About Leigh Buchanan

From 1986 to 1988, Leigh Buchanan was the crossword puzzle editor of TV Guide, a professional achievement she has failed to surpass. She is currently an editor at Inc. Magazine, where she writes the back-page column “The Office.” She has also been an editor at The Harvard Business Review, and was co-founding editor of the first publication about business on the Internet, which is pretty funny when you consider she doesn't even know how to use the hotkeys on her computer. Her career in academia is best left unmentioned.

Good Book Hunting

Good Book Hunting
By Leigh Buchanan April 1, 2007

At age 16, I underwent the onomastic equivalent of a nose job: I legally changed my name. I had always hated “Lois,” a matronly moniker redolent of great aunts and baggy support hose. With the exception of Brenda Starr, it … Read More

Knell Lettres

Knell Lettres
By Leigh Buchanan February 21, 2007

This is a book column. So I’ll start with the book. The Quincunx, by Charles Palliser, comprises 788 pages of dense type, black-and-white maps, and family trees. Its dust jacket is glossy black, the letters marbleized gold. The page edges … Read More

On Not Reading Wordsworth

By Leigh Buchanan December 12, 2006

What is it about certain books that draw you back to not reading them again and again? I have not read Wordsworth’s “The Prelude” six times. The first time I did not read it was in an undergraduate class on … Read More

The Masturbatory Allure of Dorothy L. Sayers

The Masturbatory Allure of Dorothy L. Sayers
By Leigh Buchanan November 15, 2006

A while back, I tried to e-mail a document containing the phrase “gimcrack-cum-geegaw,” but a prudish software filter wouldn’t let me. The gauntlet down, I fired off additional objectionables, and the only one that made it through was “quim.” I’m … Read More