Introduction

What is The New Yorker? I know it’s a great magazine and that it’s a tremendous source of pleasure in my life. But what exactly is it? This blog’s premise is that The New Yorker is a work of art, as worthy of comment and analysis as, say, Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” Each week I review one or more aspects of the magazine’s latest issue. I suppose it’s possible to describe and analyze an entire issue, but I prefer to keep my reviews brief, and so I usually focus on just one or two pieces, to explore in each the signature style of its author. A piece by Nick Paumgarten is not like a piece by Jill Lepore, and neither is like a piece by Ian Frazier. One could not mistake Collins for Seabrook, or Bilger for Goldfield, or Mogelson for Kolbert. Each has found a style, and it is that style that I respond to as I read, and want to understand and describe.

Wednesday, December 27, 2017

Best of 2017: Illustrations


Bendik Kaltenborn, "RJD2" (2017)















Here are my favorite New Yorker illustrations of 2017:

1. Bendik Kaltenborn’s “RJD2,” for Matthew Trammell’s “Night Life: New Routes” (January 9, 2017).

2. Riccardo Vecchio’s “Bill Knott,” for Dan Chiasson’s “The Fugitive” (April 3, 2017).



















3. Riccardo Vecchio’s “Fernando Pessoa,” for Adam Kirsch’s “Voices from the Void” (September 4, 2017).



















4. Edward Sorel’s “Sketchbook: Whack Jobs” (September 11, 2017).





















5. Andrea Ventura’s “Jenny Erpenbeck,” for James Wood’s “Strangers Among Us” (September 25, 2017).



















6. Bob Staake’s “Philip Kerr,” for Jane Kramer’s “The Plot Thickens” (July 10 & 17, 2017).



















7. Tom Bachtell’s “Michel Houellebecq,” for Lauren Collins’ “Sideline” (June 19, 2017).



















8. Vincent Mahé’s “The Tank,” for Alex Ross’s “Tank Music” (July 24, 2017).


















9. Gizem Vural’s “L. A. Rhapsody,” for Alex Ross’s “Classical Music: L. A. Rhapsody” (March 20, 2017).



















10. Byron Eggenschwiler’s “The Dead,” for Hilton Als’s “Memento Mori” (December 4, 2017).

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