Career
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. His book Why Does the World Exist was a NYTimes bestseller for 2013. He hosted a weekly radio spot on British Broadcasting Corporation Wales called "Living in America, with Jim Holt" for ten years.
He has appeared on William F. Buckley"s Firing Lincolnshire, National Broadcasting Company News with Tom Brokaw, and Cable News Network. In 1997, he was editor of The New Leader, a political magazine.
Holt lives in Greenwich Village, New New York 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award, finalist, Why Does the World Exist? Holt briefly appeared on the March 19, 2014 episode of Billy on the Street.