Ron Charles (critic)

Ron Charles
For the basketball player, see Ron Charles (basketball).

Ron Charles (born 1962 in St. Louis, Missouri) is a book critic at The Washington Post.[1] His awards include the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award Nona Balakian Citation[2] for book reviews,[3] and 1st Place for A&E Coverage from the Society for Features Journalism in 2011.[4] He was one of three jurors for the 2014 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction.[5]

Charles grew up in Town and Country, Missouri, and graduated from Principia College and Washington University in St. Louis before getting a job as a teacher at John Burroughs School.[6] After a student's parent offhandedly suggested he try making a living as a book reviewer,[6] Charles sent his first book review to The Christian Science Monitor, which eventually hired him. He spent seven years as the Monitor's book review editor and staff critic.[2]

In 2005, he was hired by the Washington Post. Sometime after August 2010, with his review of Jonathan Franzen's Freedom,[7] Charles began a series of video book reviews for Post called "The Totally Hip Video Book Review".[8] In the series, Charles, sometimes featuring his wife, high school English teacher Dawn Charles, hams it up with sight gags and intentionally bad jokes. It is a satirical look at current books in the news and the art of book reviewing.[9]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ "Ron Charles". Washington Post. Retrieved February 1, 2022.
  2. ^ a b "Ron Charles Wins NBCC Nona Balakian Citation". National Book Critics Circle. Archived from the original on 2009-04-16. Retrieved September 12, 2012.
  3. ^ "Ron Charles's NBCC Acceptance Speech in NYC". YouTube. March 3, 2009. Archived from the original on 2021-12-15. Retrieved September 12, 2012.
  4. ^ "Excellence-in-Features Writing". Society for Features Journalism. Archived from the original on August 11, 2012. Retrieved September 12, 2012.
  5. ^ "The 2014 Pulitzer Prize Winners". pulitzer.org. Retrieved May 8, 2014.
  6. ^ a b Johnson, Julia M. (7 October 2019). "Homegrown: Ron Charles". Town&Style. Retrieved 1 February 2022.
  7. ^ Ron Charles (August 30, 2010). "Video review of Freedom". Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2019-06-30. Retrieved September 12, 2012.
  8. ^ Dan Ozzi (Feb 14, 2011). "For Your Consideration: Ron Charles, Video Book Reviewer". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved September 12, 2012.
  9. ^ "Videos by Ron Charles: Totally Hip Video Book Reviewer series". The Washington Post. September 22, 2010. Archived from the original on 2014-01-06. Retrieved September 12, 2012.