Sam Leith (born 1 January 1974) is an English author, journalist and literary editor of The Spectator.
Sam Leith | |
---|---|
Born | Paddington, London, England | 1 January 1974
Occupation | Journalist, columnist, novelist |
Alma mater | Magdalen College, Oxford |
Period | 1996–present |
Parents | Penny Junor James Leith |
Relatives | Prue Leith (aunt)[1] Danny Kruger (cousin) |
After an education at Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford, Leith worked at the revived satirical magazine Punch, before moving to the Daily Mail and The Daily Telegraph,[2] where he served as literary editor until 2008. He now writes for several publications, including the Financial Times, Prospect, The Spectator, The Wall Street Journal Europe and The Guardian.[3] He had a regular column in the Monday London Evening Standard.[4] and appeared as a panelist on BBC Two's The Review Show.[5] Since January 2024 he has written a monthly Spectator column on computer gaming.[6]
Leith has published several works of non-fiction, including Dead Pets, Sod's Law, You Talkin' to Me? and a book of poetry entitled Our Times in Rhymes: A Prosodical Chronicle of Our Damnable Age[7] The Coincidence Engine,[8] his first novel, was published in April 2011. Leith succeeded Mark Amory as literary editor of The Spectator in September 2014,[9] where he described himself as "this magazine’s token wishy-washy centre-left liberal".[10] He was a judge on the panel of the 2015 Man Booker Prize, won by Marlon James with A Brief History of Seven Killings. In November 2016, Leith was named the winner of the Columnist of the Year award at The Editorial Intelligence Comment Awards.[11]
Published books
edit- Dead Pets: Eat Them, Stuff Them, Love Them (Canongate, 2005)
- Daddy, Is Timmy in Heaven Now? (Canongate, 2006)
- Sod's Law: Why Life Always Falls Butter Side Down (Atlantic, 2009)
- The Coincidence Engine (Bloomsbury, 2011)
- You Talkin' to Me?: Rhetoric from Aristotle to Obama (Profile Books, 2011)
- Words Like Loaded Pistols: Rhetoric from Aristotle to Obama (Basic Books, 2012) – US edition
- Write to the Point: How To Be Clear, Correct and Persuasive on the Page (Profile Books, 2017)
- Write to the Point: A Master Class on the Fundamentals of Writing for Any Purpose (The Experiment, 2018) – US edition
- Our Times in Rhymes: A Prosodical Chronicle of Our Damnable Age, illus. Edith Pritchett (Square Peg, 2019), OCLC 1129688625
References
edit- ^ Leith, Sam (29 August 2017). "What it was like to be taught to cook by my aunt - and GBBO judge - Prue Leith". Evening Standard. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
- ^ Daily Telegraph columns
- ^ The Guardian contributor page
- ^ Evening Standard columns Archived 3 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ The Review Show
- ^ Leith, Sam (6 January 2024). "Computer games aren't a total waste of time". The Spectator. Retrieved 5 February 2024.
- ^ Charlotte Higgins You Talkin' to Me? by Sam Leith - review The Guardian, 13 October 2011
- ^ Killian Fox The Coincidence Engine by Sam Leith – review The Guardian, 3 April 2011
- ^ Literary Editor Mark Amory retires from The Spectator, but will he be replaced?, Melville House Publishing, 19 September 2014
- ^ Leith, Sam (15 July 2024). "It wasn't just Trump who dodged a bullet. It was all of us". The Spectator. Retrieved 15 July 2024.
- ^ The Comment Awards 2017 #eiCA17 brought to you by Editorial Intelligence Archived 29 January 2016 at the Wayback Machine, Winners 2016
External links
edit- The Comment Awards 2018 > Shortlist, Popular Columnist of the Year
- The Samuel Johnson Prize Judging Committee
- Sam Leith, 2015 judge, at the Man Booker Prize (archived 2016-01-27)
- Sam Leith at Library of Congress, with 6 library catalogue records