"Sidelights"

Daniel Menaker first worked as an English teacher before becoming a fact checker for the New Yorker. Over the years, he rose in the ranks and was eventually promoted to senior editor. Menaker then entered the publishing industry, working for several years as a top editor for such companies as Random House and HarperCollins. Menaker is a writer as well, the author of two short story collections, a novel, a memoir, and a nonfiction book. His first two books, the collections Friends and Relations and The Old Left, were published in 1976 and 1987, respectively. Menaker's novel The Treatment was released in 1998.

Twelve years later, Menaker published A Good Talk: The Story and Skill of Conversation, which attempts to chart the basic forms and progressions of conversation. He discusses the art of a good conversation and dissects the making of a stilted or awkward exchange. He offers advice for those who struggle to converse, and he includes stories from his years as an editor at the New Yorker.

"Menaker's book is filled with ample doses of humor," Deborah Bigelow stated in Library Journal. However, a Kirkus Reviews critic felt that "some of the sections seem more fitting for an in-flight magazine than for a serious discussion of ... discussion." This results in "a thin broth containing a few chunky morsels." Another mixed review was given in Commentary by Liam Julian, who wrote: "A Good Talk has been a saunter, its author bouncing impudently and easily from point to point, in no particular order and with no apparent, particular goal in mind. It has been, in fact, a conversation with the reader. But in the last chapter, Menaker morphs...