Criticize him if you must, but Adam Gopnik, staff writer for the New Yorker, is a talented essayist, and he’s also a talented speaker. I saw him give a talk at Town Hall a year or two ago that was phenomenally arranged and presented, seemingly offhand, undoubtedly practiced, edifying, funny, etc. (By the way, if you do decide to criticize Gopnik—for being an apologist of bourgeois culture or whatever your argument is—you should know Renata Adler beat you to it. She wrote a stirring, almost convincing takedown of his work in her stirring, almost convincing attempted takedown of the New Yorker itself, a strange and fascinating book called Gone: The Last Days of The New Yorker.) Anyway, Gopnik. He’s good. by Christopher Frizzelle