Everything about New York Review Of Books totally explained
The New York Review of Books (or
NYREV or
NYRB) is a semimonthly
magazine on
literature,
culture, and
current affairs published in
New York which takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important
books is itself an indispensable literary activity.
Esquire has called it "the premier literary-intellectual magazine in the English language."
(External Link
) As of
2007, the publication had a circulation of approximately 140,000.
History and critical reaction
The New York Review was founded by
Robert B. Silvers and
Barbara Epstein, together with publisher A. Whitney Ellsworth, and with the backing of Barbara's husband
Jason Epstein, a vice president at
Random House and editor of Viking Books. It was founded during the New York publishing strike of 1963. The first idea was to make
Norman Podhoretz editor, but he chose to stay at
Commentary Magazine. The group then turned to Silvers, who had been an editor at
Vanity Fair and
Harper's.
(External Link) The
Review's first issues included articles by such writers as
W. H. Auden,
Elizabeth Hardwick,
John Berryman,
Philip Rahv,
Dwight Macdonald,
Hannah Arendt,
Edmund Wilson,
Norman Podhoretz,
Alfred Kazin,
Susan Sontag,
Robert Penn Warren,
Lillian Hellman,
Norman Mailer,
Gore Vidal,
Saul Bellow,
Robert Lowell,
Truman Capote,
William Styron and
Mary McCarthy. The public responded by buying up practically all the copies printed and writing thousands of letters to request that the
Review continue publication.
Known throughout its run as a left-liberal journal—what
Tom Wolfe has called "the chief theoretical organ of radical chic"—the
Review has continued publishing pieces by such notable writers as
Noam Chomsky,
Margaret Atwood,
Richard Lewontin,
John Searle,
John Updike,
Steven Weinberg,
Ronald Dworkin, and
Alison Lurie. In a 2006
New York magazine feature,
James Atlas stated: "It's an eclectic but impressive mix [ofarticles] that has made
The New York Review of Books the premier journal of the American intellectual elite...."
(External Link) According to the website of the consulate general of the United States in China, the
Review is a "kind of magazine... in which the most interesting and qualified minds of our time would discuss current books and issues in depth... a literary and critical journal based on the assumption that the discussion of important books was itself an indispensable literary activity."
(External Link)
The
Review has, perhaps, had its most effective voice in wartime. According to a 2004 feature in
The Nation,
» "One suspects they yearn for the day when they can return to their normal publishing routine--that gentlemanly
pastiche of philosophy, art, classical music, photography, German and Russian history, East European politics, literary fiction--unencumbered by political duties of a confrontational or oppositional nature. That day hasn't yet arrived. If and when it does, let it be said that the editors met the challenges of the post-9/11 era in a way that most other leading American publications did not, and that
The New York Review of Books... was there when we needed it most."
(External Link)
As editor Bob Silvers noted in 2004, "The pieces we've published by such writers as
Brian Urquhart,
Thomas Powers,
Mark Danner and
Ronald Dworkin have been reactions to a genuine crisis concerning American destructiveness, American relations with its allies, American protections of its traditions of liberties.... The aura of patriotic defiance cultivated by the Administration, in a fearful atmosphere, had the effect of muffling dissent."
(External Link)
Because of its purported insularity, the
Review has sometimes been called "The New York Review of Each Other's Books" (see Alexander Bloom,
Prodigal Sons: The New York Intellectuals and Their World, Oxford University Press, 1987, ISBN 0-19-505177-7; p. 327).
Philip Nobile voiced a mordant criticism along these lines in his book
Intellectual Skywriting: Literary Politics and the New York Review of Books.
(External Link) The
Review features extensive advertising from publishers, promoting newly published books.
Other publications
The
Review also publishes some foreign editions and many books that have gone out of print in the
United States, as well as articles or collections of articles from regular contributors under the imprint
New York Review Books.
Further Information
Get more info on 'New York Review Of Books'.
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