Adam Gopnik was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but was raised in Montreal, Quebec. Gopnik's parents, Irwin and Myrna Gopnik, served as professors at McGill University, from which Gopnik received his Bachelor of Arts degree. While there, he was a contributor for The McGill Daily. He completed graduate work at the New York University Institute of Fine Arts.

In 1986, Gopnik began his long professional association with The New Yorker with a piece that would show his future range, a consideration of connections between baseball, childhood, and Renaissance art. He has written for four editors at the magazine: William Shawn, Robert Gottlieb, Tina Brown, and David Remnick.

In 1995, The New Yorker dispatched him to Paris to write the "Paris Journals", in which he described life in that city. These essays were later collected and published by Random House in Paris to the Moon, after Gopnik returned to New York City in 2000. The book became a New York Times bestseller.

Gopnik studied art history and with his friend Kirk Varnedoe curated the famous 1990 High/Low show at New York's Museum of Modern Art. He later wrote an article for Search Magazine on the connection between religion and art and the compatibility of Christianity and Darwinism. He states in the article that the arts of human history are products of religious thought and that human conduct is not guaranteed by religion or secularism.

Gopnik lives in New York with his wife, Martha Parker, and two children, Luke and Olivia. His five siblings include Blake Gopnik, the Washington Post art critic, and Alison Gopnik, a leading child psychologist and Professor of Psychology at the University of California at Berkeley (author of The Scientist in the Crib, UK title: How Babies Think).

In addition to 2000's Paris to the Moon, Random House also published the author's reflections on life in New York, and particularly on the comedy of parenting, Through the Children's Gate, in 2006. (As in the earlier memoir, much of the material had appeared previously in The New Yorker.) In 2005 Hyperion Books published his children's novel The King in the Window, about Oliver, an American boy living in Paris, who is mistaken for a mystical king and stumbles upon an ancient battle waged between Window Wraiths and the malicious Master of Mirrors. A book on Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin, called Angels And Ages, was published in January 2009. A new novel for children, The Steps Across The Water, is set to be published on October 12, 2010.

A frequent guest on Charlie Rose, Gopnik has been honored with three National Magazine Awards for Essay and Criticism, and a George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting. His entry on the culture of the United States is featured in the Encyclopædia Britannica.

Adam Gopnik recently wrote and presented BBC Four's Lighting Up New York, a cultural journey through the recent history of New York.

Adam Gopnik is the 11th annual recipient of the Westport Public Library's Booked for the Evening award. Previous award winners include Tom Brokaw, E.L. Doctorow, Calvin Trillin, Wendy Wasserstein, Pete Hamill, Martin Scorsese, Arthur Mitchell, Doris Kearns Goodwin, David Halberstam, and Oscar Hijuelos. Booked for the EveningTM is the Westport Public Library's annual gala fund raising event. The Library awards an honoree whose work reflects the purpose of the Library—to nurture the love of learning and to enhance our understanding of the world. The funds raised enable the Library to continue to serve as a major community center for the 1600 people a day who walk through its doors.

Gopnik also participates as a member of the Jury for the NYICFF, a local New York City Film Festival dedicated to screening films for children between the ages of 3 and 18.