How Washingtons top book critic reads between 2024s political lines
Carlos Lozada is a columnist for The New York Times, and before that, the longtime nonfiction book critic for The Washington Post.\xa0\nIn 2019, Lozada won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism for a series of pieces that judges described as \u201ctrenchant and searching reviews and essays that joined warm emotion and careful analysis in examining a broad range of books addressing government and the American experience.\u201d\nWell, he's now collected nearly a decade of such reviews in what he calls \u201cThe Washington Book: How to Read Politics and Politicians,\u201d which was released this week.\xa0\n\u201cIf the art of politics can be to subtract meaning from language to produce more and more words that say less and less,\u201d he writes, \u201cthen it is my purpose as a journalist to try to find that meaning and put it back.\u201d\nHe reads a lot of books by politicians. As he likes to say, he reads all those books so that you don't have to.\xa0\nBut he's found a way to use those books to say something interesting about those same politicians.\xa0\nSo what does Carlos's close reading of the likes of Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Mike Pence, Ron DeSantis and many others reveal about our politics in 2024?\nIt turns out quite a lot. On this week\u2019s episode of Deep Dive, host and Playbook co-author Ryan Lizza sits down with Carlos in POLITICO's offices to find out more.\nRyan Lizza is a Playbook co-author for POLITICO.Carlos Lozada is an opinion columnist and co-host of the weekly \u201cMatter of Opinion\u201d podcast for The New York Times.\xa0Kara Tabor is a producer for POLITICO audio.\xa0Alex Keeney is a senior producer for POLITICO audio.\n\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices