What is a “commonplace book”?

People used to keep scraps of ideas, quotations, things they’d run across, and other sundry in a notebook and call it a “commonplace” book. This is that, for me, and for you.

So here I’m writing just a little bit — about a show I’ve seen, a pattern I’ve noticed, a movie I like, a recent adventure, something I’ve been cooking, some element of the writing life. It might be a reflection on a theme that keeps surfacing, notes on craft, recommendations, or some half-formed thoughts I’ve been messing around with.

Who are you?

I joined the New York Times in 2023 as one of two staff movie critics. Before that, I was a senior correspondent at Vox, where I covered movies and culture. From 2009 to 2023, I was a professor at a small liberal arts college, teaching writing, criticism, cultural theory, and film.

I’m the author of Salty: Lessons on Eating, Drinking, and Living from Revolutionary Women (Broadleaf, 2022), a book of essays on interesting women through the lens of food and drink. My next book, We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine, will be published by Liveright in early 2025.