powers to bring this story to life. Having covered New York City politics, I can attest that she gets it right.

Before that I read Alice Hoffman’s The Dovekeepers, which was a departure from her usual subjects. In it, she takes you back to the first century C.E. after Jerusalem falls to the Romans. She re-imagines what happened at Masada as the Romans laid siege to the Jews who were holed up there through the eyes of four women.

I have to also include William Trevor’s novel, Felicia’s Journey, which was both creepy and captivating. He is an incredible writer.

Learn more about the book and author at the In Our Prime website.

--Marshal Zeringue