Citizen Kim: Jonathan Van Meter's New Book on Kim Kardashian Gets a Guardian Review
The Guardian has reviewed Citizen Kim: The Woman Who Created the Future, a new book about Kim Kardashian by the writer Jonathan Van Meter. The review ran on 3 November 2026, in the Guardian, and it followed a book that has been in shops since late October.
The book was published on 27 October 2026 by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House. An imprint is a publisher's own brand inside a larger company, with its own editors and list. The book runs to 352 pages. Its ISBN, 9780593300114, is the international code booksellers use to order and track one specific edition. Van Meter began writing it in 2021, according to the New York Times.
Van Meter is a long-serving magazine profile writer. He conducted the 1990 interview in which the model Linda Evangelista said she would not wake up for less than $10,000 a day. He has also interviewed Taylor Swift, Michelle Obama and Lady Gaga for American Vogue. In 2019 he wrote a Vogue cover story on Kardashian herself.
The book's territory is wide. Kardashian's career is tied to a family television run that began in 2007 with Keeping Up With the Kardashians and carried on as The Kardashians. The Guardian's review also places her clothing company, Skims, at a valuation of $5bn (£3.75bn).
One episode from the book has drawn particular notice. During the 1995 O.J. Simpson murder trial, Kris Jenner gave her support to the family of Nicole Brown, while Jenner's former husband, Robert Kardashian, sat on Simpson's legal team. The family's history, in other words, ran straight through one of the most watched court cases of the decade.
Other outlets have also covered the book. The Washington Post discussed its material on Kardashian's teenage years and the trauma of a robbery. The New York Times ran a profile of Van Meter under the headline "Why Kim Kardashian and Oprah Trust Him With Their Secrets."
For readers who want to look for the book, a bookshop or library can order it by title, author or ISBN. Public libraries often buy new hardbacks like this one and lend them free, so a single copy can reach many readers. That is the same chain every new title follows, from a writer's desk to a shelf, and it does not change with the subject.
