Dilettante: True Tales of Excess, Triumph, and Disaster

“Who am I kidding.... I was a fucking dilettante, a role I assumed and perfected,” writes Brown, former deputy editor of Vanity Fair, in this bawdy account of his decades at the magazine. His aimless days hustling as a barback came to an end when in 1994—after working a number of Graydon Carter’s private salons—the Vanity Fair publisher hired Brown as his assistant, handing him the key to New York City’s vibrant and bustling magazine world. “For the next quarter of a century,” Brown writes, “that key would unlock doors that would define my life.” As he recounts his path from coffee fetcher to respected editor, he courses through an entertaining who’s who of celebrities: smoking weed with Seth Rogen, day-drinking with Vanity Fair writer Christopher Hitchens (“maybe one of the most fun people ever”), and doing a photo shoot with Caitlyn Jenner for the magazine’s 2015 cover story (“one final victory for print in an increasingly pixelated world”). It’s a glittering paean to the bygone golden age of glossy magazines, but also—and perhaps more intriguingly—a riveting behind-the-scenes look at how print media pivoted to meet the needs of a burgeoning era in which “the internet wasn’t a new newsstand, it was the newsstand.” This tour through New York publishing’s hallowed halls is a nonstop thrill. (Mar.)