The New York Review of Books

http://www.nybooks.com/


With a worldwide circulation of over 135,000, The New York Review of Books has established itself, in Esquire‘s words, as “the premier literary-intellectual magazine in the English language.” The New York Review began during the New York publishing strike of 1963, when its founding editors, Robert Silvers and Barbara Epstein, and their friends, decided to create a new kind of magazine—one in which the most interesting and qualified minds of our time would discuss current books and issues in depth. Just as importantly, it was determined that the Review should be an independent publication; it began life as an independent editorial voice and it remains independent today.

The New York Review’s early issues included articles by such writers as W.H. Auden, Elizabeth Hardwick, Hannah Arendt, Edmund Wilson, Susan Sontag, Robert Penn Warren, Lilian 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 demand that The New York Review continue publication. And Robert Silvers and Barbara Epstein continued as co-editors of the Review until Barbara’s death in 2006; Robert Silvers continues as editor.

Within a short time, The New York Times was writing that The New York Review “has succeeded brilliantly,” The New Statesman hailed its founding as “of more cultural import than the opening of Lincoln Center,” and the great English art historian Kenneth Clark observed, “I have never known such a high standard of reviewing.” The unprecedented and enthusiastic response was indicative of how badly America needed a literary and critical journal based on the assumption that the discussion of important books was itself an indispensable literary activity.

From the 1960s into the 21st Century, The New York Review of Books has posed the questions in the debate on American life, culture, and politics. It is the journal where Mary McCarthy reported on the Vietnam War from Saigon and Hanoi; Edmund Wilson challenged Vladimir Nabokov’s translations; Hannah Arendt published her reflections on violence; Ralph Nader published his “manifesto” for consumer justice; I.F. Stone investigated the lies of Watergate; Susan Sontag challenged the claims of modern photography; Jean-Paul Sartre, at 70, described his writing and politics, and how he felt about his blindness; Elizabeth Hardwick addressed the issues of women and writing; Gore Vidal hilariously lampooned bestsellers, Howard Hughes, Teddy Roosevelt, and the Reagans; Felix Rohatyn made the case for a national industrial policy in an influential series of articles; Peter G. Peterson showed why the present Social Security program can’t last; Joan Didion described, in a firsthand account, the situation in El Salvador; McGeorge Bundy, George Kennan, and Lewis Thomas outlined the nuclear threat; Nadine Gordimer and Bishop Desmond Tutu wrote from South Africa on the conflict over apartheid; Vaclav Havel published his reflections from the Czech underground; Timothy Garton Ash reported on the new Eastern Europe; Mark Danner reported on torture from the CIA black sites; Ronald Dworkin wrote of how George W. Bush’s two Supreme Court appointees have created an unbreakable phalanx bent on remaking constitutional law; Freeman Dyson described the scientist as rebel; David Cole revealed how the Bush Justice Department allowed America to become a nation that disappeared and tortured suspects; articles by Paul Krugman, George Soros, Joseph Stiglitz, and Jeff Madrick explained America’s failing economy; Tom Powers described the George W. Bush administration’s fundamental shift from diplomacy to military action; Martin Filler wrote on the many makers of modern architecture; and where Bill Moyers described the threat to the environment presented by Evangelical Christians. It is the journal where the most important issues are discussed by writers who are themselves a major force in world literature and thought.

Every two weeks, these and other writers publish essays and reviews of books and the arts, including music, theater, dance, and film—from Woody Allen’s Manhattan to Kurosawa’s version of King Lear. What has made The New York Review successful, according to The New York Times, is its “stubborn refusal to treat books, or the theatre and movies, for that matter, as categories of entertainment to be indulged in when the working day is done.”

The New York Times further described the Review as “one of the most influential and admired journals of its kind, attracting a high-powered roster of writers” and The Chicago Tribune said the Review is “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.” Look inside and see for yourself.

Take the Current When It Serves, Or Lose Our Ventures

Brutus: "There is a tide in the affairs of men. Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat, And we must take the current when it serves, Or lose our ventures."

Julius Caesar Act 4, scene 3, 218–224

Books List - 2017

Ordered by most recently listened to, first.

Audiobooks 

1. F*ck Feelings (2015) - Michael Bennett
2. Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right (2016) - Jane Mayer
3. When Breath Becomes Air (2016) - Paul Kalanithi
4. The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night at a Time (2016) - Arianna Huffington
5. Bossypants (2011) - Tina Fey
6. In Search of Lost Time (Remembrances of Things Past) - Within a Budding Grove (1913-1927) - Marcel Proust 
7. The Princess Diarist (2016) - Carrie Fisher
1. We miss you Carrie
8. Yes Please (2015) - Amy Poehler
9. Night (1960) - Elie Wiesel
10. Just Getting Started (2016) - Tony Bennett
11. In Search of Lost Time (Remembrances of Things Past) - Swann's Way (1913-1927) - Marcel Proust 
12. Gravity's Rainbow (1973) - Thomas Pynchon
1. Much respect for this work--sublime, vulgar...
13. Kabloona (1941) -  Gontran de Poncins
14. What Happened (2017) - Hillary Rodham Clinton
15. Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon's Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart (2016) - James Doty
1. Liked this book
16. Are You Anybody? A Memoir (2017) - Jeffrey Tambor
17. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing (2011) - Marie Kondo
1. Started putting a few things into practice immediately
18. Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (2017) - Roxane Gay
19. So Much Things to Say: The Oral History of Bob Marley (2017) - Roger Steffens
20. Boys in the Trees – A Memoir (2015) - Carly Simon
21. All the Light We Cannot See (2014) - Anthony Doerr
1. Ate a jar of peaches
22. Minecraft: The Island (2017) - Max Brooks
23. Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking (2013) - Douglas R. Hofstadter, Emmanuel Sander
24. The Divine Comedy (1320) - Dante Alighieri
1. "...[H]e followed false images of goodness, which never pay their promises in full." - Purgatorio 30 (note: President Trump's pattern of behavior came to mind)
25. Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928) - D. H. Lawrence
26. Anna Karenina (1878) - Leo Tolstoy
27. Ulysses (1922) - James Joyce
1. Utterly baffled and amazed
28. My Life on the Road (2015) - Gloria Steinem
29. No Dream Is Too High (2016) - Buzz Aldrin
1. You're the average of the five people you spend the most time with...Show me your friends, and I will show you your future
30. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (2006) - Haruki Murakami
1. Let the exhilaration...at the end of each run carry over to the next day
2. Nothing in the real world is as beautiful as the illusions of a person about to lose consciousness (note: on completion of personal run to Marathon)
3. Local sake, especially Shimehari Tsuru is outstanding
31. You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) (2015) - Felicia Day 
32. The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories from My Life (2016) - John le Carré
33. Born on a Blue Day (2006) - Daniel Tammet
34. Jane Eyre (1847) - Charlotte Brontë
35. Based on a True Story: Not A Memoir (2016) - Norm Macdonald
36. Believe Me: A Memoir of Love, Death and Jazz Chickens (2017) - Eddie Izzard
37. My Own Words (2016) - Ruth Bader Ginsburg
38. Confessions of an Economic Hitman (2004) - John Perkins
39. Wishful Drinking (2008) - Carrie Fisher
40. Dust Tracks On A Road (1942) - Zora Neal Hurston 
41. Between the World and Me (2015) - Ta-Nehisi Coates
42. Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2017) - Phil Knight 
43. The Romanovs: The Final Chapter (1996) - Robert K. Massie
44. The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo (2016) -  Amy Schumer
1. "...like an annoying human zamboni..."
45. The Mockingbird Next Door: Life with Harper Lee (2014) - Marja Mills
46. Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future (2015) - Ashlee Vance 
47. Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman (2011) - Robert K. Massie
1. Empress Elizabeth's sunburn rinse: lemon juice, egg white, and French Brandy
2. 34 hours labor for first son Paul: 2:00 a.m. through noon the following day
3. The Annals of Tacitus: caused a singular revolution in her brain
48. Peter the Great: His Life and World (1980) - Robert K. Massie
49. Born To Run (2016) - Bruce Springsteen
50. Shocked (2014) - Carrie Fisher
51. Wild: From lost to found on the Pacific Crest Trail (2013) - Cheryl Strayed
52. No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World's 14 Highest Peaks (2006) - Edmund Viesturs
53. Twelve Years a Slave (1853) - Solomon Northup
54. The Greatest: My Own Story (1975) - Muhammad Ali
55. Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die: Musings from the Road (2012) - Willie Nelson
56. Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly (1852) - Harriet Beecher Stowe
57. Just Mercy (2014) - Bryan Stevenson
58. The 250 Job Interview Questions You'll Most Likely Be Asked (1999) - Peter Veruki
59. Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison (2010) - Piper Kerman
60. Chronicles, Volume One (2004) - Bob Dylan (note: abridged, at 4 hours, vs. 10 hours, unabridged)
61. A Burglar's Guide to the City (2016) - Geoff Manaugh
62. Clapton: The Autobiography (2007) - Eric Clapton
• Big fan of The Baby Whisperer books
• Visvim, his favorite shoe
63. Walk Through Walls: A Memoir (2016) - Marina Abramović
64. In Other Words (2016) - Jhumpa Lahiri
65. Girl Undressed (2008) - Ruth Fowler
66. Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant (1885) - Ulysses S. Grant
67. Bonobo Handshake: A Memoir of Love and Adventure in the Congo (2010) - Vanessa Woods
68. Life (2011) - Keith Richards

Using the Overdrive app.

Print

1. The Colour of Magic (1983) - Terry Pratchett *

* Purchased from Bookshop Santa Cruz.