The European Review of Books #5

The European Review of Books is a magazine of culture and ideas, in English and in a writer’s own tongue. They publish book-length print issues three times a year, and digital pieces each week.

No review of books reviews only books, nor does it merely review. They publish many kinds of writing: fiction, travelogue, provocation, parody, poem, come what may. In general they champion the essayistic mode.

A good essay is the antidote to the measly opinion, the enemy of the airy platitude. They want avenues to the arcane, the profane, the grand.

Issue #5

Issue Five is verdant green, and the vignette on the cover is a teddy bear that doesn’t want to budge.

The 2024 spring-summer issue has questions: How best to lose Eurovision? What is Russia-themed erotica about? And it has destinations, often anguished ones: refugees and guards on the Polish border, Russians in Istanbul, Europe’s noisiest island, early Zionist disillusionment in Palestine, a return to Phnom Penh. Javier Milei literarily considered, Vincent van Gogh’s forgotten friend, Walter Benjamin’s last resort, Hélène Cixous on fiery foundations, philosophy at sea.

All with the ERB’s remarkable print design: turn the pages to read, but cut the pages for a second layer of depth and digression.