Garner's previous post at
The New York Times was as senior editor of
The New York Times Book Review, where he worked from 1999 to 2008. He was a founding editor of
Salon.com, where he worked from 1995 to 1998. His monthly column in
Esquire magazine was a finalist for the
National Magazine Award in 2017. His essays and journalism have appeared in
The New York Times Magazine, ''
Harper's Magazine, The Times Literary Supplement, the Oxford American, Slate, The Village Voice, the Boston Phoenix, The Nation, He has served on the board of the National Book Critics Circle. In a January 2011 column for Slate
, the journalist Timothy Noah called Garner a "highly gifted critic" who had reinvigorated The New York Times''s literary coverage, and likened him to
Anatole Broyard and
John Leonard. Garner wrote a biweekly column for
The New York Times called "American Beauties," which focused on underappreciated American books of the past seventy-five years. His championing of certain titles—including
The Complete Novels of Charles Wright and
On Fire by
Larry Brown—helped return them to print. For
Esquire, Garner played in the 2017 World Backgammon Championship in Monaco. He is a member of New York City's venerable Organ Meat Society, co-founded by the longtime
Eater food critic Robert Sietsema. In 2023, Garner's
Grub Street Diet, for
New York magazine, was one of their most popular pieces of the year. His 2012
New York Times essay in praise of the peanut butter and pickle
sandwich, which he called "a thrifty and unacknowledged American classic," went viral internationally. Some readers were disgusted, but Christina Cauterucci, writing in
Slate, said that Garner "changed my life, intimately and permanently, with an ode to an object I'd never previously considered with the solemnity it deserves: the peanut butter and pickle sandwich."
New York Times Cooking has since published the recipe. == Early life and work ==