Kitsch heaven.

The author Lorrie Moore reviews Friday Night Lights for the New York Review of Books, expressing surprise at finding two other writers at a Manhattan party who also wanted to discuss the show (really, only two?) and discovering their mutual affection for Tim Riggins.

"The people I was speaking with mostly wanted to discuss the character Tim Riggins, played by Taylor Kitsch," she writes. "Kitsch heaven!" She continues:

Even Landry Clark and Matt Saracen and stormy, stalwart, black-Irish Eric Taylor—the characters who possess the most forceful gazes, mesmerizing scenes, and unexpected psychological moves in the show—received short shrift. It was the brooding, beautiful, and slightly doomed Tim Riggins, handsome as a statue and bleakly craving goodness, about whom no one could stop talking. Tim Riggins: through the wonders of long-form and instantly sharable narrative, he was the realest person in the room.

Yes! Lorrie Moore has been known to weigh in on the wilderness known to New Yorkers as "the rest of America" before; for connoisseurs of Ms. Moore's criticism, here's her 1999 book review for The Observer about the Jon-Benet Ramsey murder.

Mr. Weinberger's Jan. 13 reply criticized the curator's alleged snobbery, the idea "that nobody, an 'anyone'—the type who orders the wrong thing in a restaurant—should be permitted to review." The critic added that, in writing the review, he had used "sources that seemed more reliable, but perhaps they too were sweet-and-sour pork eaters." 

What is this world we are entering?

All that is certain is that the New York Review of Books will show us the way.

One NYRB piece on HuffPost's site is a 4,000-word review from James Bamford on author Matthew Aid's The Secret Sentry: The Untold History of the National Security Agency. Some of the articles will be posted on the site before the print version is in stores and mailboxes. Other articles will also be available on "a branded space" in the section. The graphic linking to the books section on the front of HuffPo's site reads: "BOOKS/NYR."

"My hope for HuffPost's Books section is that it becomes a gathering place for all kinds of book lovers -- readers, booksellers, writers, editors, reviewers, book publicists, sales reps, book designers and printers -- to speak to each other, to exchange ideas, to honor where we've come from as well as the road ahead," wrote the section's editor, Amy Hertz, who is keeping her job as editor-at-large Penguin's Dutton Books division. "Books are alive and well, but everything around them is changing...while the Internet won't kill books, boredom, earnestness and despair just might."

"The Huffington Post Book Club: Arianna's Reading" will launch tomorrow, with her first pick. "[W]e're not going to pick only new releases or the latest bestsellers," Ms. Huffington said on the site. "There is absolutely no reason for books to have a limited shelf life. Indeed, good books should provide the ultimate resistance to the disposable culture we live in, and I want to celebrate that fact." She'll periodically write up a little something about a book she's reading and readers will be welcome to chime in.

Ms. Huffington recruited some of her celebrity and political friends to contribute to the HuffPost Books, including Howard Dean; Bob Miller, publisher of Harper Studio; author Jonathan Safran Foer; and book publicist Arielle Ford; among others.

It was an unusual tweet for @nybooks: Normally the account is used to publicize articles that appear in the publication, or else point followers to events and readings involving its contributors. The response to the job post was instantaneous and relatively deafening, as Review fans employed and unemployed alike retweeted the announcement and contributed commentary. 

ZekeFT said, “most brutal-looking job posting ever ever”—presumably in reference to the part about candidates being “prepared to work irregular hours, including weekends.” 

Along the same lines, SuziSteffen said, “Ohhhhhhhh sigh.”

Toualoua said, “I want this JOB,” which was echoed by bianunesdesousa’s exclamation, “Eu quero!!!”

kariannebgilje said, “Ryddet skrivebord og klar for nye utfordringer?” which means, “Cleaned the writing table and ready for new challenge?”

According to the Review's director of Web publishing, Mathew Howard, who mans the @nybooks account, “There have been quite a number of applicants—probably more in the first day then there otherwise would have been.” 

Mr. Howard said he was amused by how eagerly the announcement was received. 

“It certainly got a stronger response than most of the stuff that I post on Twitter,” he said.

New York Times writer-at-large Charles "Chip" McGrath, the 61-year-old former editor of the paper’s Sunday book review, is working on a profile of New York Review of Books editor Robert Silvers. The piece will appear in The Times’ Arts section just as soon as Mr. McGrath finishes it, which he said this morning he hopes to do next week.

Mr. McGrath said Mr. Silvers cooperated with his efforts graciously, not only agreeing to be interviewed but uncharacteristically sharing his thoughts (albeit only "a little bit") on the question of succession at the Review.   

Mr. Silvers seriously hesitated before deciding to cooperate with the piece, Mr. McGrath said, which is consistent with the 79-year-old editor's reputation as a press-shy workaholic who wants attention to be focused on "the paper"—as he calls the Review—rather than himself.

"He's very private," Mr. McGrath said. "He agreed to do it with some reluctance. He said it caused him an unquiet night. I think he did it for the Review. He thought it would be good for the Review."

Mr. McGrath said the piece had not been prompted by anything in particular, and that he'd been asked to do it by Times culture editor Sam Sifton. 

"It's not really pegged to anything other than that it's been about 10 years since The Times did anything about Silvers," Mr. McGrath said, referring to a profile by Janny Scott that ran in the Times in the fall of 1997. 

Several pieces on Mr. Silvers and the Review have appeared in other outlets since then, including one in The Observer by Sheelah Kolhatkar from December 2005 and a lengthy one in New York by James Atlas that appeared in September 2006, shortly after the death of Barbara Epstein, who was Mr. Silver’s co-editor at the Review for 43 years.

Mr. McGrath declined to go into detail about the the piece he's writing, but indicated that he wants to say something "new" about the Review and Mr. Silvers. 

In addition to writing weekly for that magazine (last week he wrote about returning dramas), Mr. Leonard, who was 69-years-old, wrote a monthly books column for Harper's. He also served as a contributing editor for The Nation, contributed to The New York Review of Books and wrote regularly for The New York Times Book Review, where he had previously been an editor.

Writes Mr. Margolick:

Mr. Margolick offers a picture of Mr. Levine's enviable decades-long work routine: "Pretty much every other Thursday for the next 40 years, a messenger from the Review would drop off an envelope at the Heights Casino, on Montague Street, where Levine played tennis, a few blocks from his apartment. In it were photographs of the people he was to draw for the next issue, along with the articles about them. Always, Levine would read the pieces before setting pen to paper. … Each illustration took him a couple of hours. Tuesdays, the messenger would return to the Casino to pick up what he'd drawn."

The magazine's Web site also presents a slideshow of Mr. Levine's most iconic works.

The Review has been bumped out of its current space as fellow tenant Universal Music had expansion options built into its contract.

Our colleague Leon Neyfakh reported the pending move in December.

Press Release from Trinity below:

It’s a morbid question, to be sure, but one that inevitably comes up when discussing the publication—which has no heir apparent among its staff of editors and assistants. Mr. Silvers seems to like it that way; on Monday, he pointedly refused to answer questions about who might succeed him as editor when he can no longer do the job. “It’s not a question that’s posing itself,” he said.

Still, it is a time of change at The Review—even if Mr. Silvers remains at the helm for eternity.

This March, the paper will relocate its headquarters to a converted factory in the West Village after more than 40 years spent in the heart of midtown. According to Mr. Silvers, The Review’s current home on the fifth floor of 1755 Broadway—where it has been for the past ten years—is being taken over by Universal Music, which occupies a large portion of the rest of the building and holds an option on the fifth floor that they intend to exercise once The Review’s lease runs out early next year.

(“It’s very funny to see Bob in an elevator with hip-hop stars [like Lil Wayne and 50 Cent] studded with a million diamonds. I will miss that,” says Review publicity manager Jenie Hederman.)

The move will mark the second time in The Review’s history that it has had to change homes: Originally, its offices were in the Fisk Building at 250 West 57th Street, around the corner from where they are now.

The Review’s new space, on the third floor of 435 Hudson Street, is much larger than its current quarters, according to Mr. Silvers. “It’s a large, very airy space with very big windows,” he said. “We’ll be able to spread out our books and have big tables for different categories of books.”

And there is another recent, major change at The Review—this one boasts a less rosy cast. David Levine, the 80-year-old artist whose iconic caricatures have filled the pages of the paper since its very first issue, has developed macular degeneration, an eye condition that has severely impaired his ability to draw the kind of piercing, detailed portraits he is known for.

Mr. Levine, who said he has drawn something like 4,000 caricatures for The Review over the course of his life, said he was diagnosed with the condition several months ago, and has not contributed a new drawing to the paper since.

“If I look at somebody’s face, I can’t tell what it really looks like in detail,” he said. “I can see the general layout, the noses and so on, but if you come into a restaurant where I’m sitting and looking towards the door, I can’t tell until the person gets within five feet of me who it is.”

Mr. Levine said there is no cure for the condition—which, according to the National Eye Institute, is a leading cause of blindness among the elderly—but that he has been working with doctors to regain some of his abilities.

“It didn’t stop [Edgar] Degas,” Mr. Levine said, noting that the Impressionist also suffered from the condition. “He went on to change his way of seeing. He just moved into a rhythm of color and bigger generalities in the way he saw things like hands or faces. … I’m open to that. I’m searching.”

One option Mr. Levine has been exploring is switching from pen and ink to pencil, which would allow him to erase things if he doesn’t nail them right away.

“[My drawings] won’t look so different,” he said. “The details will be handled slightly differently.”

In the meantime, The Review has had to turn elsewhere for its illustrations. Although many of Mr. Levine’s old caricatures still show up—his rendering of Philip Roth graced the cover of the Dec. 6 issue, and he had five more drawings inside—Mr. Silvers said he has been publishing work by other artists, such as Pancho and John Springs, as well as using photographs more frequently than he used to.

Still, with nearly a half-decade of re-publishable work for The Review behind Mr. Levine, and Mr. Silvers running the show, the paper will surely look and feel pretty much the same, even as things, inevitably, change.