Jim Holt (born 30 October 1954) is an American journalist, popular-science author, and essayist. He has contributed to The New York Times , The New York Times Magazine , The New York Review of Books , The New Yorker , The American Scholar , and Slate. In 1997 he was editor of The New Leader , a political magazine. His book Why Does the World Exist? was a 2013 New York Times bestseller.
For ten years Holt hosted a weekly radio spot on BBC Wales, "Living in America, with Jim Holt". He has appeared on William F. Buckley's Firing Line , NBC News with Tom Brokaw, CNN, and had a brief appearance in an episode of Billy on the Street in which he ended an impromptu interview after his interlocutor insisted he reveal his sexuality.