The New York Review of Books

09/05/2026

“A psychic once told Matthiessen that he had four ‘unseen helpers’ who guided and assisted him on his life’s path: Byron, Thoreau, Marat, and Aesop. Such strange synergy could explain a lot, actually.” —Joy Williams

A biography of Peter Matthiessen captures his antithetical actions and character while never losing sight of his ardent attentiveness to the natural world.

09/05/2026

Felix Bazalgette on Madeleine de Sinéty at the Jeu de Paume

Madeleine de Sinéty sloughed off her aristocratic upbringing and spent her life capturing small-town life in Brittany and Maine.

09/05/2026

When our kids were young, I thought I was going to be as good a parent to them as my parents had not been to me--maybe exactly as good. On the radio, as I

09/05/2026

“Within Iran you face religious and political repression and corruption and economic desperation. From without…the demonization of Iran by a powerful political and media system that is at best ignorant & at worst corrupt and destructive.” —Nahid Siamdoust

“It was out of estisal that some Iranians chose war,” writes Nahid Siamdoust in the NYR Online. Estisal, which, loosely translated from Persian, means

09/04/2026

In Qusra, “families are barricaded in their homes. They know that if they succumb to the settlers’ threats and leave, their houses will be lost forever.” —David Shulman

Another Palestinian village in the West Bank has been attacked by Israeli settlers. The lack of response by the army and police reveals how deeply corrupted they are by the colonialist agenda.

09/04/2026

Jed Rakoff on how the fossil fuel lobby stripped the federal judiciary’s access to a crucial manual for understanding climate change

A new edition of a manual that helps federal judges understand scientific subjects included a chapter on climate change that was withdrawn after attacks by denialists.

09/04/2026

William Neuman on the city at the center of Venezuela’s devastating earthquakes

This summer's earthquakes exposed the hollow core of the country's new, Trump-instated government, leaving ordinary citizens all but alone in recovering from catastrophe.

09/04/2026

Meghan O’Gieblyn on Arthur Schopenhauer, Simone Weil, and the lingering problem of free will in an AI future

As AI erodes our attention spans and expressiveness, philosophers like Simone Weil and Arthur Schopenhauer offer profound insights on what it means to be an individual.

09/03/2026

Miranda Seymour on the cold clarity of Gwendoline Riley’s novels

In its skewering of London's literary egos, Gwendoline Riley's The Palm House takes a step away from her previous parent-dominated novels, but it too is told by a middle-aged woman struggling to come to terms with her childhood and adolescence.

09/03/2026

Joy Williams on Peter Matthiessen and awful, higher truths

A biography of Peter Matthiessen captures his antithetical actions and character while never losing sight of his ardent attentiveness to the natural world.