Category Archives: Arts & Literature

THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS – JUNE 25, 2026

THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS: The latest issue features Fintan O’Toole on The Emptiness of Greatness….

Gulliver’s Warning

Like Gulliver in Lilliput, “greatness” in the political realm depends on the existence of a group deemed puny or weak.

APOLLO MAGAZINE ———- JUNE 2026 PREVIEW

June 2026 - Apollo Magazine

APOLLO MAGAZINE: The latest issue features ‘Hare Style’ – Vienna’s Albertina at 250…

LITERARY REVIEW MAGAZINE – JUNE 2026 PREVIEW

LITERARY REVIEW : The latest issue features Peter Moore on George Forster * Anne Perkins on the Balfour family * William Whyte on British dons * Ian Thomson on the fall of the USSR * Joe Moshenska on Spinoza * Jeremy Treglown on Juan Carlos of Spain * D J Taylor on Henrietta Moraes * Howard Davies on recession * Martin Vander Weyer on Goldman Sachs * Piers Brendon on disinformation * Richard Vinen on Kissinger * Bettina Bildhauer on medieval health * John Mullan on Emily Brontë* Joseph Hone on Jonathan Swift * Duncan Fallowell on Lady Chatterley * 

The Traveller: The Revolutionary Life of George Forster and his Search for Humanity

By Andrea Wulf

An exemplary tour of the High Enlightenment might go something like this. You’d begin in the streets of 1760s London to feel the pulse of Georgian commerce. You’d then hop aboard one of Captain Cook’s colliers and cruise through the Pacific, having encounters every day. Returning to Europe you might watch Benjamin Franklin in diplomatic action at Passy and dine with Casanova in Vienna, before sailing up the Rhine with Humboldt. Having inspected the Soho Manufactory in Birmingham and admired the picturesque scenery of the Peak District, you’d cross the Channel just in time for the grand and bloody finale in Paris. 

Twilight of the Dons: British Intellectuals from World War II to Thatcherism

By Colin Kidd

Arriving as an undergraduate at Cambridge in 1961, Terry Eagleton was both overawed and underwhelmed by his supervisor, a man he calls Greenway in his memoir. ‘Greenway was the first truly civilised man I had ever encountered,’ Eagleton recalls.

This Dark Night: The Life of Emily Brontë

By Deborah Lutz

We know so little about Emily Brontë. There are just a few snapshots, like the vivid recollection of her sister Charlotte’s great friend Ellen Nussey: ‘Her extreme reserve seemed impenetrable, yet she was intensely loveable … one of her rare expressive looks was something to remember through life, there was such a depth of soul and feeling..

THE NEW YORKER MAGAZINE – JUNE 8, 2026 PREVIEW

The cover of the June 8 2026 Fiction Issue of The New Yorker on which there is a cutaway view of a library filled with...

THE NEW YORKER MAGAZINE: The latest issue cover features ‘Sergio García Sánchez and Lola Moral’s “The Secret Life of Books” – A living library. By Françoise Mouly

Maggie O’Farrell and the Art of Inventing the Past

Why read historical fiction? A new novel by the author of “Hamnet” offers one answer: because it’s fun. By Katy Waldman

Why the American Novel Refused to Grow Up

For the critic Leslie Fiedler, the country’s best and worst fiction was shaped by visions of escape from society—and therefore from maturity. By Becca Rothfeld

The World Cup According to Gianni Infantino

FIFA’s powerful president is remaking global soccer in his own image. Can the sport survive him? By Sam Knight

TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT – MAY 29, 2026 PREVIEW

TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT: The latest issue features ‘Is DNA destiny?’ – Matthew Cobb on engineering humanity.

Examining poets

J. H. Prynne and Geoffrey Hill’s clash over ‘hazards in rubric’ By Gabriel Rolfe

Metalheads and quilters

‘Aside from writing, what is your chief distraction, obsession or side-hustle?’ Writers at the Hay Festival reveal their private passions

The traitors

Cold War double agents, their lives and motives By Richard Davenport-Hines

‘I shall feel again, as soon as I dare’

Addictive anthologies of letters and diaries By Dinah Birch

THE NEW YORKER MAGAZINE – JUNE 1, 2026 PREVIEW

A visual tribute to some of the greatest Knicks players of all time.

THE NEW YORKER MAGAZINE: The latest issue cover features ‘Mark Ulriksen’s “Kings of New York” – A historic season for the Knicks.

How Prepared Are We for a Public-Health Emergency?

The outbreaks of hantavirus and Ebola expose the shortsightedness of America’s retreat, under the Trump Administration, from its role as a global-health leader. By Dhruv Khullar

The Trump-Epstein Files: Look but Don’t Touch

The Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Reading Room, in Tribeca, housed three and a half million bound files, along with a handy time line charting the ickiness. By Charlotte Goddu

How Problematic Is Patriotism?

National pride in America has plummeted in the Trump era. Is it worth trying to salvage? By Arthur Krystal

THE NEW YORKER MAGAZINE – MAY 25, 2026 PREVIEW

The cover of the May 25 2026 issue of The New Yorker which features a young artist painting in a park on a sunny day.

THE NEW YORKER MAGAZINE: The latest issue cover features ‘Kadir Nelson’s “Plein Air” – Impressions of spring.

Can the Democrats Take Back the Senate?

Their electoral prospects are finally improving, but opportunities can quickly give way to divisions. Does the Party have a plan? By Amy Davidson Sorkin

The Human-Trafficking Victim Next Door

A young girl was brought from Guinea to a wealthy suburb near Dallas. She spent the next sixteen years of her life in forced servitude. By Yudhijit Bhattacharjee

Can Hakeem Jeffries Lead a Democratic Takeover of the House?

An unprecedented gerrymandering effort led by Donald Trump—and internal divisions among Democrats—has made the Minority Leader’s path to victory harder than ever. By Jason Zengerle

Mary Todd Lincoln Has Long Been Derided. Is Her Reputation Salvageable?

History knows the First Lady as a hysterical widow and a lavish spender. Her most recent biographer chooses to highlight her mental fortitude and political prowess. By Thomas Mallon

The New Criterion ———- JUNE 2026 Preview

THE NEW CRITERION: The latest issue features ‘Political philosophy? by Harvey Mansfield; A dream of reason by Bartle Bull; The elephant in the room by Anthony Daniels; Kierkegaard & the age by Jacob Howland; New poems by Morri Creech, Kaily Dorfman, Matthew Stewart & John Poch….

Guernica Magazine ——— May 2026 Preview

GUERNICA MAGAZINE: The latest issue features striking original artwork courtesy of creators Jérémie Guiguen, Mike Blackman, Deepak, Taelor Worthington, and Cliff Warner.

Fiction & Nonfiction: You can explore the Fiction – Guernica section for recently published narrative stories and ongoing literary additions.

Special Issues: Guernica frequently publishes thematic special issues ranging from “Climate Fiction” to “Race in America,” all of which can be browsed via the Guernica Magazine Explore page. [1]

I Was Trying to Photograph a Feeling: Showkat Nanda on Buried Archives, Generational Memory, and Dreaming Against Forgetting in Kashmir

By Youmna M. Chamieh 

How do photographs carry the afterlives of violence? Threading together personal and collective histories, photographer Showkat Nanda reflects on documenting Kashmir not merely as a site of conflict, but as a lived world shaped by endurance and the struggle against forgetting.

Notes on Going Viral

By Isaac James Richards 

What I dream of, then, when I think about what Jürgen Habermas called “the postsecular society,” is a foggy middle path. I’m not willing to fall for the false choice between religion and democracy simply because either feels like more solid footing than walking the tightrope between them.

LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS – MAY 21, 2026 PREVIEW

LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS: The latest issue features

Lead Essays & Politics

  • “America’s Afghanistan Delusion” by Tom Stevenson: Stevenson examines the legacy of the War on Terror, arguing that the 2021 withdrawal from Kabul was viewed by the Western establishment as a “mistake” or “cautionary tale” rather than the “crime” he suggests it was. He traces the expansion of American power through “black sites” and military advisers across the globe.
  • “Short Cuts: Labour’s Failure” by James Butler: Butler analyzes the results of the English local elections (held on May 7). He criticizes Keir Starmer’s leadership style as “all injunction and no argument” and explores why national revulsion toward the Labour Party overshadowed local government issues.
  • “Where’s All the Cash?” by John Lanchester: A characteristically lucid investigation into modern economics, focusing on the circulation of physical currency and the shifting nature of wealth in a digital-first economy.

Literature & History

  • “On Marlen Haushofer” by Becca Rothfeld: A deep dive into the work of the Austrian writer, specifically her 1963 masterpiece The Wall. Rothfeld explores Haushofer’s recurring themes of entrapment and isolation, noting the paradoxical “joy” found in her most barricaded characters.
  • “Baltic Snake Cults” by Diarmaid MacCulloch: The eminent historian reviews the long survival of paganism and “serpent worship” in the Baltic regions, challenging the standard narrative of a monolithic Christian Europe during the Middle Ages.
  • “Should We Punish?” by Thomas Nagel: The philosopher engages with the ethics of the penal system, weighing the traditional justifications for punishment against contemporary moral and legal theories.

Other Features

“The Clearance of Aoineadh Mòr, 1824” by Tarn MacArthur: A historical account of the Highland Clearances, specifically focusing on the displacement of communities in Scotland.

At the Movies: Michael Wood provides his regular column of film criticism, likely focusing on current European or art-house releases.

Poetry & Correspondence: The issue also contains poems and a robust letters section, which in this period has been heavily occupied by debates over the Arctic (following Laleh Khalili’s piece in the previous issue) and the fallout of the UK local elections.