Jennet Conant

Jennet Conant (born July 15, 1959) is an American non-fiction author and journalist. She has written five books about World War II, three of which have appeared on the New York Times Best Seller list: Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science that Changed the Course of WWII, 109 East Palace: Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos, The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington, and A Covert Affair: Julia Child and Paul Child in the OSS. Born in Seoul, South Korea, and raised in Asia and America, she received a BA degree (cum laude) in Political Theory from Bryn Mawr College in 1982, and double-majored in Philosophy at Haverford College. She completed a master's degree in Journalism from New York City's Columbia University in 1983. She was awarded a John J. McCloy Fellowship to study politics in Germany.

Conant went on to work at Newsweek magazine for seven years, and wrote profiles for Rolling Stone, Spy magazine, and The New York Times. Additionally, she was a contributing editor for Esquire, GQ, and Vanity Fair, from which she resigned to write her first book, Tuxedo Park. Her profile of James Watson, the co-discoverer of the double-helix, was featured in The Best American Science & Nature Writing 2004.

She lives in New York City and in Sag Harbor, New York. She is married to the journalist Steve Kroft. They have one son.

Conant is the granddaughter of James Bryant Conant, noted chemist and President of Harvard University.