Ron Charles (born 1962 in St. Louis, Missouri) is an American book critic, formerly of The Washington Post . [1] His awards include the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award Nona Balakian Citation [2] for book reviews, [3] and 1st Place for A&E Coverage from the Society for Features Journalism in 2011. [4] He was one of three jurors for the 2014 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. [5]
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Charles grew up in Town and Country, Missouri, and graduated from Principia College and Washington University in St. Louis before getting a job as a teacher at John Burroughs School. [6] After a student's parent offhandedly suggested he try making a living as a book reviewer, [6] Charles sent his first book review to The Christian Science Monitor , which eventually hired him. He spent seven years as the Monitor's book review editor and staff critic. [2]
In 2005, he was hired by The Washington Post. Sometime after August 2010, with his review of Jonathan Franzen's Freedom , [7] Charles began a series of video book reviews for Post called "The Totally Hip Video Book Review", a satirical look at books in the news and the art of book reviewing. [8] In the series, Charles hams it up with sight gags and intentionally bad jokes; he is sometimes joined by his wife, high school English teacher Dawn Charles. [9]
In 2026, Charles was laid off by The Washington Post when it reduced its staff by one-third and eliminated the newspaper's books and sports sections. [10] [11]