Written by: Jordannah Elizabeth Graham-Mayer
There is something almost ceremonial about the words “Review of Books.” The phrase suggests a publication concerned with books, but its real territory is much larger: literature, history, politics, philosophy, art, culture, identity, memory and the arguments that emerge when people take ideas seriously. A review can tell us what a book contains, but criticism at its best asks what the book reveals about the world that produced it. That distinction has allowed the Review of Books to survive dramatic changes in publishing, from the decline of newspaper book sections to the rise of digital media and the fragmentation of contemporary audiences. Today, the form exists in many versions, from major international magazines to regional journals, identity-based publications and specialist academic periodicals. What unites them is not a particular political position or literary taste, but a belief that books remain worthy of sustained attention.
There is no single “Review of Books,” and there never has been. Instead, the name describes a living family of publications that have developed different editorial personalities according to their locations, readerships and intellectual communities. Some are among the most established cultural magazines in the English-speaking world, while others were created specifically to fill spaces left by shrinking newspapers and disappearing literary supplements. Some publish primarily in print, some exist principally online, and others deliberately combine both forms. Their subjects can range from novels and poetry to political theory, history, science, religion, visual art and current affairs. Taken together, they form a remarkably useful map of contemporary intellectual life. To follow them is to see not only what people are reading, but what different communities believe is worth discussing.
THE NEW YORK MODEL
Any serious consideration of the contemporary Review of Books tradition begins with The New York Review of Books. The Review was launched in 1963 during the New York City newspaper strike by Robert B. Silvers and Barbara Epstein, working with Jason Epstein, Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Hardwick. Its founding purpose was ambitious: to create a publication in which distinguished writers could discuss books and current issues at length, rather than treating reviews simply as consumer guidance. The experiment succeeded almost immediately, and the publication became an independent voice in American intellectual and literary life. Today, The New York Review of Books publishes twenty issues each year and continues to combine discussion of books with politics, history, science, literature and the arts. Its longevity is partly explained by a simple editorial principle: the book is often the beginning of the conversation, not its conclusion.
The importance of that model is difficult to separate from the history of modern literary criticism. The New York Review helped establish a recognizable form in which a review could become an essay, an essay could become an argument, and an argument could move well beyond the book under discussion. A biography could become a meditation on political power; a history book could provoke a reconsideration of national memory; a novel could become a lens through which an entire society is examined. This approach made the serious review something closer to a literary genre of its own. It also created a publication in which readers could encounter writers and thinkers across disciplines without being confined to a single academic field. More than six decades after its founding, that remains central to the Review’s identity. [1]
THE LONDON REVIEW
The London Review of Books emerged sixteen years later under very different circumstances. It was founded in 1979 during the management lockout at The Times, after Frank Kermode proposed in The Observer that a new magazine could occupy the space created by the temporary disappearance of the Times Literary Supplement. The first issue appeared four months later under founding editor Karl Miller. The publication subsequently developed its own independent identity and became one of Europe’s most influential magazines of culture and ideas. Today, the LRB is published twice a month and ranges across literature, politics, history, philosophy, science, technology, art, fiction, poetry, memoir and reportage. Its continued emphasis on long-form intellectual writing demonstrates how expansive the idea of a book review can become.
The relationship between The New York Review of Books and the London Review of Books is useful because neither publication treats criticism as a simple exercise in ranking new titles. Their reviews can be lengthy, argumentative and highly contextual, asking readers to consider books alongside the historical and political circumstances in which they appear. The LRB has also built a broader cultural ecosystem around its magazine, including a bookshop, podcasts, events and a substantial digital archive. This matters because the modern review is no longer simply a printed object arriving at a reader’s home. It can be a magazine, archive, conversation, event series and intellectual community at once. The review survives, in part, by becoming more than a review.
DUBLIN, SYDNEY AND THE REGIONAL REVIEW
The regional Review of Books demonstrates another important truth: literary culture does not have to be organized from the largest international capitals. The Dublin Review of Books was founded in 2007 as an online journal offering a space for reflection on literature, history, arts, society, politics and culture. Its essays and shorter pieces are generally connected to recently published books, while its editorial interests extend particularly toward Ireland, Europe and their cultural and political histories. The publication describes itself as a journal of ideas, and its purpose is not simply to catalogue Irish publishing but to create a forum in which Irish and international questions can be examined together. Its continued activity illustrates how a regional publication can develop an international readership without surrendering its particular point of view.
Australia’s Sydney Review of Books offers another version of the regional model. Founded in 2013 in response to the diminishing opportunities for critics in the mainstream press, it has become a significant Australian venue for long-form reviews and literary essays. The publication publishes new work weekly and supplements its digital presence with print anthologies, podcasts and public programs developed in partnership with cultural institutions across Australia. Based at the Writing and Society Research Centre at Western Sydney University, the SRB explicitly treats criticism as a cultural practice rather than simply as consumer advice. Its stated mission emphasizes intellectual rigor, diversity, participation and the importance of disagreement within a healthy literary culture. In that sense, the regional review becomes more than a publication: it becomes infrastructure for criticism itself.
The Montreal Review of Books offers an especially clear example of how geography can determine editorial purpose. The publication is a free, nationally distributed journal devoted to reviews, features and essays about English-language books by Quebec writers and publishers. Its coverage includes literature, nonfiction, poetry, memoir, history, graphic novels and children’s books, giving it a broad mandate within a clearly defined cultural territory. Published three times a year in print by the Association of English-language Publishers of Quebec, the mRb also maintains an active digital presence. Its existence is a reminder that a literary community can require its own critical forum even when its publishing market is part of a larger national system. The Review of Books, in this form, becomes a means of making a particular literary culture visible to itself and to the outside world.
THE REVIEW AS CULTURAL IDENTITY
The boundaries of the Review of Books become even more interesting when community is defined by culture or identity rather than geography alone. The Jewish Review of Books, first published in spring 2010, is a quarterly print publication with an active online presence devoted to serious discussion of Jewish literature, religion, culture, politics, fiction, poetry and the arts. Its contributors include writers and scholars working across contemporary Jewish intellectual life, while its editorial approach is intended to be serious without becoming inaccessible. The publication is issued by the Jewish Review of Books Foundation and has developed a substantial readership since its founding. Its model demonstrates that a review can become a cultural meeting place, where books are considered not in isolation but in relation to history, memory, religion and identity.
This is one of the most important characteristics of the modern review: it creates context. A novel may be reviewed as literature, but it may also prompt discussion about migration, language or memory. A history may lead to an examination of how a community remembers itself. A work of religious scholarship may become part of a conversation about contemporary politics. The review creates the space in which those connections can be made without forcing every subject into a single category. In that sense, the strongest publications do not merely tell readers what books to buy. They teach readers how books participate in larger cultural conversations.
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