With rumors aswirl about the replacement for New York Times Book Review editor Chip McGrath, Times managing editor Bill Keller sent out a memo to the paper's staff saying that the search process for someone to fill the high-profile and occasionally embattled position had just begun.
"Applicants may start the deluge... now," he wrote less than two weeks ago, noting that McGrath won't officially be leaving his post until "early next year," when he'll become a writer-at-large for sections that include culture and sports. "It is a dream assignment, but as many of you know from his moonlighting efforts in the magazine and elsewhere, Chip is a dream writer," wrote Keller.
Before the memo became public, a number of publications speculated about possible candidates. One of them, New York Observer books editor Adam Begley, quipped in an interview that he would never leave his current job because "the pay's too good."
