https://www.nybooks.com/online/ Online comment from the writers of The New York Review of Books en-US Wed, 05 Aug 2026 17:24:06 -0400 On my last visit to Tripoli, this past June, the city often felt as if it had left the protracted conflicts of Libya’s post-Qaddafi era behind. At night, families were out in the streets catching a respite from the heat of the day. The occasional blasts were not gunfire but fireworks at wedding celebrations. Incoming […]]]> Wolfram Lacher Wed, 05 Aug 2026 11:17:16 -0400 https://www.nybooks.com/online/2026/08/05/libya-the-dangerous-gamble/ “Couples therapy”—the words alone are enough to send many people running. But Orna Guralnik, the clinical psychologist and star of Showtime’s documentary series Couples Therapy, has people running to her office. She has become a household name as well as a watchful guide for couples as they navigate intimate and sometimes agonizing discussions, and for […]]]> Merve Emre, Orna Guralnik Tue, 04 Aug 2026 08:00:00 -0400 https://www.nybooks.com/online/2026/08/04/listening-for-the-unconscious-orna-guralnik/ On the morning of Monday, July 20, as the monsoon session of India’s parliament opened, tens of thousands of protesters surged down the radial streets leading to the heart of official New Delhi. Most of them were young people marching in response to a call issued by Sonam Wangchuk, a well-known climate activist, to bring […]]]> Jonathan Mingle Sat, 01 Aug 2026 09:04:36 -0400 https://www.nybooks.com/online/2026/08/01/moving-mountains-sonam-wangchuk/ In this special hour-long edition of NYRSeminars, Daniel Mendelsohn, Editor-at-Large of The New York Review and author of the most recent translation of Homer’s epic, discusses Christopher Nolan’s polarizing blockbuster adaptation of the Odyssey.]]> Fri, 31 Jul 2026 09:08:47 -0400 https://www.nybooks.com/online/2026/07/31/homer-vs-hollywood-discussing-christopher-nolans-odyssey/ Just a few weeks before Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman premiered on Broadway on February 10, 1949, President Harry Truman elaborated his “Fair Deal” for the American people in his State of the Union address. “We have rejected the discredited theory that the fortunes of the Nation should be in the hands of a […]]]> Alisa Solomon Wed, 29 Jul 2026 12:49:00 -0400 https://www.nybooks.com/online/2026/07/29/take-that-phony-dream-and-burn-it-death-of-a-salesman/ Sarah Stillman is a staff writer at The New Yorker and one of the most decorated investigative reporters of her generation. She has won several National Magazine Awards, the Pulitzer Prize, and a MacArthur “Genius” Grant. Her work draws attention to the men and women forced to do the bidding of the American security state—the […]]]> Merve Emre, Sarah Stillman Tue, 28 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0400 https://www.nybooks.com/online/2026/07/28/people-want-to-be-heard-sarah-stillman/ Late one night in May 2016, Naif al-Qaysi was riding shotgun in an old Landcruiser as it barreled down an empty highway through the desert connecting Saudi Arabia and Yemen. For the past six months Naif, then thirty-three, had been the governor of Al-Bayda, a large mountainous region in central Yemen, which he was trying […]]]> Caitlin L. Chandler Sun, 26 Jul 2026 07:00:00 -0400 https://www.nybooks.com/online/2026/07/26/life-on-the-list/ In the Review’s June 25 issue, Joe Dunthorne writes about a recent oral history of the New York School poets and poses himself a challenge: “How to analyze a poetics of irreverence and improvisation—of life experienced in a perpetual present—without stifling precisely these qualities?” His essay suggests that the poetry in the scene, by writers […]]]> Joe Dunthorne, Aleander Santos Sat, 25 Jul 2026 10:30:00 -0400 https://www.nybooks.com/online/2026/07/25/all-of-life-joe-dunthorne/ In 2015, I was on a panel at New York’s Museum of Arts and Design titled “Do We Need Exhibitions Just for Women?” As I remember, most of the participants agreed that we did, though some expressed concerns about ghettoization or weariness at having a conversation they’d had many times before. As the youngest participant, […]]]> Jillian Steinhauer Sat, 25 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0400 https://www.nybooks.com/online/2026/07/25/the-woman-question/ In 1954, with the ending of French colonial rule in Southeast Asia, the Geneva Accords established Laos as an independent state, led by the Royal Lao government. Five years later, however, the Pathet Lao, backed by the communist government of North Vietnam, initiated a civil war that escalated, along with the Vietnam War, until 1975. […]]]> Jean Dykstra Fri, 24 Jul 2026 08:50:30 -0400 https://www.nybooks.com/online/2026/07/24/secondhand-memory/ In April 2024 international news sources circulated a video of a talk delivered by a senior Israeli military official during a tech conference at Tel Aviv University about a year earlier. The speaker, whose face is not shown, introduces himself only as “Colonel Yoav,” the head of data science and AI for Unit 8200, an […]]]> Sophia Goodfriend Thu, 23 Jul 2026 10:05:33 -0400 https://www.nybooks.com/online/2026/07/23/target-practice-israel-artificial-intelligence/ This episode is a reading of Daniel Mendelsohn’s review of the film Troy, an adaptation of the Iliad, from the Review’s June 24, 2004, issue. It is read by the countertenor and opera director Anthony Roth Costanzo. Among many other roles, Costanzo has performed as Prince Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus and Akhnaten in Philip Glass’s […]]]> Daniel Mendelsohn, Anthony Roth Costanzo Wed, 22 Jul 2026 13:49:23 -0400 https://www.nybooks.com/online/2026/07/22/anthony-roth-costanzo-reads-a-little-iliad/ Long before October 2023, Gaza’s people suffered international sanctions, a humiliating occupation, and periodic Israeli bombardments. Few could leave the enclave, even for medical care; the destruction of crucial infrastructure meant that clean water and electricity were intermittent; and thousands of men, women, and children were killed in periodic wars. Even peaceful protests were met […]]]> Helen Epstein Wed, 22 Jul 2026 12:55:44 -0400 https://www.nybooks.com/online/2026/07/22/gazas-deadly-soil/ In the fall of 2022, I saw the novelist Sheila Heti give a presentation on her conversations with early AI chat bots. Their names were Eliza, Alice, and George, and they had wild, undisciplined opinions about art, selfhood, and God. Talking to them seemed to come naturally to Heti. For several years, she had been […]]]> Merve Emre, Sheila Heti Tue, 21 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0400 https://www.nybooks.com/online/2026/07/21/consulting-the-oracle-sheila-heti/ “Democracy is a very old institution,” explains the Democratic National Committee’s autopsy of the 2024 election, belatedly released in May. “And yet what keeps democracy going is the ability of those who seek to lead to look at the data and determine the source of success as well as setbacks.” The report that followed did […]]]> Daniel Schlozman Mon, 20 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0400 https://www.nybooks.com/online/2026/07/20/the-dnc-against-itself/ Each of Iran’s recent wars has been quick to acquire a name. On the day Israel stopped bombing Iran in June 2025, Donald Trump took to Truth Social to declare the conflict over and, to nobody’s surprise, place himself at the center of the story. “I would like to congratulate both Countries,” he said, “Israel […]]]> Amir Ahmadi Arian Sun, 19 Jul 2026 07:00:00 -0400 https://www.nybooks.com/online/2026/07/19/the-war-of-the-south-iran/ On July 13 Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a campaign to destroy the International Criminal Court. Calling the ICC “a global tribunal staffed by unelected globalist bureaucrats who claim their power is almost unlimited,” he charged the court with “waging a war against our country, not with bullets or missiles but with statutes, compacts, […]]]> Aryeh Neier Sat, 18 Jul 2026 14:04:14 -0400 https://www.nybooks.com/online/2026/07/18/so-called-international-law-trump-icc/ In this episode of Private Life, Daniel Mendelsohn joins Jarrett Earnest to discuss his 2025 translation of Homer’s Odyssey and Christopher Nolan’s forthcoming film adaptation, premiering this week. They discuss the debate surrounding the film’s casting, the significance of descriptive language in translations, and the enduring place of Greek literature, history, and aesthetics in gay […]]]> Daniel Mendelsohn, Jarrett Earnest Wed, 15 Jul 2026 11:34:55 -0400 https://www.nybooks.com/online/2026/07/15/daniel-mendelsohn-the-odyssey-podcast/ With Close Encounters of the Third Kind Steven Spielberg promised an encounter and delivered one. Disclosure Day announces a precisely scheduled disclosure but at the last moment, just as a world-changing message is about to be delivered, cuts off the mic. “Listen,” says Emily Blunt as Margaret Fairchild, the Kansas City meteorologist who is now […]]]> Geoffrey O’Brien Tue, 14 Jul 2026 11:20:45 -0400 https://www.nybooks.com/online/2026/07/14/they-knew-too-much-disclosure-day/ I’ve been listening to Chana Joffe-Walt for a long time now on This American Life, where she often takes over from Ira Glass to host special episodes on race, labor, and education. Independently, she hosted the New York Times podcast Nice White Parents, which focused on school segregation and how progressive Brooklyn families undermined racial […]]]> Chana Joffe-Walt, Merve Emre Tue, 14 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0400 https://www.nybooks.com/online/2026/07/14/the-best-tape-chana-joffe-walt/ In the never-ending debate about freedom of speech on college campuses, conservatives have long condemned “cancel culture,” an attitude of intolerance toward conservative ideas. They are not wrong that liberal and left-wing views predominate at many top universities, and that many students and some faculty resist exposure to ideas they oppose. And to the extent […]]]> David Cole Sun, 12 Jul 2026 09:13:10 -0400 https://www.nybooks.com/online/2026/07/12/the-freedom-to-be-woke/ “The whole field of AI alignment—ensuring that machine intelligence can peacefully coexist with humanity—grew out of the pervasive anxiety that we might create monsters.” This is, Meghan O’Gieblyn argues in our June 25, 2026, issue, a distinctly parental anxiety, a primordial kind of maternal metaphor that appears over and over again in writing and interviews about AI development. […]]]> Meghan O’Gieblyn, Lauren Kane Sat, 11 Jul 2026 10:30:00 -0400 https://www.nybooks.com/online/2026/07/11/against-slop-meghan-ogieblyn/ In mid-February I found myself stuck for two days at Berlin’s Brandenburg Airport, stranded by a winter freeze. It had been a month since Iran’s security forces massacred thousands of protesters on January 8 and 9—dates that will be central to the story of the Islamic Republic’s decline in whatever history is eventually written. In […]]]> Nahid Siamdoust Sat, 11 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0400 https://www.nybooks.com/online/2026/07/11/spreading-static-iranian-media/ The thirteen paintings in Altoon Sultan’s exhibition at Hoffman Donahue take up little of the gallery’s wall space. Hung low, with varying distances between them, the works never exceed fourteen inches on a given side. But what they show is big. Big in a literal sense—Sultan paints cropped fragments of large agricultural machines that she […]]]> Joe Bucciero Fri, 10 Jul 2026 13:26:49 -0400 https://www.nybooks.com/online/2026/07/10/machine-aesthetics-altoon-sultan/ Close to midnight on Tuesday, April 7, a loud explosion rattled my family’s house in a suburb of Baghdad. A column of white smoke shadowed the alleys nearby. Men murmured, milling about in the street. Policemen drove past, unsure what had landed where. Downstairs, two days before her eleventh birthday, my niece shivered in her […]]]> Nabil Salih Thu, 09 Jul 2026 12:40:46 -0400 https://www.nybooks.com/online/2026/07/09/baghdad-the-illusion-of-peace/ The bar is no more than a narrow hall. There is barely enough space between the stools and the wall to walk through to a larger room at the back. Beyond the drawn curtains separating the spaces, two musicians are conducting a mic check before rows of mostly empty chairs. No one is paying attention […]]]> Ratik Asokan Wed, 08 Jul 2026 10:42:40 -0400 https://www.nybooks.com/online/2026/07/08/sodade-world-cup/ Episode 20 of Private Life]]> Geoffrey O’Brien, Eileen Myles Wed, 08 Jul 2026 08:30:00 -0400 https://www.nybooks.com/online/2026/07/08/from-the-archive-the-mayakovsky-of-macdougal-street/