Tag Archives: Reviews

THE NEW YORKER MAGAZINE – NOVEMBER 17, 2025

Edel Rodriguez's “Mayor Mamdani” | The New Yorker

THE NEW YORKER MAGAZINE: The latest cover features Edel Rodriguez’s “Mayor Mamdani”

The Mamdani Era Begins

His opponents tried to smear him for his youth, inexperience, and leftist politics. But New Yorkers didn’t want a hardened political insider to be mayor—they wanted Zohran Mamdani.

Dick Cheney’s Brand of Conservatism

For years before taking office, the former Vice-President appeared less dogmatic than he was.

The Dishy Operatics of Lily Allen’s Breakup Album

On “West End Girl,” all the gritty bits are there: messages with a husband’s mistress, the discovery of a cache of sex toys.

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY – NOVEMBER 7, 2025 PREVIEW

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY: The latest issue features ‘A Massacre Foretold’ – The Tragedy of El Fasher’

For some time now, El Fasher in Sudan has been a city beyond the reach of journalists. But the haunting satellite image on our cover this week, of smoke billowing from fires near El Fasher’s airport, told its own story as starkly as anything that could be reported from the ground.

Other satellite images showed clusters of burned-out vehicles, and what appeared to be pools of blood beside piles of bodies on the ground. A massacre was under way that could be seen from space.

The last major city in Darfur to fall to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) was already the scene of catastrophic levels of human suffering, but has “descended into an even darker hell”, senior UN officials warned last week. This key moment in the two-and-a-half-year-long civil war has unfolded in plain sight with minimal intervention from the international community, unless you count the United Arab Emirates, which has been arming the RSF paramilitaries.

Spotlight | The Andrew formerly known as a prince
Stupidity and self-entitlement sank King Charles III’s disgraced younger brother – and the royal reckoning may not be over yet, writes Stephen Bates

Technology | What if the internet just … stopped working?
Could everything suddenly go offline and if so, how? Aisha Down goes inside the fragile system holding the modern world together

Interview | Margaret Atwood puts the world to rights
At 85, she’s a literary seer and saint – and queen of the Canadian resistance. So what does the writer make of our dystopian society? Lisa Allardice finds out

Opinion | World leaders: Cop30 could be your great legacy
With the US backing away from the climate crisis, now is the moment when other nations must step up, says former British prime minister Gordon Brown

Culture | Back to black with Lynne Ramsay
The Scottish film director burst on to the scene with Ratcatcher and terrified audiences with We Need to Talk About Kevin. Her latest film stars Hollywood darling Jennifer Lawrence, but it doesn’t flinch from the dark side of family life, finds Amy Raphael

THE NEW YORKER MAGAZINE – NOVEMBER 10, 2025

New Yorkers walk by a tree on a rainy day.

THE NEW YORKER MAGAZINE: The latest cover features ‘Sudden Shower’ by Sergio-Garcia Sanchez.

The Case That A.I. Is Thinking

ChatGPT does not have an inner life. Yet it seems to know what it’s talking about. By James Somers

Voting Rights and Immigration Under Attack

The President’s goals were clear on the first day of his term, when he issued an executive order overruling the Fourteenth Amendment’s birthright-citizenship clause. By Jelani Cobb

Mobsters We Have Seen on High

The jewel heist at the Louvre reminded Brooklynites of the time, in 1952, when two bejewelled crowns were swiped from a beloved local church—the one with a Mob boss on the ceiling. By Susan Mulcahy

LITERARY REVIEW – NOVEMBER 2025

LITERARY REVIEW : The latest issue features Jeremy Noel-Tod on Seamus Heaney * Kathryn Murphy on Vermeer * Kirsten Tambling on two 18th-century artists * Sophie Oliver on Katherine Mansfield * Lucy Lethbridge on reading * Tom Shippey on the first king of England * Daniel Rey on Christopher Columbus * Nigel Jones on U-boats * Richard Vinen on the Second World War * John Phipps on John le Carré * Julian Baggini on effective altruism 

The Pen & the Spade

The Poems of Seamus Heaney By Rosie Lavan, Bernard O’Donoghue and Matthew Hollis (edd.)

Vermeer: A Life Lost and Found By Andrew Graham-Dixon

A woman stands, oblivious to our gaze, absorbed entirely in her activity – reading, pouring, weighing, holding out her pearls. A window to the left admits a radiance, which falls variously on the common stuff the room contains. The light enters as an absolute blank, but infuses colour as it illuminates the scene. 

Katherine Mansfield: A Hidden Life By Gerri Kimber

The rush to tell the story of Katherine Mansfield’s short, fascinating life began as soon as she died. Her husband, John Middleton Murry, a gifted editor, notoriously turned the publication of her writing into an industry. 

THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE – NOV. 2, 2025

Current cover

THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE: The 11.2.25 Issue features Susan Dominus on women taking testosterone; Dan Brooks on the comedian Stavros Halkias; Joshua Leifer on Haredi conscription in Israel; and more.

‘Frankenstein’ Has Always Held Up a Mirror. What Does It Show Us Now?

In Guillermo del Toro’s new version, the answer lies in how deeply it explores the relationship between creator and created.

In the Trump Presidency, the Rules Are Vague. That Might Be the Point.

The U.S. has long believed that unspecific laws threaten democracy. So why is the administration being so vague? By Matthew Purdy

A Teen in Love With a Chatbot Killed Himself. Can the Chatbot Be Held Responsible?

A mother in Florida filed a lawsuit against an A.I. start-up, alleging its product led to her son’s death. The company’s defense raises a thorny legal question. By Jesse Barron

The Island That Keeps the Earth’s Secrets

Sulawesi, Indonesia, blurs the boundaries between myth and ecology. What might it reveal about our past – or destiny? Photographs and Text by Balarama Heller

THE ECONOMIST MAGAZINE – NOVEMBER 1, 2025 PREVIEW

THE ECONOMIST MAGAZINE: The latest issue featuresThe battle for New York

The battle for New York

A fight is brewing between Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani 

Why funding Ukraine is a giant opportunity for Europe

The bill will be huge. It is also a historic bargain

America and China have only holstered their trade weapons

Neither country wants decoupling or confrontation—at least, not yet

Javier Milei’s chance to transform Argentina and teach the world

Lessons in public finance from the original sinner

TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT – OCTOBER 31, 2025 PREVIEW

TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT: The latest issue features ‘Extinction rebellion’ – How Tennyson speaks to our fears.

Collision course

The troubled history of US-China relations By Katie Stallard

Playing a game to tell the truth

Iris Murdoch’s unseen poetry, transcribed for the first time By Miles Leeson

The Kraken wakes

Tennyson’s embrace of science and catastrophe theory By Angela Leighton

Winter is coming!

Tales of the uncanny from a master of ambiguity By Joyce Carol Oates

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY – OCTOBER 31, 2025 PREVIEW

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY: The latest issue features ‘Pressure Points’ – Will US sanctions put the squeeze on Putin?

Donald Trump’s sudden decision last week to sanction Russian oil producers suggested the US president has finally lost patience with Vladimir Putin after a series of fruitless talks over ending the war in Ukraine.

Could it break the deadlock? Oil sanctions have the potential to genuinely damage Moscow’s finances, as the Russian president himself admitted last week. It remains to be seen, though, whether economic pressure alone can bend Putin’s arm over a conflict he views as defining to his legacy.

In this week’s big story, Guardian Russia affairs reporter Pjotr Sauer asks whether sanctions could succeed where diplomacy has failed, while Christopher S Chivvis of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace argues that a negotiated settlement remains the likeliest way to bring nearly four years of fighting to a halt.

In the frontline Ukrainian city of Kupiansk, senior reporter Peter Beaumont finds little hope of a quick resolution, with much of the population having left and the remaining soldiers stuck in a war they believe is “going nowhere for either side”.

Five essential reads in this week’s edition

Spotlight | The populist leaders’ economic playbook
From Milei to Meloni, are the economics of populism always doomed to failure? This long read from economics editor Heather Stewart tries to bridge the gaps between populist aspiration and fiscal reality

Environment | The deadly migration routes of elephants
Human-wildlife conflict has overtaken poaching as a cause of fatalities among elephants – and is deadly for people too. Now some villages are finding new ways to live alongside the mammals, reports Patrick Greenfield

Interview | Is Jimmy Wales the good guy of the internet?
The Wikipedia founder stands out from his contemporaries for being driven by more than money. But can the people’s encyclopedia withstand attacks from AI and Elon Musk? By David Shariatmadari

Opinion | Without genuine truth and justice, the war in Gaza cannot end
A fragile ceasefire is in place, but what’s needed is an international tribunal for resolution and reparation. That’s the only route to lasting peace, argues Simon Tisdall

Culture | The electrifying genius of Gerhard Richter
He has painted everything from a candle to 9/11, walked his naked wife through photographic mist, and turned Titian into a sacred jumble. A new Paris show reveals the German artist in all his contradictory brilliance, says Adrian Searle

THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS – NOVEMBER 20, 2025

Table of Contents - November 20, 2025 | The New York Review of Books

THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS: The latest issue features Fintan O’Toole on Kamala’s pointless campaign memoir, Jonathan Lethem on One Battle After Another, Anne Diebel on the trials of infertility, Colin B. Bailey on Watteau’s sad clowns, Linda Kinstler on the invention of sovereign states, Langdon Hammer on James Schuyler’s shimmering poetry, Samuel Stein on NIMBYs and YIMBYs, Miranda Seymour on Frankenstein’s mother, Adam Shatz on Alice Coltrane, a poem by Rae Armantrout, and much more.

The Lingering Delusion

107 Days by Kamala Harris

Kamala Harris’s memoir 107 Days succeeds at least in distilling the evasions and weaknesses of the modern Democratic Party.

Falling Off the Map

The Life and Death of States:  Central Europe and the Transformation of Modern Sovereignty by Natasha Wheatley

How States Die: Membership and Survival in the International System by Douglas Lemke

World War I set the stage a century ago for new ways of thinking about where states come from and what happens when they disappear.

APOLLO MAGAZINE – NOVEMBER 2025 PREVIEW

November 2025 - Apollo Magazine

APOLLO MAGAZINE: The latest issue features The Studio Museum in Harlem is back | have we reached peak Bloomsbury? | Tilda Swinton turns herself into art | how Constable ploughed his own furrow | Michaelina Wautier takes her place among the greats

Is the art market at a turning point?

After a gloomy few years, promising auction results and some exciting upcoming sales suggest that the market could be on the road to recovery

Yerevan, Armenia’s rock-star capital

A century ago, Alexander Tamanyan devised a startling layout for the city. Despite changes in regime and fashion, his vision has endured