Can AI have a headache? That’s the question @sanderpleij.bsky.social opens Issue Ten with — an essay that wonders what AI and the Vatican might have to say to one another. europeanreviewofbooks.com/can-ai-have-...

ISSUE 👏 TEN 👏 IS 👏 OUT! Black on white, with a glint of copper. Already available for our circle of members. europeanreviewofbooks.com/issues/issue...

Here’s a fragment of a dual-text poem by Karim Kattan, a Palestinian novelist, essayist and poet from Bethlehem who lives in France. « Alors, tue-le » is an exquisite wrenching poem raw with internalized self-violence. Read it all both in English and French. europeanreviewofbooks.com/so-kill-him-...

Borders, walls, cages, swimming pools, bullets, ears, pickaxes: in Gonçalo Tavares’s fable of a « liquid Europe », Europe's hopes for order, beauty or mercy end up as new ways of control. It's a story of traps. europeanreviewofbooks.com/fables-of-wi...

MEET THE ERB TEAM. The Issue 10 will come out soon, so we're getting in the Jubilee vibe already. In fact, we’re looking for more readers to join our peculiar Europe's stage of ideas, essays, pearls, vignettes and more. Support us – we bring gifts: europeanreviewofbooks.com/ten-issues-in/

In « The plant whisperers » is sort of a plant-travelogue, in which Kapka Kassabova follows the foragers, herbalists, and mushroom-hunters of Bulgaria — people who speak « plant language ». What a journey: europeanreviewofbooks.com/the-plant-wh...

Russian state media seized on the moment, turning her into a propaganda icon of supposed Ukrainian oppression. But « Babushka Z » was not a Russian patriot, but a scared and confused great-grandma trying to appease soldiers by waving a Soviet flag. Here: europeanreviewofbooks.com/babushka-z-c...

Names carry their own geographies — small worlds of language, memory, and resistance. In his essay, Szabolcs László writes about one such name — his own, and the history it refused to lose. europeanreviewofbooks.com/my-untransla...

So interesting and reminds me of the time I took a German English teacher friend to see Letter to Brezhnev / He understood hardly any of it…Am so enjoying @europeanreview.bsky.social

Here are six poems by Ukrainian poet Olesya Mamchych on war's long arc — from over hundred years of imperialism flowing over the border, to the war in Donbas in 2014, and full-scale invasion in 2022. Alongside that comes the persistence of love. europeanreviewofbooks.com/honorable-me...

10.000 — help! we have success ✨ Our newsletter just passed 10,000 readers (now 10,600!) — from Europe, Canada, India… hello India! 🇮🇳 So happy. We focused on quality writing + design, then got new team members, and now we’re growing fast — I may need to come back soon with a second crowdfunding…

In this one, Jonas Hassen Khemiri re-visits Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet. It is, more generally, also about re-visiting (or pointedly not re-visiting) those books that happened to stamp themselves on our earlier selves. europeanreviewofbooks.com/carry-the-pr...

Cinema history meets medieval art history meets a theologico-metaphysical question about sound itself. Here's an essay by Marisa Libbon. europeanreviewofbooks.com/of-trotting-...

Your Spanish, my Spanish, our Spanish — along with that r curling off the tongue. Nora Muñiz’s essay asks what happens when a language translates itself into different versions — and somehow lands as the European Review of « Coge The Bus ». europeanreviewofbooks.com/my-tongue-is...

What kingship does to a little dude, and what a little dude does to kingship? « Child Kings », a pearl by Marek Maj. europeanreviewofbooks.com/short-kings/

In war-torn Ukraine, trains still run like clockwork. How can such an impossibly efficient system hold together while Russia bombs cities and infrastructure daily? That’s the story in « Glory to the rails » — a review by Oksana Forostyna. Read here: europeanreviewofbooks.com/glory-to-the...

The Doomsday Clock once meant nuclear war. In After Midnight, Alexander Etkind & Johanna Gautier-Morin trace catastrophic learning and how today’s « pluralistic » disasters arrive « without a bang but with a thousand whimpers ». Read it here: europeanreviewofbooks.com/after-midnig...

Latest issue of @europeanreview.bsky.social has interesting piece on learning from catastrophe by @sashaetkind.bsky.social and @johannagautier.bsky.social with a letter in response from me #ClimateResponsibility #Louisiana #climateimpacts

🗣️ ISSUE NINE IS OUT! Alongside Patrick Doan’s vignettes, the heart of the ERB: stories, essays, and reviews — in our peculiar design with vivid images and un-killed darlings on 'level 2'. Take a look: europeanreviewofbooks.com/issues/issue...

We did it again! On Wednesday, we picked up Issue Nine. We gathered the team, brought along the ERB kid (a crucial part of the ritual, of course), and held Issue Nine in our hands for the first time. She’s growing, we’re growing. Launch on 4 September.

Attention! Uwaga! Uzmanību! Meet the cactus-man. We’re launching Issue Nine on 4 September. Blue, this time with a layer of aquamarine. Right now it’s still at the printer’s. We will not dare rob you of that first-look moment — more soon.

English or Turkish? Tipsy or çakırkeyf? What to do when picking a language doesn't go that easy? Ece Temelkuran’s One last round | Son bir şans — a letter to a bilingual editor — is now un-paywalled: europeanreviewofbooks.com/one-last-rou...

The biggest threat to cocoa production today? Cocoa production itself. But recovery is growing, led by a new generation of farmers. Powerful images by Maroussia Mbaye tell that story in « Re-generation ». Read it in front of the paywall: europeanreviewofbooks.com/re-generation/

What makes a good book title? « The Bible » is a good one, as it comes from the Greek word for « book » –– but it « can only be done once, unfortunately, » Peter Baldwin writes. Read his essay about the book titles –– the good, the bad, the ugly: europeanreviewofbooks.com/yellow-mello...

And speaking of the Schengen dialectic, what a great review of Stanley-Becker's book by @georgeblaustein.bsky.social of @europeanreview.bsky.social a few months back: europeanreviewofbooks.com/double-negat...

Making things up is « an opportunity to change ourselves », Samir Chadha writes in his review of the Norwegian writer Vigdis Hjorth's (1959) 5 novels. Maybe changing ourselves begins by adding Hjorth’s novels to our summer reading list. Now un-paywalled: europeanreviewofbooks.com/to-grieve-to...

« What does it mean for the mind to be at sea? » As the vacation season peaks and many of our readers head for the water, we highlight a piece from our Library that looks into that: Ben Carver’s review of Grelet’s Theory of the Solitary Sailor (2022). europeanreviewofbooks.com/the-coldest-...

How does a French novel once banned for indecency become a moral story about a singing blueberry? Cecelia Ramsey's essay that looks into that, « Madame Blueberry’s insatiable want », is now in front of the paywall. Read it here: europeanreviewofbooks.com/madame-blueb...

Beloved Blueskyans, I need a little help —there's a reward. The ERB is growing: major universities across Europe and the US are subscribing. But we need more. Please forward, repost or email the text in the reply to who can subscribe. If you help, I hereby grant you the title of INTELLECTUAL.

What do we tell ourselves when trees simply vanish? We’ve put Ann Marie Wilson’s beautiful essay « Tree illness as metaphor » in front of the paywall for you to find out. Read it here: europeanreviewofbooks.com/tree-illness...

Page 50, if you have one of these – Issue Eight europeanreviewofbooks.com/issues/issue...

One continent, forty countries, 65.000 kilometers. We’ve un-paywalled a retrospective and interview with Yamandú Roos — celebrating a decade of his photobook EUROPEANS and two decades of the project’s very first portrait — « Le Marseillais ». 
 See the pearl: bit.ly/20-years-of-...

Unpaywalled: The European review of love itself. In « The great schizophrenia » Nikianna Dinenis unpacks Marlen Haushofer’s Killing Stella & the enemy hiding in those we have to love. Read « The great schizophrenia » here: europeanreviewofbooks.com/the-great-sc...

@sanderpleij.bsky.social texted with Daniel Gascón, Madrid-based editor of @letraslibres.com, a Spanish-language literary magazine. Daniel tips the writer Mariano Gistain. Read it here: europeanreviewofbooks.com/texting-with...

Un-paywalled: Men in the off hours. Our editor Fernanda Eberstadt on French artist Gustave Caillebotte’s subversion of traditional gender roles: nude males at their toilette and grumpy clothed women reading the newspaper. Now free to read here: europeanreviewofbooks.com/men-in-the-o...

Thread on Philippe Oehmke’s Schönwald. This enjoyable novel sheds light on an intriguing aspect of the German (and European) publishing psyche.

A 43,000-year-old Neanderthal fingerprint made headlines recently. But in Issue Four, Christy Wampole in her review of Trenton Holliday’s Cro-Magnon had already asked: what is « art before art »? Read it in our Library: europeanreviewofbooks.com/art-before-a...

185 km separate Minsk from Vilnius. While the journey to the capital of Belarus is quick, the ride back into the Schengen Area becomes an eternity. We’ve unpaywalled Paula Domingo Pasarín’s travelogue: The shortest longest bus trip. Read it here: europeanreviewofbooks.com/the-shortest...

« When Americans rip off other people, nobody notices. » We texted with Nell Zink, an American novelist based in Germany, about her novel Sister Europe and the fading hegemony of American cultural influence. Read it here: bit.ly/nell-zink P.S. those are @sanderpleij.bsky.social notes.

We asked readers how they feel about ripping open the print edition. It resulted in what we fondly dubbed « the great ripping debate ». There’s a good mix of considerable joy, some frustration, and the occasional papercut. Here’s our designer Patrick showing one way to do it: with postcards.

How to write about « our » way of life’s dependence on the suffering of other living beings? That’s in Tania Roettger’s review of two novels by Lorenna Simmel and Munir Hachemi, who each sign up for agricultural jobs. On learning to hate chickens, now before the paywall: bit.ly/on-chickens

« Definitely need him in ERB!!! » That was in @sanderpleij.bsky.social editorial note after texting with Milan-based novelist @vincenzo.bsky.social. Read their brilliant conversation on narrative-less present (and beyond) here: europeanreviewofbooks.com/texting-with...

What is to be done with the Syrian gulag’s enormous archive? So ask @uungor.bsky.social and Ali Aljasem, scholars of modern Syria. That’s what generated this extraordinary essay from Issue Eight. How to abandon an archive – now in front of the paywall. europeanreviewofbooks.com/how-to-aband...

« Drop the need to tear open pages in the print edition. It kills me » – that's some of the feedback we received from you. Thank you for getting back to us! We believe it's time we share some of the best methods for ripping open the pages. Here’s our editor Fernanda to demonstrate what can be done.

It’s crazy to think that Schengen is less than 30 years old (and more recent than that in some countries) It’s such a defining part of the modern European experience that it’s hard to imagine it not existing, even if I was alive then. From the @europeanreview.bsky.social

How to write? How to write a novel, a character? After his chat with British author Jonathan Buckley, @sanderpleij.bsky.social made a few notes. One read: « Mesmerising. » Read the full conversation here: europeanreviewofbooks.com/texting-with...

Now before the paywall: an excerpt from Natalja’s Stories, a novella by Inger Christensen (1935–2009), one of Denmark’s literary treasures. Does a story become less or more true when it’s told and retold? Read it here: europeanreviewofbooks.com/there-was-on...

Thirty losses and counting. Will Lithuania win the Eurovision this year? We asked Justina Buskaitė for an update on Lithuania’s odds this year, since the piece originally ran last spring. Read « We are the winners of Eurovision » in our Library: europeanreviewofbooks.com/we-are-the-w...

Now in front of the paywall: when nothing makes sense, Palestinian writer Karim Kattan retreats to three unreadable cities – Bethlehem, Jericho & Jerusalem. Read it here: europeanreviewofbooks.com/bethlehem-je...

When we pick up a new issue at the printer’s, we often bring the ERB’s resident toddler. Still a helpless baby-in-a-box for Issue One, for our latest – Issue Eight – the preschooler could be convinced to climb a forklift. Issue Eight, everyone: europeanreviewofbooks.com/issues/issue...