Jessica Teisch is the editor and publisher of Bookmarks magazine, a bimonthly print and digital “best of books” magazine that has been in print since 2002.
After all your years at Bookmarks, what continues to excite you about discovering and sharing new books?
(JT): I love finding “hidden gems,” so to speak. Most avid readers look at the major bestseller lists — the New York Times, New York Review of Books, New Yorker, etc. The books showcased in those publications get a lot of attention, and attention snowballs into more attention and publicity, which then further snowballs into literary awards’ committees’ nominations and awards. I enjoy identifying a book that might be a debut novel or a translated volume that received scant but glowing reviews — and highlighting those titles for our readers. These books are harder to find, but since we scour 40+ publications for the book reviews that appear in our New Books Guide, we always manage to find a few!
This might sound strange, but we also review books that have received a lot of press—but not all positive. Bookstores tend to display the books they know will sell, maybe by a bestselling author or a sequel to a bestseller, front and center. However, just because a bookstore promotes a book does not mean it was positively reviewed! We draw from a range of reviews, both positive and negative, to offer a more balanced and nuanced look at these kinds of books.
What makes a book review genuinely useful to you when deciding if it earns a spot in the magazine?
(JT): Our New Books, which is about half of the magazine, offers a book review digest of about 45-50 new titles in many genres—literary fiction, crime, SF/fantasy, young adult, general fiction, biography, history, and science. For each of the new books reviewed, we provide a story/topic summary, pull quotes from various magazines and newspapers, and then offer a critical summary that reflects the range of reviews. To earn a spot in the magazine, a new book must have garnered at least some newspaper/magazine/blog reviews to include it. That being said, our New Books Guide is only one part of our magazine.
We regularly feature author profiles (recent ones include Andrew Miller, Amy Bloom, and Tove Jansson). Each issue also has a few genre articles (Exciting Subgenres of Fiction: Romantasy, Cli-Fi, Dark Academia, and More; Just in Time for Halloween: Cryptids and Other Strange Creatures in Fiction and Nonfiction; Books as Bingeable as Your Favorite TV Shows; The Best Presidential Biographies for Every Type of Reader; The Middle East, in Translation; etc.). For those, we draw both on new releases, older books, and classics. For books to be included in those articles, we look at published lists, articles, and more to get a sense of where to start. I really enjoy writing those articles because I learn more than I ever thought possible on a range of topics! We also feature unique opportunities for readers to write in, through our Book Group Profile and our Have You Read? page, where a reader can offer a list of her/his/their own recommendations on a certain topic.
We love providing the diversity of opinion!
Your academic background is in Geography and Environmental Science; does that influence what catches your eye at Bookmarks?
(JT): I always have an eye for the nature/science books that are available for general readers. So many books on botany, astronomy, and other fields are written for academics and specialists, that it’s always great to discover titles written for the lay reader. My field was environmental history, and it seems that more and more authors are writing books for the lay reader rather than for strictly the academic.
Our readers are smart and well-read, so it’s always great to include books that might appear daunting but are engaging and well-written.
What’s changed the most about running the magazine since you became editor and publisher?
(JT): Our format has been largely the same since 2002, when the magazine was founded. However, I took it into the digital age (though print remains highly popular). We’ve also tweaked smaller elements of the magazine, streamlining and adding to what readers enjoy most.
Jessica Teisch earned her PhD in Geography and Master’s in Environmental Science at U.C. Berkeley before turning to her true love: books. She has also written a few nonfiction works, including Engineering Nature: Water, Development, and the Global Spread of American Environmental Expertise (University of North Carolina Press) and Da Vinci for Dummies (Wiley).
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