London Review of Books

Let us first examine theediscerning?' title today. It refers to the more pertinent words in the name of this publication - namely, London, Review, and Books, of course. London most certainly is relevant. The LRB (as it is more snappily known) lives on Little Russell Street, and within the past year has launched its own bookshop at Bury Place. But much more importantly, of course, are the questions "do they review?" and "do they review books?" Well, the answers here are more complex. First off, let us take the example of the issue dated 19th June 2003, which is the most current but one. In this we find two pages of ...  Read the complete review

Essays for most of us simply mean the things we had to write in School. We certainly wouldn't want to read them for pleasure. However there is long tradition of essay writing in English and of people reading them for fun. Fortunately the writers in the London Review of Books (hereafter LRB) are skilful enough to make reading their work a pleasure at least for me, who likes that sort of thing. If reading a long article in the Sunday supplement of the Times or the Guardian is too much like hard work this particular magazine is probably not for you CONTENT: Essays (normally about a dozen) Poems (2 or3) and the occasional piece of literary fiction. This ...  Read the complete review