Adam Straus on "Down Time": “A devoted chronicler of the overeducated and underachieving, Martin is interested in those for whom the world is wide open but who invariably fall short of their promise.” https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/down-time-andrew-martin-millennial-novel-early-work
"In recent years, it has become fashionable among some historians to excuse the excesses of men like these as motivated by therapeutic zeal. I don’t agree."
Andrew Scull on Jon Stock's "The Sleep Room": https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/william-sargant-electroshock-lobotomy-sleep-room-jon-stock
"By focusing more on its journey through the world, scholars might be able to arrive at a different, more complete understanding of its significance."
Tim Brinkhof on "Somos Pacífico": https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/somos-pacifico-singapore-mexico-trade-route-exhibition-review/
Andrew Witt revisits John Divola with the "Dogs Chasing My Car in the Desert" reissue: "This was not Divola’s first foray into the rhetoric of the sublime, nor the photographic ruin, nor their depleted codes."
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/john-divola-dogs-chasing-my-car-isolated-houses/
"I mourn because this war is doubly mine. This is my war because it is my government that is waging it, brutally and mercilessly. It is mine because the target is a place I love."
Hooman Majd on Iran and home: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/iran-united-states-war-2026-diaspora-hooman-majd/
"We arrive at these large exhibitions already in agreement, compliant, expecting our political values to be reflected and confirmed, not challenged or outraged."
Bradley Wester on identity and art: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/bradley-wester-dean-kissick-arlene-croce-challenging-art/
LARB members are invited to join us for a cocktail hour in the garden of the Wende. Sign up as a member today to save your spot! lareviewofbooks.org/membership
LARB and the Planetary Program at the Berggruen Institute are thrilled to present Naming the Unknown, exploring how language evolves to name and make sense of emerging phenomena.
Free and open to public—RSVP now: lareviewofbooks.org/event/naming...
“Schools have removed everything from William Faulkner’s novels to books designed to help victims of sexual violence.”
John Downes-Angus on Samuel Cohen’s “Banning Books in America: Not a How-To”: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/banning-books-america-samuel-cohen-censorship-libraries-education/
Tess Pollok interviews Patricia Lockwood speaks to Tess Pollok about approaching her latest book, "Will There Ever Be Another You": “I tend to think and write from very, very deeply inside myself.” https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/patricia-lockwood-will-there-ever-be-another-you/
Thrilled that my essay, "Fear and Writing in Xinjiang," was chosen by the editors of the @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social to be included in their 15th Anniversary Anthology!
Thanks to @jwassers.bsky.social and @bspivey.bsky.social for commissioning the piece and for their editorial work!
"Many biographies use a singular life as a kaleidoscope to refract a historical period and view its patterns. Cobb’s biography does something different."
Angela Creager reviews Matthew Cobb’s new book: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/francis-crick-james-watson-double-helix-dna-biography
They're here.
Welcome to LARB's latest Quarterly, the "15th Anniversary Issue," out today. Join now to get your copy and choose your own cover: https://lareviewofbooks.org/membership
Fascinating article about Claire Douglas, who was married to J.D. Salinger at the height of his literary fame and who served as the model for his character Franny Glass. After their divorce in 1967, she eventually became a highly-respected Jungian analyst and scholar.
"Parallels reveal themselves in creative manifestos from both sides of the Pacific."
Tim Brinkhof on an exhibition that charts the ties between East Asia and Latin America: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/somos-pacifico-singapore-mexico-trade-route-exhibition-review/
"If something survives the decimation, it’ll be art."
Adam Straus reviews "Down Time" by Andrew Martin: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/down-time-andrew-martin-millennial-novel-early-work/
"Fascist ideas were hiding in plain sight."
Juliette Bretan on what the transnational links among fascist movements in the 1930s can tell us about the Far Right today: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/transnational-fascism-united-states-nazis-hungary-yugoslavia-germany/
"The work treats the human figure as a kind of punctuation mark in a landscape that is indifferent, if not actively hostile, to the figure’s presence."
Andrew Witt on John Divola's desert: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/john-divola-dogs-chasing-my-car-isolated-houses/
"We are word-making creatures, and our words, “at their best”... offer hope and purpose, a way of figuring out who we are, who we have been, and where we might be going." lareviewofbooks.org/article/mark... in @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social
What role should place play in our nonfiction writing? Let Sierra Crane Murdoch be your guide in our upcoming Spring educational workshop. Class is online at 5-7 p.m. PST from April 14 to May 19, 2026. Sign up today: https://lareviewofbooks.org/event/writing-in-place-w-sierra-crane-murdoch/
Wrote about @samcohen.bsky.social’s book banning volume for @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social. The volume invites us to consider why books matter—and it shows the many ways they’re under attack, even here in progressive NYC.
lareviewofbooks.org/article/bann...
"When I see my students scrolling away their formative years on a computer screen, most of them don’t look happy." Joshua Hall on Mark Edmundson the difficult pleasure of finding god-terms: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/mark-edmundson-literary-criticism-american-university-humanities-essay/
So grateful for this thoughtful, generous review: "Those of us who care about what books can do should consider what these contributors have to tell us."
“Cohen describes books as ‘the oldest and best place where opinions and impressions and whole worlds are captured and recorded.’ He’s right.”
John Downes-Angus on “Banning Books in America.” https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/banning-books-america-samuel-cohen-censorship-libraries-education/
“When you’re writing about mental illness, there’s always a lot of fear around being misunderstood or not being believed.”
Patricia Lockwood discusses her book "Will There Ever Be Another You" with Tess Pollok: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/patricia-lockwood-will-there-ever-be-another-you/
Nadia Davids on her new novel, "Cape Fever": "My introduction to the uncanny was through women who were powerful, funny, persuasive storytellers talking amongst themselves, so perhaps that was the seed."
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/nadia-davids-cape-fever-south-africa-novel-pandemic
"'Sound of Falling' leaves us unsure of the extent to which trauma and strength are intertwined, passed down in equal measure from one generation of women to the next."
Marya Gates on Mascha Schilinski’s "Sound of Falling": https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/perhaps-youre-not-yourself-but-her/
"There were more agents than family physicians in Minnesota—a reminder that this administration, like many previous ones, values enforcement over care."
Kate Collier on resisting ICE: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/minneapolis-operation-metro-surge-immigration-authoritarian-mutual-aid
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