London Review of Books

London Review of Books Europe’s leading magazine of politics, literature, history and ideas, published twice a month. Read and subscribe at lrb.co.uk

The London Review of Books is Europe’s leading magazine of politics, literature, history and ideas, published twice a month.

‘The joining of advanced politics and advanced art was for forty years “Partisan Review’’s justification and its boast. ...
13/07/2025

‘The joining of advanced politics and advanced art was for forty years “Partisan Review’’s justification and its boast. But in the early days, for all their bravado, the editors weren’t always sure what they wanted.’

David Denby:

The house style of the early Partisan Review was hard-headed, truculent, dismissive of religiosity (‘mystification...

‘This is a world of greasy hair, overstuffed cushions, bad breath, bloodied sheets and hot milk dotted with “oily yellow...
12/07/2025

‘This is a world of greasy hair, overstuffed cushions, bad breath, bloodied sheets and hot milk dotted with “oily yellow beads”.’

Malin Hay on Jane DeLynn’s reissued novel ‘In Thrall’:

All the revulsion in Jane DeLynn’s novel can seem antagonistic, but it’s driven by more complicated feelings....

‘Many of Kneecap’s international fans, before listening to them, hadn’t realised that the Irish language exists at all –...
12/07/2025

‘Many of Kneecap’s international fans, before listening to them, hadn’t realised that the Irish language exists at all – and that far from a dialect of English, it has roughly the same lexical distance from it as Russian.’

Naoise Dolan on the blog:

An Anglo-American audience is a mixed blessing for an Irish artist. Pro: you get their money. Con: their opinions, too....

‘I believe that damaging and destroying weapons of war is one way of waging peace: I can only conclude that for the Brit...
12/07/2025

‘I believe that damaging and destroying weapons of war is one way of waging peace: I can only conclude that for the British government, the waging of peace is terrorism.’

Huw Lemmey on Palestine Action.

Online early from our next issue.

I believe there is a moral case for disarming the machinery of war that is killing innocent civilians in Gaza with the...

‘The story of recent decades isn't just one of increasing hardship for those who depend on wages and public services, bu...
11/07/2025

‘The story of recent decades isn't just one of increasing hardship for those who depend on wages and public services, but of state-sponsored extravagance for those who own assets.’

Katrina Forrester on inequality:

Austerity is a choice. The protection of the family at the expense of other ways of living is a choice. The transfer of...

‘Now that the war is so long ago, the subject of N**i exiles in South America – how close they were to the continent’s o...
11/07/2025

‘Now that the war is so long ago, the subject of N**i exiles in South America – how close they were to the continent’s own authoritarian governments, and how they often evaded retribution for their crimes – can seem a stale, even dubious preoccupation.’

Andy Beckett:

Now that the war is so long ago, the subject of N**i exiles in South America can seem a stale, even dubious...

‘“What can be done?” the European diplomat might ask me today. For a start, call a spade a spade. This is an apartheid r...
10/07/2025

‘“What can be done?” the European diplomat might ask me today.

For a start, call a spade a spade. This is an apartheid regime carrying out a genocide on a captive population. End military assistance. Suspend arms exports to Israel.’

Tareq Baconi on Gaza:

Humanitarian aid has long served as cover for Israeli crimes. Under the Geneva Conventions, an occupying force is...

‘Achille Mbembe warns us that the condition of the colonies is rapidly becoming the condition of all of subaltern humani...
10/07/2025

‘Achille Mbembe warns us that the condition of the colonies is rapidly becoming the condition of all of subaltern humanity.’

Kevin Okoth:

Achille Mbembe is the pessimist’s optimist: he delivers a devastating analysis of the contemporary moment while never...

‘Biography is on a march, always, to the final page. It is the thing wrong with 𝘉𝘪𝘳𝘵𝘩𝘥𝘢𝘺 𝘓𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴 – that it casts her dea...
10/07/2025

‘Biography is on a march, always, to the final page. It is the thing wrong with 𝘉𝘪𝘳𝘵𝘩𝘥𝘢𝘺 𝘓𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴 – that it casts her death back through her life, sows it through vivacity, makes it inevitable.’

Patricia Lockwood on Sylvia Plath:

I was under no illusion that The Collected Prose would solve the mystery, or lay to rest the lie, of how Plath was...

‘There was no single New Christian experience, but rather a range of strategies for dealing with a bad hand: some brave ...
09/07/2025

‘There was no single New Christian experience, but rather a range of strategies for dealing with a bad hand: some brave and some cowardly, some more committed to Jewish tradition than others.’

Alexander Bevilacqua on the forced conversion of 15th-century Spanish Jews:

While they may have converted out of fear for their lives, many New Christians were eager to integrate into mainstream...

‘Garner's whole career has been a balancing act, holding on to the rigorous standards of his education while hewing clos...
09/07/2025

‘Garner's whole career has been a balancing act, holding on to the rigorous standards of his education while hewing close to the area where he was brought up.’

Adam Mars-Jones on Alan Garner:

Children’s books revisited in later life may disappoint, but they are immune to the embarrassment associated with...

‘She got an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop (“biggest drug drop between Chicago and Denver”) and was taught by Eliza...
09/07/2025

‘She got an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop (“biggest drug drop between Chicago and Denver”) and was taught by Elizabeth Hardwick, who called her first attempt at a novel “the most disgusting book I’ve ever read”.’

Malin Hay on the newly reissued Jane DeLynn:

All the revulsion in Jane DeLynn’s novel can seem antagonistic, but it’s driven by more complicated feelings....

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