I’m a writer and editor in New York. I’m working on a book about ketamine and dissociative anesthetics for Farrar, Straus and Giroux. If you’ve had an experience with ketamine, PCP, or nitrous oxide that you’d like to talk about, please be in touch.
I’m currently the New Books columnist for Harper’s Magazine.
With Tom O’Neill, I cowrote CHAOS: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties (Little, Brown), a New York Times best-seller. An excerpt appeared on The Intercept.
I collaborated with Prince on his memoir, The Beautiful Ones (Spiegel & Grau), a #1 New York Times best-seller, named one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post and The Guardian. An excerpt of my introduction appeared in The New Yorker.
From 2014 to 2017, I was the web editor at The Paris Review.
You can reach me at piepenbring@protonmail.com. I don’t have much of a social-media presence, so I always like to hear from people.
Recent work
July 2026
“New Books,” (light, air, data) Harper’sJune 2026
“New Books” wins the 2026 Kukula Award from Washington Monthly
On Rosalind Fox Solomon’s Eggleston Album, Aperture (print only)
“New Books,” (romance scammers, Warrenologists, suits) Harper’sMay 2026
“New Books,” (Lady Chatterley, light, visiting mom in prison) Harper’sApril 2026
“New Books,” (Literary agents, Mary Kay, cryonics) Harper’sMarch 2026
“New Books,” (Fantasy baseball, prickly Prussians, talking plants) Harper’sFebruary 2026
“New Books,” (Castrati, sixteenth-century medical students, Ruby Ridge) Harper’s
“The Good Old Days of Sports Gambling,” The New YorkerJanuary 2026
“New Books,” (Universal Friend, death penalty, bad games) Harper’s
December 2025
“New Books,” (Ghosts, pedants, stimulants) Harper’sNovember 2025
“New Books,” (Yearbooks, orgasmic meditation, Hollywood slop) Harper’s
“What Really Happened with the CIA and The Paris Review?: A Conversation with Lance Richardson,” The Paris Review DailyOctober 2025
“New Books,” (Enshittification, Saskatchewan, geomyths) Harper’s
“Wut? It’s in the Dictionary. A New Book Explains How,” The New York Times Book ReviewSeptember 2025
“New Books,” (Charity, zoos, bomb defusers) Harper’sAugust 2025
“New Books,” (Assassination, arson, avatars) Harper’sJuly 2025
“New Books,” (Worm pickers, turtle eaters, submersible builders) Harper’sJune 2025
“New Books,” (Shenyang, spinach, skyscrapers) Harper’sMay 2025
“New Books,” (Orchids, losing one’s children, shame) Harper’sApril 2025
“New Books,” (Crumb, mothers as media) Harper’sMarch 2025
“New Books,” (Fake news, fireplaces, fast food) Harper’sFebruary 2025
“New Books,” (Trash, deconstruction, Alice Coltrane) Harper’sJanuary 2025
“New Books,” (The aughts, gay sex, suicide) Harper’s
“Talk Is Cheap. It Can Make You Rich,” The New York Times Book Review
December 2024
“New Books,” (Playgrounds, lesser-known Jesuses) Harper’sNovember 2024
“New Books,” (Old age, Florida, the F-word) Harper’sOctober 2024
“New Books,” (Aesop, Victoria’s Secret, privacy) Harper’sSeptember 2024
“New Books,” (Offices, Germans, gold diggers) Harper’sAugust 2024
“New Books,” (Klansmen, evangelicals, sheep) Harper’sJuly 2024
“New Books,” (Poetry, restrooms) Harper’sJune 2024
“K-Pop,” (Ketamine, anesthesia, and nineteenth-century mysticism) The Baffler
“New Books,” (Public relations, refrigeration, spycraft) Harper’sMay 2024
“New Books,” (Fatherhood, thalidomide) Harper’s
“How a Broadway Theater Was Remade Into a Queer Cabaret,” T: The New York Times Style MagazineApril 2024
“New Books,” (Insanity, hypochondria, preachers in the bedroom) Harper’sMarch 2024
“New Books,” (Funeral homes, nuns, giving up) Harper’sFebruary 2024
“New Books,” (Billionaires, heartbreak, the FBI) Harper’sJanuary 2024
“Heritage 2000,” (on Time Bomb Y2K)n+1
“New Books,” (Meth, Mormons, Guy Davenport) Harper’s
December 2023
“New Books,” (Scandal at the divinity school) Harper’sNovember 2023
“New Books,” (UFOs, forms of address) Harper’sOctober 2023
“New Books,” (Children killing parents, parents killing children) Harper’sSeptember 2023
“New Books,” (Cowboys, guns, Hollywood) Harper’sAugust 2023
“New Books,” (Freud, fraud, horny astronomers) Harper’sJuly 2023
“You May Not Have Asked; He Answered Anyway,” The New York Times Book ReviewFebruary 2023
“How to Know if You’re a Hacker, and Other Life Hacks,” The New York Times Book Review
“National Treasure” is nominated for a National Magazine Award in Reviews and Criticism
November 2022
“The 25 Travel Experiences You Must Have,” T: The New York Times Style MagazineSeptember 2022
“Painting the Town Blood-Red,” The New York Times Book Review
“How Ivo van Hove Turns a Novel into a Play,” T: The New York Times Style MagazineJune 2022
“Werner Herzog’s Wondrous Novel of Nothingness in the Jungle,” The New YorkerApril 2022
“The Confounding Politics of Camping in America,” The New YorkerFebruary 2022
“National Treasure,” (On Nicolas Cage) Harper’s