The New York Review of Books

{{Short description|American magazine}} {{redirect|New York Review}} {{distinguish|The New York Times Book Review {{!}} ''The New York Times Book Review''}} {{Use American English|date=January 2024}} {{Use mdy dates|date=January 2024}} {{Infobox magazine | title = The New York Review of Books | logo = The New York Review of Books - logo.png | image_file = The New York Review of Books, November 5, 2020.jpg | image_caption = Cover of the November 5, 2020, issue | publisher = Rea S. Hederman | total_circulation = 132,522<ref>[http://abcas3.auditedmedia.com/ecirc/magtitlesearch.asp "eCirc for Consumer Magazines"] {{Webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20190227153258/http://abcas3.auditedmedia.com/ecirc/magtitlesearch.asp |date=February 27, 2019 }}, ''Audit Bureau of Circulations'', accessed June 30, 2017</ref> | circulation_year = 2017 | frequency = Approximately semi-monthly | language = English | category = {{hlist | Literature | culture | current affairs}} | firstdate = February 1, 1963 | country = United States | based = New York City, New York | website = {{URL|nybooks.com/}} | issn = 0028-7504 }}

'''''The New York Review of Books''''' (or '''''NYREV''''' or '''''NYRB''''') is a semi-monthly magazine<ref>Normally, it is published 20 times a year, with only one issue in each of January, July, August and September. See Tucker, Neely. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-new-york-review-of-books-turns-50/2013/11/06/5e031f64-4703-11e3-a196-3544a03c2351_story.html "''The New York Review of Books turns 50''"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180728131445/https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-new-york-review-of-books-turns-50/2013/11/06/5e031f64-4703-11e3-a196-3544a03c2351_story.html |date=July 28, 2018 }}, ''The Washington Post'', November 6, 2013</ref> with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of important books is an indispensable literary activity. ''Esquire'' called it "the premier literary-intellectual magazine in the English language".<ref name=Postobit/> In 1970, writer Tom Wolfe described it as "the chief theoretical organ of Radical Chic".<ref name=Wolfe/>

The ''Review'' publishes long-form reviews and essays, often by well-known writers, original poetry, and has letters and personals advertising sections that had attracted critical comment. In 1979 the magazine founded the ''London Review of Books'', which soon became independent. In 1990 it founded an Italian edition, ''la Rivista dei Libri'', published until 2010. The ''Review'' has a book publishing division, established in 1999, called New York Review Books, which publishes reprints of classics, as well as collections and children's books. Since 2010, the journal has hosted a blog written by its contributors. The ''Review'' celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2013. A Martin Scorsese film called ''The 50 Year Argument'' documents the history and influence of the paper over its first half century.

Robert B. Silvers and Barbara Epstein edited the paper together from its founding in 1963 until Epstein's death in 2006. From then until his death in 2017, Silvers was the sole editor. Ian Buruma became editor in September 2017 and left the post in September 2018. Gabriel Winslow-Yost and Emily Greenhouse became co-editors in February 2019; in February 2021 Greenhouse was made editor.

==History and description==

===Early years=== ''The New York Review'' was founded by Robert B. Silvers and Barbara Epstein, together with publisher A. Whitney Ellsworth<ref>Grimes, William. [https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/21/books/a-whitney-ellsworth-new-york-review-publisher-dies-at-75.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss "A. Whitney Ellsworth, First Publisher of New York Review, Dies at 75"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171107033256/http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/21/books/a-whitney-ellsworth-new-york-review-publisher-dies-at-75.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss |date=November 7, 2017 }}. ''The New York Times'', June 20, 2011</ref> and writer Elizabeth Hardwick. They were backed and encouraged by Epstein's husband, Jason Epstein, a vice president at Random House and editor of Vintage Books, and Hardwick's husband, poet Robert Lowell. In 1959 Hardwick had published an essay, "The Decline of Book Reviewing", in ''Harper's'',<ref name=Decline>Hardwick, Elizabeth. [http://harpers.org/archive/1959/10/the-decline-of-book-reviewing/ "The Decline of Book Reviewing"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130207224944/http://harpers.org/archive/1959/10/the-decline-of-book-reviewing/ |date=February 7, 2013 }}, ''Harpers'', October 1959, accessed March 16, 2013</ref> where Silvers was then an editor, in a special issue that he edited called "Writing in America".<ref name=Gevisser>Gevisser, Mark. "Robert Silvers on the Paris and New York ''Reviews''", ''The Paris Review'', March 20, 2012</ref><ref name=Atlantic50>Fassler, Joe. [https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/10/the-50-year-argument/380968/ "A 50-Year Protest for Good Writing"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170405172341/https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/10/the-50-year-argument/380968/ |date=April 5, 2017 }}, ''The Atlantic'', October 1, 2014</ref> Her essay was an indictment of American book reviews of the time, "light, little article[s]" that she decried as "lobotomized", passionless praise and denounced as "blandly, respectfully denying whatever vivacious interest there might be in books or in literary matters generally."<ref>[http://harpers.org/blog/2013/01/elizabeth-hardwicks-the-decline-of-book-reviewing-1959/ "Elizabeth Hardwick's 'The Decline of Book Reviewing' (1959)"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140222035657/http://harpers.org/blog/2013/01/elizabeth-hardwicks-the-decline-of-book-reviewing-1959/ |date=February 22, 2014 }}, ''Harper's'', January 30, 2013</ref> The group was inspired to found a new magazine to publish thoughtful, probing, lively reviews<ref>Meyer, Eugene L. "Jason Epstein '49: Publishing Icon, Perennial Student", ''Columbia College Today'', Spring 2012, p. 44</ref> featuring what Hardwick called "the unusual, the difficult, the lengthy, the intransigent, and above all, the ''interesting''".<ref name=Decline/><ref name=Cooke2014>Cooke, Rachel. [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jun/07/robert-silvers-martin-scorsese-film-new-york-review-books "Robert Silvers interview: 'Someone told me Martin Scorsese might be interested in making a film about us. And he was'"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170329040139/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jun/07/robert-silvers-martin-scorsese-film-new-york-review-books |date=March 29, 2017 }}, ''The Observer'', ''The Guardian'', 7 June 2014</ref>

During the 1962–1963 New York City newspaper strike, when ''The New York Times'' and several other newspapers suspended publication, Hardwick, Lowell and the Epsteins seized the chance to establish the sort of vigorous book review that Hardwick had imagined.<ref name=EpsteinBlog>Jason Epstein recounts the story of the initial meeting of the Epsteins, Hardwick and Lowell in [http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2013/mar/16/strike-start-founding-new-york-review "A Strike and a Start: Founding The New York Review"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150926070215/http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2013/mar/16/strike-start-founding-new-york-review/ |date=September 26, 2015 }}, ''NYR Blog'', ''The New York Review of Books'', March 16, 2013</ref> Jason Epstein knew that book publishers would advertise their books in the new publication, since they had no other outlet for promoting new books.<ref>Harvey, Matt. "Brawls and books: Skepticism lives on as ''New York Review of Books'' ages but thrives", ''The Villager'', vol. 78, no. 24, November 12–18, 2008, reprinted in [http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_290/brawlsandbooks.html ''Downtown Express''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171016014620/http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_290/brawlsandbooks.html |date=2017-10-16 }}, Vol. 21, No. 28, November 21, 2008.</ref> The group turned to the Epsteins' friend Silvers, who had been an editor at ''The Paris Review'' and was still at ''Harper's'',<ref name=Brown>Brown, Andrew. [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/jan/24/society "The writer's editor"] , ''The Guardian'', January 24, 2004</ref> to edit the publication, and Silvers asked Barbara Epstein to co-edit with him.<ref name=Atlantic50/><ref name=EpsteinBlog/> She was known as the editor at Doubleday of Anne Frank's ''Diary of a Young Girl'', among other books, and then worked at Dutton, McGraw-Hill and ''Partisan Review''.<ref name=BarbaraTimesObit>McGrath, Charles. [https://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/17/arts/17epstein.html?_r=1&ei=5088&en=d091d6367c2ee4ad&ex=1308196800&adxnnl=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1332307479-vgOhvDJFIhrW+ppjWYIHrA "Barbara Epstein, Editor and Literary Arbiter, Dies at 77"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161009140721/http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/17/arts/17epstein.html?_r=1&ei=5088&en=d091d6367c2ee4ad&ex=1308196800&adxnnl=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1332307479-vgOhvDJFIhrW+ppjWYIHrA |date=October 9, 2016 }}, ''The New York Times'', June 17, 2006, accessed March 21, 2012</ref> Silvers and Epstein sent books to "the writers we knew and admired most. ... We asked for three thousand words in three weeks in order to show what a book review should be, and practically everyone came through. No one mentioned money."<ref name=Atlantic50/> The first issue of the ''Review'' was published on February 1, 1963, and sold out its printing of 100,000 copies.<ref name=Postobit>Schudel, Matt. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/18/AR2006061800775.html Obituary: "''N.Y. Review of Books'' Founder Barbara Epstein"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171011074921/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/18/AR2006061800775.html |date=October 11, 2017 }}, ''The Washington Post'', June 19, 2006, p. B05</ref> It prompted nearly 1,000 letters to the editors asking for the ''Review'' to continue.<ref name=Atlantic50/> ''The New Yorker'' called it "surely the best first issue of any magazine ever."<ref>Remnick, David. [http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/07/03/060703ta_talk_remnick "Barbara Epstein"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130205041319/http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/07/03/060703ta_talk_remnick |date=February 5, 2013 }}, Barbara Epstein, ''The New Yorker'', July 3, 2006</ref>

''Salon'' later commented that the list of contributors in the first issue "represented a 'shock and awe' demonstration of the intellectual firepower available for deployment in mid-century America, and, almost equally impressive, of the art of editorial networking and jawboning. This was the party everyone who was anyone wanted to attend, the Black and White Ball of the critical elite."<ref name=Salon>Howard, Gerald. [http://www.salon.com/2013/02/01/out_of_a_newspaper_strike_dawned_a_new_age_in_american_letters "Out of a newspaper strike dawned a new age in American letters"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130204084856/http://www.salon.com/2013/02/01/out_of_a_newspaper_strike_dawned_a_new_age_in_american_letters/ |date=February 4, 2013 }}, ''Salon'', February 1, 2013</ref> The ''Review'' "announced the arrival of a particular sensibility ... the engaged, literary, post-war progressive intellectual, who was concerned with civil rights and feminism as well as fiction and poetry and theater.<ref name=Slate>Haglund, David, Aisha Harris, and Alexandra Heimbach. [http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/02/01/best_first_issues_in_magazine_history_new_york_review_of_books_new_yorker.html "Was This the Best First Issue of Any Magazine Ever?"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130204085610/http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/02/01/best_first_issues_in_magazine_history_new_york_review_of_books_new_yorker.html |date=February 4, 2013 }}, ''Slate'' magazine, February 1, 2013</ref> The first issue projected "a confidence in the unquestioned rightness of the liberal consensus, in the centrality of literature and its power to convey meaning, in the solubility of our problems through the application of intelligence and good will, and in the coherence and clear hierarchy of the intellectual world".<ref name=Salon/> After the success of the first issue, the editors assembled a second issue to demonstrate that "the ''Review'' was not a one-shot affair".<ref name=Atlantic50/> The founders then collected investments from a circle of friends and acquaintances, and Ellsworth joined as publisher.<ref name=Atlantic50/><ref>Haffner, Peter. [http://032c.com/2013/we-do-what-we-want/ "Robert Silvers: We Do What We Want"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140802140656/http://032c.com/2013/we-do-what-we-want/ |date=2014-08-02 }}, 032c, Issue #23, Winter 2012/2013, accessed July 21, 2014</ref> The ''Review'' began regular biweekly publication in November 1963.<ref name=BBM>{{usurped|1=[http://www.bookbusinessmag.com/article/the-new-york-review-books-announces-its-50th-anniversary/1# "The New York Review of Books Announces its 50th Anniversary"]}}, ''Book Business'' magazine, January 31, 2013</ref>

{{Quote box|width=35%|bgcolor = #fdffe7|align=right|quote= ''The New York Review'' does not pretend to cover all the books of the season or even all the important ones. Neither time nor space, however, have been spent on books which are trivial in their intentions or venal in their effects, except occasionally to reduce a temporarily inflated reputation or to call attention to a fraud. ... The hope of the editors is to suggest, however imperfectly, some of the qualities which a responsible literary journal should have and to discover whether there is, in America, not only the need for such a review but the demand for one. |salign = right|source= From the only editorial ever published in the ''Review''<ref>Silvers, Robert and Barbara Epstein. [http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/nov/07/opening-editorial/ "The Opening Editorial"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141008071527/http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/nov/07/opening-editorial/ |date=October 8, 2014 }}, ''The New York Review of Books'', Issue 1 (1963), reprinted November 7, 2013, accessed October 1, 2014</ref>}} Silvers said of the editors' philosophy, that "there was no subject we couldn't deal with. And if there was no book [on a subject], we would deal with it anyway. We tried hard to avoid books that were simply competent rehearsals of familiar subjects, and we hoped to find books that would establish something fresh, something original."<ref name=Atlantic50/> In particular, "We felt you had to have a political analysis of the nature of power in America – who had it, who was affected". The editors also shared an "intense admiration for wonderful writers".<ref name=SFC>Benson, Heidi. [https://archive.today/20120915051117/http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article/article?f=/c/a/2008/11/09/RVQH13TQT0.DTL "New York Review of Books' Robert Silvers"], ''San Francisco Chronicle'', November 9, 2008</ref> But, Silvers noted, it is a mystery whether "reviews have a calculable political and social impact" or will even gain attention: "You mustn't think too much about influence – if you find something interesting yourself, that should be enough."<ref name=Atlantic50/> Well-known writers were willing to contribute articles for the initial issues of the ''Review'' without pay because it offered them a chance to write a new kind of book review. As Mark Gevisser explained: "The essays ... made the book review form not just a report on the book and a judgment of the book, but an essay in itself. And that, I think, startled everyone – that a book review could be exciting in that way, could be provocative in that way."<ref name=Gevisser/> The ''Review'' pointedly published interviews with European political dissidents, including Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Andrei Sakharov and Václav Havel.<ref name=SFC/><ref name=Slate/>

===Since 1979=== During the year-long lockout at ''The Times'' in London in 1979, the ''Review'' founded a daughter publication, the ''London Review of Books''. For the first six months this journal appeared as an insert in the ''New York Review of Books'', but it became an independent publication in 1980.<ref>[http://www.lrb.co.uk/about "About the LRB"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150515100024/http://www.lrb.co.uk/about |date=May 15, 2015 }}. ''London Review of Books'', accessed 8 June 2011</ref><ref>{{cite news|first=William|last=Grimes|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/21/books/a-whitney-ellsworth-new-york-review-publisher-dies-at-75.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss|title=A. Whitney Ellsworth, First Publisher of New York Review, Dies at 75|newspaper=The New York Times|date=20 June 2011|access-date=20 June 2011|archive-date=November 7, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171107033256/http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/21/books/a-whitney-ellsworth-new-york-review-publisher-dies-at-75.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss|url-status=live}}</ref> In 1990 the ''Review'' founded an Italian edition, ''la Rivista dei Libri.'' It was published for two decades until May 2010.<ref>Erbani, Francesco. [http://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2010/05/12/la-rivista-dei-libri-ha-deciso-di.html "''la Rivista dei Libri'' ha Deciso di Chiudere ma Torna Alfabeta"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130607121725/http://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2010/05/12/la-rivista-dei-libri-ha-deciso-di.html |date=June 7, 2013 }}, ''la Repubblica'', May 12, 2010, accessed February 5, 2013 (in Italian)</ref>

For over 40 years, Silvers and Epstein edited the ''Review'' together.<ref name=Postobit/> In 1984, Silvers, Epstein and their partners sold the ''Review'' to publisher Rea S. Hederman,<ref>Blum, David. [https://books.google.com/books?id=brIBAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA41 "Literary Lotto"]. ''New York'', January 21, 1985, Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 38–43, accessed April 25, 2011</ref> who still owns the paper,<ref name=GJ>McLure, Jason and Ilenia Caia. [http://globaljournalist.org/2016/01/fired-by-family-hederman-makes-new-york-review-second-act "Fired by family, Hederman made ''New York Review'' second act"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160112161331/http://globaljournalist.org/2016/01/fired-by-family-hederman-makes-new-york-review-second-act/ |date=January 12, 2016 }}, ''Global Journalist'', January 11, 2016</ref> but the two continued as its editors.<ref name=Brown/> In 2006, Epstein died of cancer at the age of 77.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/17/arts/17epstein.html?ex=1308196800&en=d091d6367c2ee4ad&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss Obituary] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160722053135/http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/17/arts/17epstein.html?ex=1308196800&en=d091d6367c2ee4ad&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss |date=July 22, 2016 }}, ''The New York Times'', June 17, 2006</ref> In awarding to Epstein and Silvers its 2006 Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community, the National Book Foundation stated: "With ''The New York Review of Books'', Robert Silvers and Barbara Epstein raised book reviewing to an art and made the discussion of books a lively, provocative and intellectual activity."<ref name=National>[https://web.archive.org/web/20160303170244/http://www.nationalbook.org/nba2006_dcal_literarianpr.html "Robert Silvers and Barbara Epstein to Be Honored"], Press release from The National Book Foundation (2006)</ref>

After Epstein's death, Silvers was the sole editor until his own death in 2017.<ref>Wheatcroft, Geoffrey. [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/mar/21/robert-silvers-obituary "Robert Silvers obituary"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170323181951/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/mar/21/robert-silvers-obituary |date=March 23, 2017 }}, ''The Guardian'', March 21, 2017</ref> Asked about who might succeed him as editor, Silvers told ''The New York Times'', "I can think of several people who would be marvelous editors. Some of them work here, some used to work here, and some are just people we know. I think they would put out a terrific paper, but it would be different."<ref name=McGrath/> In 2008, the ''Review'' celebrated its 45th anniversary with a panel discussion at the New York Public Library, moderated by Silvers, discussing "What Happens Now" in the United States after the 2008 election of Barack Obama as president. Panelists included ''Review'' contributors such as Joan Didion, Garry Wills, novelist and literary critic Darryl Pinckney, political commentator Michael Tomasky, and Columbia University professor and contributor Andrew Delbanco.<ref>Bradley, Bill. [http://www.vanityfair.com/online/politics/2008/11/what-happens-now-a-postelection-conversation-at-the-new-york-public-library.html "Joan Didion on Slouching Towards the Presidency"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090214021017/http://www.vanityfair.com/online/politics/2008/11/what-happens-now-a-postelection-conversation-at-the-new-york-public-library.html |date=2009-02-14 }}, ''Vanity Fair'', November 11, 2008</ref> The 45th anniversary edition of the ''Review'' (November 20, 2008) began with a posthumous piece by Edmund Wilson, who wrote for the paper's first issue in 1963.<ref name=SFC/>

[[File:Robert B Silvers 2011 NBCC Awards 2012 Shankbone.JPG|thumb|left|Robert Silvers in 2012]] In 2008, the paper moved its headquarters from Midtown Manhattan to 435 Hudson Street located in the West Village.<ref name=Observer>Neyfakh, Leon. [http://observer.com/2007/12/whats-new-at-ithe-new-york-review-of-booksi "What's New at The New York Review of Books?"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170827165007/http://observer.com/2007/12/whats-new-at-ithe-new-york-review-of-booksi/ |date=August 27, 2017 }}, ''The New York Observer'', December 13, 2007</ref> In 2010, it launched a blog section of its website<ref>[http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/ New York Review of Books Blog] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100415060918/http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/ |date=April 15, 2010 }}, accessed April 14, 2010</ref> that ''The New York Times'' called "lively and opinionated",<ref name=McGrath/> and it hosts podcasts.<ref name=Mohan/><ref>[http://www.nybooks.com/podcasts/ NYRB podcasts archive] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081012114130/http://www.nybooks.com/podcasts/ |date=October 12, 2008 }}. Accessed April 14, 2010.</ref> Asked in 2013 how social media might affect the subject matter of the ''Review'', Silvers commented: <blockquote>"I might imagine [a] witty, aphoristic, almost Oscar Wildean [anthology of] remarks, drawn from the millions and millions of tweets. Or from comments that follow on blogs. ... Facebook is a medium in which privacy is, or at least is thought to be, in some way crucial. ... And so there seems a resistance to intrusive criticism. We seem at the edge of a vast, expanding ocean of words ... growing without any critical perspective whatever being brought to bear on it. To me, as an editor, that seems an enormous absence."<ref name=DannerNYMag2013>Danner, Mark. [http://nymag.com/news/features/robert-silvers-2013-4/index1.html#print "In Conversation: Robert Silvers"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140203074605/http://nymag.com/news/features/robert-silvers-2013-4/index1.html#print |date=February 3, 2014 }}, ''New York'', April 7, 2013</ref></blockquote>

''The Review'' began a year-long celebration of its 50th anniversary with a presentation by Silvers and several contributors at The Town Hall in New York City in February 2013.<ref>Kirchner, Lauren. [http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/culture/2013/02/7584342/50-new-york-review-books-celebrates-longevity-magazine-and-mission "At 50, ''New York Review of Books'' celebrates the longevity of a magazine, and a mission"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130208141552/http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/culture/2013/02/7584342/50-new-york-review-books-celebrates-longevity-magazine-and-mission |date=February 8, 2013 }}, ''Capital New York'', February 6, 2013</ref><ref>Ulin, David L. [http://www.latimes.com/features/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-the-new-york-review-of-books-turns-50-20130103,0,3912905.story "''The New York Review of Books'' turns 50"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130122185608/http://www.latimes.com/features/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-the-new-york-review-of-books-turns-50-20130103,0,3912905.story |date=January 22, 2013 }}, ''Los Angeles Times'', January 3, 2013</ref> Other events included a program at the New York Public Library in April, called "Literary Journalism: A Discussion", focusing on the editorial process at the ''Review''<ref>[http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/50-years/2013/may/10/literary-journalism-discussion/ "Literary Journalism: A Discussion"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130909231932/http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/50-years/2013/may/10/literary-journalism-discussion/ |date=September 9, 2013 }},</ref><ref>[http://www.nypl.org/events/programs/2013/04/02/celebrating-50-years-new-york-review-books "Celebrating 50 Years of ''The New York Review of Books''"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130314224551/http://www.nypl.org/events/programs/2013/04/02/celebrating-50-years-new-york-review-books |date=March 14, 2013 }}, New York Public Library, accessed January 22, 2013</ref> and a reception in November at the Frick Collection.<ref>Pellien, Jessica. [http://blog.press.princeton.edu/2013/11/08/congratulations-to-the-new-york-review-of-books-on-their-50th-anniversary "Congratulations to ''The New York Review of Books'' on Their 50th Anniversary"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131202224414/http://blog.press.princeton.edu/2013/11/08/congratulations-to-the-new-york-review-of-books-on-their-50th-anniversary/ |date=December 2, 2013 }}, Princeton University Press Blog, November 8, 2013</ref><ref>Bloomgarden-Smoke, Kara. [http://observer.com/2013/11/the-new-york-review-of-book "''The New York Review of Books'' Keeps the Golden Jubilee Celebration Going All Year"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131203042155/http://observer.com/2013/11/the-new-york-review-of-book/ |date=December 3, 2013 }}, ''The New York Observer'', November 13, 2013</ref> During the year, Martin Scorsese filmed a documentary about the history and influence of the ''Review'', and the debates that it has spawned, titled ''The 50 Year Argument'', which premiered in June 2014 at the Sheffield Doc/Fest in England.<ref>Barnes, Henry. [https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/jun/07/sheffield-doc-fest-2014-50-year-argument-martin-scorsese "Sheffield Doc/Fest 2014 review: The 50 Year Argument - Scorsese's love letter to old media"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161231042103/https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/jun/07/sheffield-doc-fest-2014-50-year-argument-martin-scorsese |date=December 31, 2016 }}, ''The Guardian'', June 7, 2014</ref><ref>[https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-27323501 "Martin Scorsese premiere for Sheffield Doc/Fest"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180205213510/http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-27323501 |date=February 5, 2018 }}, BBC, May 8, 2014; Roddy, Michael. [http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/sns-rt-us-berlin-scorsese-20140215,0,5134948.story "Scorsese says NY Review film meant as guide to young"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140226231456/http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/sns-rt-us-berlin-scorsese-20140215%2C0%2C5134948.story |date=2014-02-26 }}, ''Chicago Tribune'', February 15, 2014; and Han, Angie. [http://www.slashfilm.com/martin-scorsese-has-a-new-york-review-of-books-doc-premiering-in-berlin/ "Martin Scorsese Has a ''New York Review of Books'' Doc Premiering in Berlin"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140417021420/http://www.slashfilm.com/martin-scorsese-has-a-new-york-review-of-books-doc-premiering-in-berlin/ |date=April 17, 2014 }}, Slashfilm.com, January 28, 2014</ref> It was later seen at various film festivals, on BBC television and on HBO in the US.<ref name=Atlantic50/> Asked how he maintained his "level of meticulousness and determination" after 50 years, Silvers said that the ''Review'' "was and is a unique opportunity ... to do what one wants on anything in the world. Now, that is given to hardly any editor, anywhere, anytime. There are no strictures, no limits. Nobody saying you can't do something. No subject, no theme, no idea that can't be addressed in-depth. ... Whatever work is involved is minor compared to the opportunity."<ref name=DannerNYMag2013/> A special 50th anniversary issue was dated November 7, 2013. Silvers said: <blockquote>An independent, critical voice on politics, literature, science, and the arts seems as much needed today as it was when Barbara Epstein and I put out the first edition of the ''New York Review'' fifty years ago – perhaps even more so. Electronic forms of communication grow rapidly in every field of life but many of their effects on culture remain obscure and in need of new kinds of critical scrutiny. That will be a central concern of the ''Review'' for the years to come.<ref name=BBM/></blockquote>

Ian Buruma, who had been a regular contributor to the ''Review'' since 1985, became editor in September 2017.<ref>Williams, John. [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/09/books/ian-buruma-new-york-review-of-books-robert-silvers.html?_r=0 "Ian Buruma on a New Era at ''The New York Review of Books''"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170912144838/https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/09/books/ian-buruma-new-york-review-of-books-robert-silvers.html?_r=0 |date=September 12, 2017 }}, ''The New York Times'', September 9, 2017</ref> He left the position in September 2018 after backlash over publishing an essay by Jian Ghomeshi, who has been accused by 20 women of sexual assault, and defending the publication in an interview with ''Slate'' magazine.<ref>Pilkington, Ed. [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/19/new-york-review-of-books-editor-ian-buruma-steps-down "''New York Review of Books'' editor Ian Buruma departs amid outrage over essay"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230517002210/https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/19/new-york-review-of-books-editor-ian-buruma-steps-down |date=May 17, 2023 }}, ''The Guardian'', September 19, 2018; and Vanderhoof, Erin. [https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2018/09/ian-buruma-new-york-review-of-books-exit "How Ian Buruma’s ''New York Review of Books'' Ouster Became Inevitable"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180924155233/https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2018/09/ian-buruma-new-york-review-of-books-exit |date=September 24, 2018 }}, ''Vanity Fair'', September 19, 2018</ref><ref>O'Rourke, Meghan. [https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/09/what-editors-cant-get-away-with-in-the-age-of-metoo/570958 "What Magazines Can’t Do in the Age of #MeToo"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180921182659/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/09/what-editors-cant-get-away-with-in-the-age-of-metoo/570958/ |date=September 21, 2018 }}, ''The Atlantic'', September 21, 2018</ref> The ''Review'' stated that it did not follow its "usual editorial practices", as the essay "was shown to only one male editor during the editing process", and that Buruma's statement to ''Slate'' about the staff of the ''Review'' "did not accurately represent their views".<ref>Williams, John. [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/24/books/ian-buruma-review-of-books.html "''New York Review of Books'' Acknowledges 'Failures' in a #MeToo Essay"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180925171240/https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/24/books/ian-buruma-review-of-books.html |date=September 25, 2018 }}, ''The New York Times'', September 24, 2018</ref> Gabriel Winslow-Yost (formerly a senior editor at the ''Review'') and Emily Greenhouse (formerly the managing editor of ''The New Yorker'' and earlier an editorial assistant at the ''Review'') were named co-editors in February 2019; Daniel Mendelsohn, a longtime ''Review'' contributor, was named to the new position of "editor at large".<ref>Williams, John. [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/25/books/nyrb-emily-greenhouse-gabriel-winslowyost.html "''New York Review'' Names 2 Top Editors 5 Months After Ian Buruma's Departure"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190307153913/https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/25/books/nyrb-emily-greenhouse-gabriel-winslowyost.html |date=March 7, 2019 }}, ''The New York Times'', February 25, 2019</ref> In February 2021, Greenhouse was made editor of the ''Review'', while Winslow-Yost became a senior editor.<ref>Williams, John. [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/03/books/paris-review-editor-emily-nemens.html "Emily Nemens Departs as ''Paris Review'' Editor"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210306174454/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/03/books/paris-review-editor-emily-nemens.html |date=March 6, 2021 }}, ''The New York Times'', March 3, 2021</ref>

In 2023, the ''Review'' moved its headquarters to 207 East 32nd Street in Kips Bay;<ref>Kemper, Nicholas. [https://nyra.nyc/articles/publishers-noted-nyrb "A new home for the ''New York Review of Books''"], ''New York Review of Architecture'', November 19, 2023</ref> it had purchased the townhouse in 2020 from graphic designer Milton Glaser.<ref>Weiss, Lois. [https://therealdeal.com/new-york/2020/10/09/milton-glasers-kips-bay-office-townhouse-sells-to-new-york-review-of-books "Milton Glaser's Kips Bay office townhouse sells to ''New York Review of Books''"], ''The Real Deal'', October 9, 2020</ref>

===Description=== The ''Review'' has been described as 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."<ref>[http://chengdu.usconsulate.gov/periodicals_-_irc_chengdu.html Profile of the ''Review''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070318155652/http://chengdu.usconsulate.gov/periodicals_-_irc_chengdu.html |date=2007-03-18 }}, US Consulate General in China</ref><ref>[https://www.nybooks.com/about/ "About the ''Review''"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220321200633/https://www.nybooks.com/about/ |date=March 21, 2022 }}, ''The New York Review of Books'', accessed October 1, 2014</ref> Each issue includes a broad range of subject matter, including "articles on art, science, politics and literature."<ref name=McGrath>McGrath, Charles. [https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/17/books/robert-silverss-long-reign-at-the-new-york-review-of-books.html?ref=books "Editor Not Ready to Write an Ending"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160722053136/http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/17/books/robert-silverss-long-reign-at-the-new-york-review-of-books.html?ref=books |date=July 22, 2016 }}, ''The New York Times'', March 16, 2012</ref> Early on, the editors decided that the ''Review'' would "be interested in everything ... no subject would be excluded. Someone is writing a piece about Nascar racing for us; another is working on Veronese."<ref name=Cooke2014/> The ''Review'' has focused, however, on political topics; as Silvers commented in 2004: "The pieces we have 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 [Bush] Administration, in a fearful atmosphere, had the effect of muffling dissent."<ref>Sherman, Scott. [http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040607/sherman/2 "The Rebirth of the NYRB"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080724215355/http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040607/sherman/2 |date=July 24, 2008 }}, ''The Nation'', May 20, 2004, p. 2</ref> Silvers told ''The New York Times'': "The great political issues of power and its abuses have always been natural questions for us."<ref name=McGrath />

''The Nation'' gave its view of the political focus of the ''New York Review of Books'' in 2004: <blockquote>The Review took a vocal role in contesting the Vietnam War. ... Around 1970, a sturdy liberalism began to supplant left-wing radicalism at the paper. As Philip Nobile observed in ... 1974 ... the ''Review'' returned to its roots and became "a literary magazine on the British nineteenth-century model, which would mix politics and literature in a tough but gentlemanly fashion." ... The publication has always been erudite and authoritative – and because of its analytical rigor and seriousness, frequently essential – but it hasn't always been lively, pungent and readable. ... But the election of George W. Bush, combined with the furies of 9/11, jolted the editors. Since 2001, the Review's temperature has risen and its political outlook has sharpened. ... Prominent [writers for] the Review ... charged into battle not only against the White House but against the lethargic press corps and the "liberal hawk" intellectuals. ... In stark contrast to ''The New Yorker'' ... or ''The New York Times Magazine'' ..., the ''Review'' opposed the Iraq War in a voice that was remarkably consistent and unified.<ref>Sherman, Scott. [http://www.thenation.com/article/rebirth-nyrb "The Rebirth of the NYRB"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101018035507/http://www.thenation.com/article/rebirth-nyrb |date=October 18, 2010 }}, ''The Nation'', May 20, 2004, p. 1, accessed 18 August 2010</ref></blockquote>

The ''Review'' also devotes space in most issues to poetry, and has featured the work of such poets as Robert Lowell, John Berryman, Ted Hughes, John Ashbery, Richard Wilbur, Seamus Heaney, Octavio Paz, and Czesław Miłosz.{{citation needed|date=August 2022}} For writers, the "depth [of the articles], and the quality of the people writing for it, has made a ''Review'' byline a résumé definer. If one wishes to be thought of as a certain type of writer – of heft, style and a certain gravitas – a ''Review'' byline is pretty much the gold standard."<ref name=Tucker>Tucker, Neely. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-new-york-review-of-books-turns-50/2013/11/06/5e031f64-4703-11e3-a196-3544a03c2351_story.html "''The New York Review of Books turns 50''"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180728131445/https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-new-york-review-of-books-turns-50/2013/11/06/5e031f64-4703-11e3-a196-3544a03c2351_story.html |date=July 28, 2018 }}, ''The Washington Post'', November 6, 2013</ref> In editing a piece, Silvers said that he asked himself "if [the point in any sentence could] be clearer, while also respecting the writer's voice and tone. You have to listen carefully to the tone of the writer's prose and try to adapt to it, but only up to a point. [No change was made without the writers' permission.] ... Writers deserve the final word about their prose."<ref name=DannerNYMag2013/>

In addition to domestic matters, the ''Review'' covers issues of international concern.<ref>{{cite book |editor1=Silvers, Robert B. |editor2=Barbara Epstein |editor3=Rea S. Hederman |year=1993 |title=The First Anthology: Thirty Years of the New York Review |location=New York |publisher=New York Review of Books |isbn=0-940322-01-3 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/firstanthology3000silv }}</ref> In the 1980s, a British commentator noted: "In the 1960s [the ''Review''] opposed American involvement in Vietnam; more recently it has taken a line mildly Keynesian in economics, pro-Israeli but Anti-Zionist, sceptical of Reagan's Latin-American policy".<ref>Fender, Stephen. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/3507774 "The New York Review of Books"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160818082457/http://www.jstor.org/stable/3507774 |date=August 18, 2016 }}, ''The Yearbook of English Studies'', Vol. 16, Literary Periodicals Special Number (1986), p.&nbsp;189 {{subscription required}}</ref> The British newspaper ''The Independent'' has described the ''Review'' as "the only mainstream American publication to speak out consistently against the war in Iraq".<ref>O'Hagan, Andrew. [http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:UKNB:TND1&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=1338546698840428&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated5&req_dat=102CDD40F14C6BDA "Barbara Epstein – Obituaries"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210612143752/http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:UKNB:TND1&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=1338546698840428&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated5&req_dat=102CDD40F14C6BDA |date=June 12, 2021 }}, ''The Independent'', June 20, 2006, accessed March 13, 2012.</ref> On Middle East coverage, Silvers said, "any serious criticism of Israeli policy will be seen by some as heresy, a form of betrayal. ... [M]uch of what we've published has come from some of the most respected and brilliant Israeli writers ... Amos Elon, Avishai Margalit, David Grossman, David Shulman, among them. What emerges from them is a sense that occupying land and people year after year can only lead to a sad and bad result."<ref name=DannerNYMag2013/>

Caricaturist David Levine illustrated ''The New York Review of Books'' from 1963 to 2007, giving the paper a distinctive visual image.<ref name=Observer/> Levine died in 2009.<ref name=Levineobit/> John Updike, whom Levine drew many times, wrote: "Besides offering us the delight of recognition, his drawings comfort us, in an exacerbated and potentially desperate age, with the sense of a watching presence, an eye informed by an intelligence that has not panicked, a comic art ready to encapsulate the latest apparitions of publicity as well as those historical devils who haunt our unease."<ref name=gallery/> Levine contributed more than 3,800 pen-and-ink caricatures of famous writers, artists and politicians for the publication.<ref name=gallery>[http://www.nybooks.com/gallery/ "David Levine Gallery,"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051107032742/http://www.nybooks.com/gallery/ |date=November 7, 2005 }} ''New York Review of Books'', accessed April 15, 2009</ref><ref>Margolick, David. [http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/11/levine200811 "Levine in Winter,"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140807202234/http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/11/levine200811 |date=August 7, 2014 }} ''Vanity Fair'', November 2008</ref> Silvers said: "David combined acute political commentary with a certain kind of joke about the person. He was immensely sensitive to the smallest details – people's shoulders, their feet, their elbows. He was able to find character in these details."<ref>Wiener, Jon. [http://lareviewofbooks.org/interview/50-years-of-nyrb-an-interview-with-robert-silvers "Jon Wiener interviews Robert Silvers"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131202224519/http://lareviewofbooks.org/interview/50-years-of-nyrb-an-interview-with-robert-silvers |date=December 2, 2013 }}, ''Los Angeles Review of Books'', June 9, 2013</ref> ''The New York Times'' described Levine's illustrations as "macro-headed, somberly expressive, astringently probing and hardly ever flattering caricatures of intellectuals and athletes, politicians and potentates" that were "replete with exaggeratedly bad haircuts, 5 o'clock shadows, ill-conceived mustaches and other grooming foibles ... to make the famous seem peculiar-looking in order to take them down a peg".<ref name=Levineobit>{{cite news|title=David Levine, Astringent Illustrator, Dies at 83|first=Bruce|last=Weber|date=December 29, 2009|newspaper=The New York Times|access-date=December 30, 2009|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/30/arts/design/30levine.html|archive-date=August 28, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190828135058/https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/30/arts/design/30levine.html|url-status=live}}</ref> In later years, illustrators for the ''Review'' included James Ferguson of ''Financial Times''.<ref>Ferguson, James. [https://www.ft.com/content/aac9d48a-0fe3-11e7-a88c-50ba212dce4d "Notes on ... Robert Silvers"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170325024430/https://www.ft.com/content/aac9d48a-0fe3-11e7-a88c-50ba212dce4d |date=March 25, 2017 }}, ''Financial Times'', March 24, 2017</ref>

''The Washington Post'' described the "lively literary disputes" conducted in the 'letters to the editor' column of the ''Review'' as "the closest thing the intellectual world has to bare-knuckle boxing".<ref name=Postobit/> In addition to reviews, interviews and articles, the paper features extensive advertising from publishers promoting newly published books. It also includes a popular "personals" section that "share[s] a cultivated writing style" with its articles.<ref name=Mohan>Mohan, Jake. [http://www.nybooks.com/podcasts/ "''New York Review of Books'' Podcast Gets Political (Like It or Not)"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081012114130/http://www.nybooks.com/podcasts/ |date=October 12, 2008 }}, October 22, 2008</ref><ref>Grossman, Ron. [http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-03-13/news/ct-talk-grossman-personals-20120313_1_personal-ads-love-affair-nyrb "New York Review of Books personal ads reveal intellectuals' romantic ideals"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121017003235/http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-03-13/news/ct-talk-grossman-personals-20120313_1_personal-ads-love-affair-nyrb |date=October 17, 2012 }}, ''Chicago Tribune'', March 13, 2012</ref> One lonely heart, author Jane Juska, documented the 63 replies to her personal ad in the ''Review'' with a 2003 memoir, ''A Round-Heeled Woman'', that was adapted as a play.<ref>Shenton, Mark. [http://www.playbill.com/news/article/a-round-heeled-woman-starring-sharon-gless-to-transfer-to-west-ends-aldwych-184226 "''A Round-Heeled Woman'', Starring Sharon Gless, to Transfer to West End's Aldwych Theatre"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150119064204/http://www.playbill.com/news/article/a-round-heeled-woman-starring-sharon-gless-to-transfer-to-west-ends-aldwych-184226 |date=January 19, 2015 }}, ''Playbill'', November 4, 2011, accessed January 18, 2015</ref><ref>Spencer, Charles. [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-reviews/8929189/A-Round-Heeled-Woman-Aldwych-Theatre-review.html "''A Round-Heeled Woman'', Aldwych Theatre, review"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171114162913/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-reviews/8929189/A-Round-Heeled-Woman-Aldwych-Theatre-review.html |date=November 14, 2017 }}, ''The Telegraph'', December 1, 2011, accessed January 18, 2015</ref> In ''The Washington Post'', Matt Schudel called the personal ads "sometimes laughably highbrow" and recalled that they were "spoofed by Woody Allen in the movie ''Annie Hall''".<ref>Schudel, Matt. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/robert-silvers-a-founding-editor-of-new-york-review-of-books-dies-at-87/2017/03/21/15531ec4-0e40-11e7-ab07-07d9f521f6b5_story.html#comments "Robert Silvers, a founding editor of New York Review of Books, dies at 87"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170409112113/https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/robert-silvers-a-founding-editor-of-new-york-review-of-books-dies-at-87/2017/03/21/15531ec4-0e40-11e7-ab07-07d9f521f6b5_story.html#comments |date=April 9, 2017 }}, ''The Washington Post'', March 21, 2017</ref>

Several of the magazine's editorial assistants have become prominent in journalism, academia and literature, including Jean Strouse, Deborah Eisenberg, Mark Danner and A. O. Scott.<ref>[http://nymag.com/news/features/establishments/68496/ "The Amazing Human Launching Pads"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101001190222/http://nymag.com/news/features/establishments/68496/ |date=October 1, 2010 }}, "Who Runs New York", ''New York'' magazine, September 26, 2010</ref> Another former intern and a contributor to the ''Review'', author Claire Messud, said: "They're incredibly generous about taking the time to go through things. So much of [business today] is about people doing things quickly, with haste. One of the first things to go out the window is a type of graciousness. ... There's a whole sort of rhythm and tone of how they deal with people. I'm sure it was always rare. But it feels incredibly precious now."<ref name=Tucker/> Still another, Sigrid Nunez, commented of the editors: "You had these two people who were at the top of everything, who had no interest in anything except doing this amazing job. They were strangely without ego."<ref>Mason, Wyatt. [https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/30/magazine/sigrid-nunez.html "Sigrid Nunez’s Art of Noticing"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231101031156/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/30/magazine/sigrid-nunez.html |date=November 1, 2023 }}, ''The New York Times'', October 30, 2023</ref>

The ''Review'' has published, since 2009, the ''NYR Daily'', which focuses on the news.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.nybooks.com/daily/page/244 | title=NYR Daily | publisher=The New York Review of Books | access-date=March 15, 2019 | archive-date=October 1, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201001221215/https://www.nybooks.com/daily/page/244/ | url-status=live }}</ref>

==Reception== ''The Washington Post'' calls the ''Review'' "a journal of ideas that has helped define intellectual discourse in the English-speaking world for the past four decades. ... By publishing long, thoughtful articles on politics, books and culture, [the editors] defied trends toward glibness, superficiality and the cult of celebrity".<ref name=Postobit/> The ''Chicago Tribune'' praised the paper as "one of the few venues in American life that takes ideas seriously. And it pays readers the ultimate compliment of assuming that we do too."<ref>Keller, Julia. [https://www.chicagotribune.com/2006/06/26/farewell-to-a-champion-of-ideas/ "Farewell to a champion of ideas"], ''Chicago Tribune'', June 26, 2006, accessed October 1, 2014</ref> ''Esquire'' termed it "the most respected intellectual journal in the English language"<ref>Paris, Wendy. "A Rare Foundation Giving Nonfiction Writers What They Need: Money and Recognition", ''Inside Philanthropy'', February 8, 2024</ref> and "the premier literary-intellectual magazine in the English language".<ref name=Postobit/> Similarly, in a 2006 ''New York'' magazine feature, James Atlas stated: "It's an eclectic but impressive mix [of articles] that has made ''The New York Review of Books'' the premier journal of the American intellectual elite".<ref name=NYmag>Atlas, James. [http://nymag.com/news/media/21344/index.html "The Ma and Pa of the Intelligentsia"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080906185932/http://nymag.com/news/media/21344/index.html |date=September 6, 2008 }}, ''New York'', September 18, 2006</ref> ''The Atlantic'' commented in 2011 that the ''Review'' is written with "a freshness of perspective", and "much of it shapes our most sophisticated public discourse".<ref>Osnos, Peter. [https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/12/the-phenomenal-new-york-review-of-books/249912/ "The Phenomenal ''New York Review of Books''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161009155922/http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/12/the-phenomenal-new-york-review-of-books/249912/ |date=October 9, 2016 }}, ''The Atlantic'', December 13, 2011</ref> In celebrating the 35th birthday of the ''Review'' in 1998, ''The New York Times'' commented, "The N.Y.R. gives off rogue intimations of being fun to put out. It hasn't lost its sneaky nip of mischief".<ref>Wolcott, James. [https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/10/04/bookend/bookend.html "35 Years of Fireworks"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170828022953/http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/10/04/bookend/bookend.html |date=August 28, 2017 }}, ''The New York Times'', October 4, 1998</ref>

In 2008, Britain's ''The Guardian'' deemed the ''Review'' "scholarly without being pedantic, scrupulous without being dry".<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/oct/25/new-york-review-books "In praise of ... ''New York Review of Books''"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160306100742/http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/oct/25/new-york-review-books |date=March 6, 2016 }}, Editorial, ''The Guardian'', October 25, 2008, p. 34</ref> The same newspaper wrote in 2004: <blockquote>The ... issues of the ''Review'' to date provide a history of the cultural life of the east coast since 1963. It manages to be ... serious with a fierce democratic edge. ... It is one of the last places in the English-speaking world that will publish long essays ... and possibly the very last to combine academic rigour – even the letters to the editor are footnoted – with great clarity of language.<ref name=Brown/></blockquote> In ''New York'' magazine, in February 2011, Oliver Sacks stated that the ''Review'' is "one of the great institutions of intellectual life here or anywhere".<ref>Salisbury, Vanita. [http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/02/oliver_sachs_has_luxuriant_eyelashes.html "Oliver Sacks Has Luxuriant Eyelashes"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110213034053/http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/02/oliver_sachs_has_luxuriant_eyelashes.html? |date=February 13, 2011 }}. ''New York'' magazine, February 9, 2011</ref> In 2012, ''The New York Times'' described the ''Review'' as "elegant, well mannered, immensely learned, a little formal at times, obsessive about clarity and factual correctness and passionately interested in human rights and the way governments violate them".<ref name=McGrath/>

Throughout its history, the ''Review'' has been known generally as a left-liberal journal, what Tom Wolfe called "the chief theoretical organ of Radical Chic".<ref name=Wolfe>Wolfe, Tom. [https://nymag.com/news/features/46170 "Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny's"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210405225339/https://nymag.com/news/features/46170/ |date=April 5, 2021 }}, ''New York'', June 8, 1970, accessed April 20, 2009</ref> A 1997 ''New York Times'' article, however, accused the paper of having become "establishmentarian".<ref>{{Cite news|last=Scott|first=Janny|date=November 1, 1997|title=Ideas: One Mind, But What a Mind; Defining the Passions of the Liberal Elite for Over 2 Decades|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/01/arts/ideas-one-mind-but-what-mind-defining-passions-liberal-elite-for-over-2-decades.html|access-date=April 8, 2021|issn=0362-4331|archive-date=December 25, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211225194942/https://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/01/arts/ideas-one-mind-but-what-mind-defining-passions-liberal-elite-for-over-2-decades.html|url-status=live}}</ref> The paper has, perhaps, had its most effective voice in wartime. According to a 2004 feature in ''The Nation'', <blockquote>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 has not 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.<ref>Sherman, Scott. [https://www.thenation.com/article/rebirth-nyrb/ "The Rebirth of the NYRB"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190226085812/https://www.thenation.com/article/rebirth-nyrb/ |date=February 26, 2019 }}, ''The Nation'', May 20, 2004, p. 5</ref></blockquote>

Sometimes accused of insularity, the ''Review'' has been called "The New York Review of Each Other's Books".<ref>Bloom, Alexander. ''Prodigal Sons: The New York Intellectuals and Their World'', Oxford University Press, 1987, {{ISBN|0-19-505177-7}}; p. 327</ref> Philip Nobile expressed a mordant criticism along these lines in his book ''Intellectual Skywriting: Literary Politics and the New York Review of Books''.<ref name=NYmag/> ''The Guardian'' characterized such accusations as "sour grapes".<ref name=Brown/> Phillip Lopate commented, in 2017, that Silvers "regarded his contributors as worthy authors, and so why punish them by neglecting their latest work?".<ref name=Lopate>Lopate, Philip. [https://theamericanscholar.org/robert-silvers/# "Robert Silvers: ''In memoriam''"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170807234530/https://theamericanscholar.org/robert-silvers/ |date=August 7, 2017 }}, ''The American Scholar'', March 31, 2017</ref> In 2008, the ''San Francisco Chronicle'' wrote, "the pages of the 45th anniversary issue, in fact, reveal the actuality of [the paper's] willfully panoramic view".<ref name=SFC/>

''The Washington Post'' called the 2013 50th Anniversary issue "gaudy with intellectual firepower. Four Nobel Laureates have bylines. US Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer muses on reading Proust. There's the transcript of a long-lost lecture by T.&nbsp;S. Eliot."<ref name=Tucker/> In 2014, Rachel Cooke wrote in ''The Observer'' of a recent issue: "The offer of such an embarrassment of riches is wholly amazing in a world where print journalism increasingly operates in the most threadbare of circumstances".<ref name=Cooke2014/> ''America'' magazine echoed Zoë Heller's words about the ''Review'': "I like it because it educates me."<ref>Reidy, Maurice Timothy. [http://americamagazine.org/issue/minds-work "Minds at Work"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140910195835/http://americamagazine.org/issue/minds-work |date=September 10, 2014 }}, ''America'' magazine, September 15, 2014</ref> Lopate adds that the ''Review'' "was and is the standard bearer for American intellectual life: a unique repository of thoughtful discourse, unrepentantly highbrow, in a culture increasingly given to dumbing down."<ref name=Lopate/> Timothy Noah of ''Politico'' called it "the country's best and most influential literary journal. ... It's hard to imagine that Hardwick ... would complain today that book reviewing is too polite."<ref>Noah, Timothy. [https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/12/28/robert-silvers-obituary-216182/ "Robert Silvers: New York's Presiding Man of Letters"] , ''Politico'', December 28, 2017</ref>

{{blockquote|From Mary McCarthy and Edmund Wilson to Gore Vidal and Joan Didion, ''The New York Review of Books'' has consistently employed the liveliest minds in America to think about, write about, and debate books and the issues they raise." | National Book Foundation<ref name=National />}}

== Book-publishing arm == The book-publishing arm of the ''Review'' is New York Review Books. Established in 1999, it has several imprints: New York Review Books, NYRB Classics, The New York Review Children's Collection, New York Review Comics, NYRB Poets, NYRB Lit and the Calligrams. NYRB Collections publishes collections of articles from frequent ''Review'' contributors.<ref>[https://www.nyrb.com/pages/about New York Review Books: About Us] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190207015256/https://www.nyrb.com/pages/about |date=February 7, 2019 }}, ''The New York Review of Books'', accessed March 9, 2019</ref> The Classics imprint reissues books that have gone out of print in the US, as well as translations of classic books. It has been called "a marvellous literary imprint ... that has put hundreds of wonderful books back on our shelves."<ref name=Cooke2014/>

==The Robert B. Silvers Foundation== The Robert B. Silvers Foundation is a charitable trust established in 2017 by a bequest of the late Robert Silvers, a founding editor of ''The New York Review of Books''.<ref>[https://www.nybooks.com/emily-greenhouse-gabriel-winslow-yost-editors "The New York Review of Books announces new editorial lineup and the creation of the Robert B. Silvers Foundation"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210112185122/https://www.nybooks.com/emily-greenhouse-gabriel-winslow-yost-editors/ |date=January 12, 2021 }}, ''The New York Review of Books'', accessed July 14, 2020</ref> Its annual activities include the Silvers Grants for Work in Progress, given in support of long-form non-fiction projects within the fields cultivated by Silvers as editor of the ''Review'', and the Silvers-Dudley Prizes, awarded for notable achievements in journalism, criticism, and cultural commentary.<ref>{{Cite web| title=The Robert B. Silvers Foundation| url=https://silversfoundation.org/| access-date=July 14, 2020| website=The Robert B. Silvers Foundation| archive-date=July 14, 2020| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200714182953/https://silversfoundation.org/| url-status=live}}</ref>

== Archives == The New York Public Library purchased the NYRB archives in 2015.<ref>Gajanan, Mahita. [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/nov/17/new-york-review-of-books-archive-acquired-new-york-public-library "''New York Review of Books'' archive acquired by New York Public Library"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160411183757/http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/nov/17/new-york-review-of-books-archive-acquired-new-york-public-library |date=April 11, 2016 }}, ''The Guardian'', November 17, 2015</ref>

==See also== *''The New York Times Book Review'' *Media in New York City *''Granta''

== References == {{Reflist}}

==External links== *{{official website|https://www.nybooks.com/}} {{external media | float = right | video1 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?95148-1/new-york-review-books Robert Silvers on the history and operations of ''The New York Review of Books'']. C-SPAN, September 23, 1997. | video2 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?112694-1/new-york-review-books Barbara Epstein on ''The New York Review of Books'' and its 35-year history]. C-SPAN, September 2, 1998. | video3= [https://www.c-span.org/video/?114057-1/new-york-review-books-35th-anniversary New York Review of Books: 35th Anniversary]. Authors and poets read from their own selected books and poetry. C-SPAN, October 19, 1998.}} *Neyfakh, Leon. [http://observer.com/2008/02/mr-silvers-will-you-peek-at-my-books/ "Mr. Silvers, Will You Peek at My Books?"] ''New York Observer'', February 6, 2008. *[https://www.npr.org/2011/11/23/142721726/bob-silvers-co-founder-of-new-york-review-of-books 2011 NPR interview of Silvers about the ''Review''] *Danner, Mark. [http://www.markdanner.com/orations/show/133 "Editing the ''New York Review of Books'': A Conversation with Robert B. Silvers"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210128123836/http://www.markdanner.com/orations/show/133 |date=January 28, 2021 }}, April 28, 1999.

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