The title of this post occurred to us as a facile way of comparing the gentlemanly, highly revered critic at The New Yorker with the gentlemanly, highly revered publisher of FSG. But then we thought—wait, there’s actually a way to prove this! So we tallied up all the fiction reviews James Wood has logged since joining The New Yorker  (Should we call those reviews Woodies? Authors will open the The New Yorker and say, “Yay, I got a Woody!”)  and wouldn’t you know it… the imprint he has reviewed the most is FSG. It’s only winning by half a book. But if we know anything about arch-nemeses, these two kindred spirits will be at each other’s throats for a long time — and possibly collaborating on Wood’s next book, now that FSG has published How Fiction Works. Here is a breakdown of where Wood has directed his formidable attention so far.

FSG: 4     Lowboy; Atmospheric Disturbances; Home; Lush Life

Knopf: 3.5     No Country for Old Men; War and Peace; Censoring an Iranian Love Story; His Illegal Self *

Pantheon: 2     Netherland; Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi

Houghton Mifflin: 1     Exit Ghost

Viking: 1     Diary of a Bad Year

Riverhead: 1     The Lazarus Project

Everyman’s Library: 1     Richard Yates’ novels

Dutton: 0.5     My Revolutions*

*His Illegal Self and My Revolutions were reviewed together, so half a point each

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