John Seabrook

For the American pastor and HBCU academic administrator, see John Jarvis Seabrook.

John M. Seabrook Jr. (born January 17, 1959)^[1] is an American writer and journalist. He has worked for The New Yorker weekly magazine for many years,^[2] and has five published books.

Seabrook at the 7 Moscow International Book Festival, 2012

Biography

Seabrook graduated from St. Andrew's School (DE) in 1976, Princeton University in 1981 and received an M.A. in English Literature from Oxford.^{[citation needed]}

He began his career writing about business and published in a wide variety of magazines and newspapers, including Manhattan, inc.,^[3] Harper's, Vanity Fair, GQ, The Nation, The Village Voice, and the Christian Science Monitor.^{[citation needed]} To date, he has published five books besides contributing numerous articles to The New Yorker.^[4] A feature film by Marc Abraham based on his 2008 book Flash of Genius was released on October 2008, starring Greg Kinnear.^[5] His latest book, The Spinach King: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty was published in 2025.

Bibliography

Books

• Deeper: My Two-Year Odyssey in Cyberspace. Touchstone Books. 1997.^[6][7]
• Nobrow: the Culture of Marketing, the Marketing of Culture. Methuen. 2000.^[8]
• Flash of Genius and Other True Stories of Invention. St. Martin's Griffin. 2008.^[9]
• The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory. W. W. Norton & Company. 2015.^[10]
• The Spinach King: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty. W. W. Norton & Company. 2025. ISBN 978-1-324-00352-6.

Essays and reporting

• "E-mail from Bill". A Reporter at Large. The New Yorker. January 10, 1994. Retrieved June 6, 2016.
• "It came from Hollywood". Dept. of Special Effects. The New Yorker. December 1, 2003. Retrieved July 6, 2025.
• "Couch potato politics". The Talk of the Town. Sixty Seconds. The New Yorker. 84 (35): 46, 48. November 3, 2008. Archived from the original on November 6, 2008. Retrieved July 6, 2025.
• "Peekers". The Talk of the Town. Dept. of Visitations. The New Yorker. 86 (31): 38. October 11, 2010.
• "Streaming dreams". Annals of Technology. The New Yorker. 87 (44): 24–30. January 16, 2012. Archived from the original on February 1, 2012. Retrieved July 6, 2025.^[a]
• "Re-start". The Talk of the Town: Fountain of Youth Dept. The New Yorker. 87 (46): 20. January 30, 2012. Archived from the original on April 26, 2012. Retrieved July 6, 2025.^[b]
• "Glass half full". The Talk of the Town: The Musical Life. The New Yorker. 88 (38): 42. December 3, 2012. Archived from the original on October 20, 2014. Retrieved July 6, 2025.
• "Tarrytown boy". The Talk of the Town. Comeback Dept. The New Yorker. 88 (45): 23. January 28, 2013. Tim Maia.
• "Caloric sounds". Talk of the Town. Have You Heard This One?. The New Yorker. 89 (3): 18, 20. March 4, 2013.
• "The Beach Builders". Our Local Correspondents. The New Yorker. 89 (21): 42–51. July 22, 2013.
• "A dog's life". The Talk of the Town. Here to There Dept. The New Yorker. 89 (30): 25. September 30, 2013.
• "Names". The Talk of the Town. Dept. of Hoopla. The New Yorker. 89 (47): 20, 22. February 3, 2014.
• "Hey, hey". The Talk of the Town. Never Say Never. The New Yorker. 90 (12): 27. May 12, 2014.^[c]
• "Free". The Talk of the Town. The Musical Life. The New Yorker. 90 (46): 21. February 2, 2015.^[d]
• "Full reverb". The Talk of the Town. Game Night. The New Yorker. 91 (9): 33. April 20, 2015.^[e]
• "Third Act". The Talk of the Town. The Musical Life. The New Yorker. 91 (14): 24–25. May 25, 2015.^[f]
• "The mixologist : how Mike Will made it". Profiles. The New Yorker. 92 (21): 34–42. July 11–18, 2016.
• "My father's cellar : a lifetime of drinking". Personal History. The New Yorker. 92 (43): 22–28. January 23, 2017.^[g]
• "High ceilings". The Talk of the Town. The Musical Life. The New Yorker. 93 (24): 17–18. August 21, 2017.^[h]
• "Top jocks : Puerto Rico's Ortiz brothers are lighting up New York's racetracks". The Sporting Scene. The New Yorker. 93 (39): 38–45. December 4, 2017.^[i]
• "The Next Word". A Reporter at Large. The New Yorker. 95 (36): 52–63. October 14, 2019.^[j]
• "Zero-proof therapy : can an ex-drinker return to the bar if non-alcoholic beer is on tap?". American Chronicles. The New Yorker. 97 (30): 30–36. September 27, 2021.^[k]
• "The Flood Will Come : How to think about the formidable power of rivers." Annals of Disaster. The New Yorker. 101 (21): 12-18. July 28, 2025.

Critical studies and reviews of Seabrook's work

Nobrow

• Foster, Hal (21 September 2000). "Slumming with rappers at the Roxy". London Review of Books. 22 (18): 16–18. Retrieved 2015-05-06.^[l]

The song machine

• Nathaniel Rich. "Hit Charade". The Atlantic (October 2015). Retrieved 24 September 2015.

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Notes

1. YouTube.
2. Nolan Bushnell.
3. Michael Nesmith.
4. Inuk throat singer Tanya Tagaq.
5. Online version is titled "Game night with Laura Marling".
6. Title in the online table of contents is "Beyond 'Uptown Funk'".
7. Online version is titled "Behind the cellar door".
8. Online version is titled "Randy Newman contemplates the universe".
9. Online version is titled "Puerto Rico's Ortiz brothers light up horse racing".
10. Online version is titled "Can a Machine Learn to Write for The New Yorker?".
11. Online version is titled "An ex-drinker’s search for a sober buzz".
12. For comparison, see Peter Swirski's textbook on nobrow taste culture in America, From Lowbrow to Nobrow.