Thank you to Netgalley and the Publishing Company for this Advanced Readers Copy of The Editor by Sara B. Franklin!

This book sounds fascinating to me, but I couldn't get into the story right now. I think it might work for me if I come back to it at a later time.

Thank you to #NetGalley and #AtriaBooks for a free copy of #TheEditor by Sara B. Franklin. All opinions are my own.

3 stars since I DNF'd and can't give a complete review.

From the moment I watched Julie and Julia and learned about Judith Jones, I wanted to learn more about her as someone who is strongly connected to publishing. It's incredible to learn how this one woman managed to find some of the strongest contributors to cooking and literature. It was wonderful to learn her life and process. While she wasn't a perfect person, she knew the craft and had a hand in setting the pulse of literature.
Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for an opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

What a wonderful book. I had never heard of Judith Jones which I'm so embarrassed to say after reading about her wonderful and accomplished career. Her range!!!! Cookbooks! Sylvia Plath! Anne Frank! This is such an eye opening read for anyone who's interested in working in publishing. I was looking up jobs at publishing companies after I finished this, lol

interesting biography of a very interesting person who has sadly taken the back stage in most writings done lately

this was a fun and interesting look at an unbelievably valuable figure in the publishing world (and a fun accompaniment to julia child's own works).

I was introduced to Judith Jones on the Max show "Julia" and once I saw this biography was coming, I had to check it out. Since I work in publishing, Judith's work stories and experiences were what I was most interested in. It felt equally fascinating and frustrating (ugh, misogyny). Overall, I very much enjoyed it!

A fascinating look into the world of publishing through the life of the remarkable editor Judith Jones and her little understood impact on the culture of the times. This was a slow read for me, one that took months of me reading a bit at a time, but that didn't make it any less engrossing. And it made me want to look up some of these authors she mentored because as a 40-something year old, I hadn't heard of any except of course Julia Child.
The author's personal relationship with Jones, made this book all the more special to read.
Thanks to #NetGalley and #Atria books for the ARC.

Thank you to Atria Books and Simon Audio for the copies to review!

I did not know much about Knopf editor Judith Jones and so this was an excellent and fascinating read. It was interesting to see how she navigated the publishing world that was dominated by men, how she fought the expectations of her personal life and held to what she wanted to do, and how she fought for a book to see the light of day that we all now could not see a world without, The Diary of Anne Frank. Other authors she was responsible for include John Updike, Sylvia Plath, Anne Tyler, and Julia Child to name just a few. The audio for this is wonderful and I do recommend picking this one up, either physical copy or audio. I love books about women who fight and stand for what they believe in and Judith Jones was definitely inspiring.

Happy to include this title in “Engrossing Lives,” a recent round-up highlighting notable new memoirs and bios, in the Books section of Canadian national culture and lifestyle magazine Zoomer. (see column and mini-review at link)

Judith Jones is well-known as an icon in book editing and publishing. This is a fascinating look at a woman who was brilliant at her job in an industry that during her early career, did not look favorably on strong female employees. Her formative years growing up with a mother who kept a copy of the Social Register in her house and expected her daughters to strive for perfection; her eagerness to escape New York for Vermont; the decision to attend Bennington College (before it was so trendy), and a winter school break job at Doubleday, make for interesting reading. Her first day on the job, her boss handed her a manuscript to read and make editing suggestions. She proved to be a gifted editor right from the start and went to work full-time at the publishing house after graduation. She later took leave to go to Paris, primarily for a break from work and to get over a failed love affair. She met the love of her life, Richard Evan "Dick" Jones when she went to work for him at a publication called "Weekend." After that publication went belly-up, she was lucky enough to join the new Paris office of Doubleday. One of her duties was going through manuscripts in the "slush pile." She came upon a book that had already been published in Europe and the publisher was looking to release the book in the U.S. In her words, the book featured a striking black-and-white photo of a teenage girl. Judith knew the book, "Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl," was an important find and should get worldwide distribution. But, of course, her male boss, took all the credit for the discovery.

All this did lead to Judith becoming one of the most important figures in a very competitive industry, especially after she started working at Knopf. She started the revolution of cookbooks as tomes to read instead of just searching for recipes, with the publication of what would become "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" by Louisette Bertholle, Simone Beck and Julia Child. She was the editor and champion of works by Ms. Plath, Edna Lewis, Anne Tyler and John Updike, among many others.

I really enjoyed this book. The author did such a good job bringing Judith's story to life and her contributions to book publishing. As a former newspaper section editor, I especially related to the difficult task of taking someone else's writing and making it the best possible version of itself without offending the original writer.

This is a biography of Judith Jones, an editor with Doubleday who is most known for finding the book Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl in the slush pile and convincing the publisher to publish it. I was interested in reading this book because she was also the editor for Julia Child’s cookbooks (along with many other cookbooks). I loved the TV show Julia and the character of Judith and so I was excited to learn about this book to find out more about this very interesting woman. The book is based on interviews, personal documents and research. I really enjoyed reading this book even though I found it frustrating how little appreciated Judith was at times.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria for a copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

This entertaining biography doubles as a profile of a fascinating woman and a niche history of the publishing industry from WWII through the early 21st century. Meticulously researched and engagingly written, this will hold special appeal for lovers of true tales of formidable women and anyone wishing to understand the editor credited with shaping the contemporary cookbook landscape and an entire generation of food writers.

I knew Judith Jones was the editor behind Julia Child, but little did I know she was the editor behind so many cookbooks that shaped the way we see cookbooks at large. This book chronicles the extraordinary life of a woman who gets to little credit for shaping American culture.

The Editor
How Publishing Legend Judith Jones Shaped Culture in America
by Sara B. Franklin
Pub Date May 28 2024
Atria Books
Biographies & Memoirs


Atria Books and Netgalley provided me with a copy of The Editor for review:


A twenty-five-year-old Judith Jones spent most of her time at Doubleday's Paris office wading through manuscripts and passing on projects—until one day, a book caught her eye. After reading it in one sitting, she begged her boss to consider publishing it. One year later, Anne Frank's diary became a bestseller. An industry-defining career in publishing began at that moment.


During her more than fifty years as an editor at Alfred A. Knopf, Jones nurtured the careers of literary icons like Sylvia Plath, Anne Tyler, and John Updike, and launched new genres and trends in literature. As a pioneer of the cookbook revolution, she published Edna Lewis, M.F.K. Fisher, Claudia Roden, Madhur Jaffrey, James Beard, and Julia Child among others. By working behind the scenes, Jones helped turn these authors into household names, changing cultural mores and expectations.



The books Judith published spanned decades of America's most dramatic cultural change, from the end of World War II to the civil rights movement and the fight for women's equality. In this "thorough and humanizing portrait," based on exclusive interviews, never-before-seen personal papers, and years of research, her extraordinary career is explored for the first time.


I give The Editor five out of five stars!


Happy Reading!

In the wake of a certain kicker's commencement speech, this feels very timely to read. A woman who was a groundbreaking but well-kept secret in publishing but also wanted a family and built it in a non-traditional way. A post-WWII woman who didn't want to go back to the home, and who shaped taste through the second wave feminism and the Civil Rights Movement. The work she edited and the authors she worked with helped her views evolve, and she ended up putting out some of the most important voices in literature. She also was an absolute boss when it came to cookbooks - we wouldn't know who Julia Child was without her. This woman loved food.

Judith Jones had it all in the way that she wanted, even when she wasn't recognized for her work or valued. She worked hard, she loved her husband, she loved the children she eventually took into her home, as well as her stepdaughters. Judith built a family of people who loved her, and this book is finally giving light to her influence.

I can only hope to be half this cool. It's absolutely possible to be fulfilled an happy as a wife and mother, and a successful person in the world of business. Take that, kicker. You are not the same.

In 1957, Judith Jones began work at Knopf, one of the world’s most esteemed publishing houses. She spent more than five decades at Knopf where she worked closely with writers such as Julia Child, Sylvia Plath, and Anne Tyler.

Sara B. Franklin is lucky to have spent time interviewing Jones, and here she has combined her reporting along with the editor’s personal correspondence and years of archival material. The result is a wonderfully insightful and illuminating biography about one of the most influential figures in publishing.

I so enjoyed this book! My first introduction to Judith Jones was, essentially, seeing her portrayed as a background character in Julia Child's story. However, the various movies and shows I watched about Child's life and career always left me wanting to know more about the elusive editor—and Sara B. Franklin's biography, aptly titled THE EDITOR, allows Jones to fully shine in the spotlight. Well-researched and well-written, the book takes readers through Jones's journey as an editor. She spent decades helping publish unforgettable books (like Anne Frank's diary), serving as a mentor to esteemed authors (such as John Updike, Sylvia Plath, and Anne Tyler), working with talented chefs (including Julia Child) to bring their cookbooks to life, and establishing herself as a trailblazer in the publishing world.

Beyond wanting to learn more about Judith Jones, I also always enjoy books about books themselves—publishing, the literary world, etc.—and THE EDITOR was so informative in those areas, too, providing a detailed picture of what it was like to work in the industry over the years. When Jones was first getting her start in publishing, it seemed almost unheard of for a woman to have such a lucrative career in the field, but she never lost sight of her goals, even when her some of her male colleagues downplayed her achievements or took her impressive work for granted. She made real change, in her quiet, modest way—and at Knopf, one of the most famous publishing houses in the world, no less. Additionally, I appreciated how personal the book felt. Sara B. Franklin developed a friendship with Judith Jones in her later years, and their bond shines within the narrative, as Franklin weaves snapshots of their time spent together and anecdotes Jones shared with her throughout. She was also granted access to Jones's personal papers, so readers get an even deeper sense of the work Jones did, the relationships she had with others, and the wit and wisdom she possessed in spades, through the inclusion of letter excerpts and the like. Overall, THE EDITOR was a wonderful read about an influential figure, who clearly lived such a vibrant life! Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for the ARC, provided in exchange for an honest review.

As someone who loves books about books, I was very excited for this biography of Judith Jones, a prolific editor who worked on some of the world's most influential books (Julia Child, Anne Frank's diary). This did not disappoint: it's both a deep dive into Jones' impact on publishing and a primer on what could be considered the golden period of the industry. This is the way all biographies should be. Concise, packed with clever anecdotes that give the reader a firm POV on who the subject was, and clearly well-researched. I thought I knew a decent amount about Judith Jones from seeing portrayals of her in various Julia Child-themed media. This book gave a nuanced peek into her life outside of Child, including the relationships she culivated with other writers.

“I made a vow to myself never publish a cook book that used powdered garlic. Particularly in a book like this that is so full of fresh and glorious things it should not have to appear.”

These sentences appear in a letter Judith Jones wrote to a young author (Anna Thomas) of a manuscript (The Vegetarian Epicure, a book years ahead of its time) Jones was editing. I doubt that any other cookbook author has ever seen sentences like these in a letter from their editor. I think they say some important things about Jones. That she could confess this vow to an author and be taken seriously. That she knew just what to say to persuade an author to accept her advice. That she was attentive to details in every recipe she read. That she applied her standards for what was allowable in a book she edited even to small things. That she was an enthusiastic and experienced cook herself who could appreciate the importance of using “fresh and glorious things” in preparing food. And that she expected to work with other authors on other cookbooks, having already been the editor of the most influential cookbook of its time, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Why else make that “vow to myself”?

I enjoyed reading this admiring portrait of a woman who made a brilliant career for herself in book publishing at a time when such a thing was a rarity for women. Even more impressive was that Jones did this at Knopf, the most prestigious publisher in America. And for a good chunk of her time there she worked for a boss who did not respect or value her. The one time she asked this boss for a raise he refused to give it to her. This same boss took credit for the success of a book that Jones had edited and seen through to publication. (These sections—showing how Jones handled adversarial office politics—reminded me of scenes in “Mad Men.”)

Despite the treatment she received there, Jones never considered leaving Knopf. She was too devoted to her authors and projects to leave them behind. This book gives us the chance to see close-up and over and over the impact a devoted editor can have on an author and a book.

This book also gives us a chance to see how devoted those authors were to an editor who was (quoting many of the ways Jones was described by the authors who worked with her) perceptive, firm but gentle, sympathetic, diligent, imaginative, unselfconscious, indomitable, sophisticated, strong-willed, irreverent, energetic, a deft wordsmith, known to have a wicked sense of humor, and—most valuable of all--a wise guide.

Before reading this book, I had heard of other book editors—Maxwell Perkins, Michael Korda, Jason Epstein, Robert Gottlieb. But I had never heard of Judith Jones. Thank you, Sara Franklin, for writing this book that I hope will make Judith Jones widely known.

Thank you Simon & Shuster for providing an advance copy in galley form for review consideration via NetGalley. Please note: Quotes taken from a galley may change in the final version.
All opinions are my own.