New York Review of Books

The New York Review of Books, often referred to as NYREV or NYRB, is a bi-monthly magazine that features articles covering literature, culture, economics, science, and contemporary issues. Based in New York City, it was founded on the belief that discussing significant books is a crucial part of literary life. Esquire magazine has praised it as "the top literary-intellectual publication in the English language." Additionally, in 1970, writer Tom Wolfe characterized it as "the main theoretical platform for Radical Chic."

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What’s Not There | Merve Emre, Leo Carey

1 week ago | nybooks.com | Merve Emre

Leo Carey is a senior editor at The New Yorker—in fact, he is my editor. He grew up in Oxford, England, where he attended the same school my children went to, St. Barnabas Primary School, and then the University of Oxford, where he studied English Literature. He moved to the US in 1997 and shortly after joined the staff of The New Yorker, where he has been for twenty-five years.
Colors and Shapes | Zoe Guttenplan, Daniel Drake

1 week ago | nybooks.com | Daniel Drake |Zoe Guttenplan

In April New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority debuted a new map of the city’s subways, the first major update since 1979.
Faustian Bargains | Merve Emre, Yahdon Israel

2 weeks ago | nybooks.com | Merve Emre

I first started following Yahdon Israel through the Instagram feed of his Literaryswag Book Club, which he describes as New York City’s best-dressed book club. For almost ten years, Israel has convened a group of curious and stylish readers who have read over a hundred books together in an effort to reconcile the love of fashion with intellect. Or, as he puts it, “There’s always this dichotomy between ‘if you’re smart, you can’t really care about being fly.
Scratching the Surface | Hari Kunzru, Willa Glickman

2 weeks ago | nybooks.com | Willa Glickman |Hari Kunzru

“Fears of a ‘world government’ or ‘new world order’ have been bubbling under the American cultural surface for a very long time,” writes Hari Kunzru in an essay on conspiratorial thinking in US politics for the May 26, 2025, issue of The New York Review.
My Freedom, My Choice | David A. Bell

3 weeks ago | nybooks.com | David Bell

In the 2024 general election, 5,814 Britons cast their votes for the Official Monster Raving Loony Party, whose current “Manicfesto” includes a call to establish a “Court of Human Lefts” and a proposal to end identity theft by renaming everyone in the country Chris. Some of these voters probably thought they were expressing serious disapproval of the establishment parties. Others may have just wanted to do something silly.
Mohamed Choukri’s Unromantic Tangier | Ursula Lindsey

3 weeks ago | nybooks.com | Ursula Lindsey

I first saw Tangier in the summer of 2006. I was traveling in northern Morocco with my future husband, who is half Moroccan. On our arrival in Tangier we checked into El Muniria, a simple little hotel where William Burroughs wrote Naked Lunch. We could climb out the window of our room, sit on the red-tiled roof, and smoke joints—northern Morocco is well known for its copious production and consumption of hashish. If the day was clear, we could see Spain across the Strait of Gibraltar.
Feminists in Wimples | Kathryn Hughes

3 weeks ago | nybooks.com | Kathryn Hughes

On Midsummer Eve 1413 Margery Kempe told her husband, “Truly, I would rather see you murdered than have sex with you again.” The duties of a provincial middle-class wife—brewing beer, making cheese, overseeing servants—no longer satisfied her. And as for the sex, Margery had already given birth fourteen times and, aged only forty, had every reason to dread further pregnancies. Besides, there was by this time another man in her life: Jesus Christ.
Translation’s Drift | Kwame Anthony Appiah

3 weeks ago | nybooks.com | Kwame Anthony Appiah

For Elizabeth Bishop, a successful translation was, in large part, a matter of luck. As someone who published translations of poetry and supervised the translations of her own poetry, she had definite ideas of what made for a good one. “You really should repeat a line exactly if the original repeats it exactly,” she told her Portuguese translator, urging her to avoid taking liberties. “You shouldn’t put in words that aren’t there….
Good Old Ink and Paper | Chris Ware, Will Simpson

3 weeks ago | nybooks.com | Will Simpson |Chris Ware

In our May 29, 2025, issue, Chris Ware takes a close look at Olivier Schrauwen’s graphic novel Sunday and the formal qualities that make comics uniquely suited to transmitting thought. Ware writes: “In what other medium could one simultaneously inhabit the mind of a character and ‘see’ both his memories and imaginings?”I first read Ware’s series Acme Novelty Library as a teenager in the early 2000s.
Sovereign Wager Fascinator | Will Simpson

1 month ago | nybooks.com | Will Simpson

“Check this out—I got you, man.” He was showing me his phone, which had a picture of me photographing him earlier that day.