‘Books? Review? Europe? A European Review of Books would sound thrice-doomed. And yet here we are.’ Here they are indeed. The ERB is made up of the things you’d expect: fiction, essays, poetry, art, and reviews about Europe and from Europe. But there are also things inside you might not expect to find: pops of colours, ‘pearls’ of wisdom, multilingual articles, and pages joined together by perforated edges which need to be (gently) torn open to continue reading and keep track of your progress through the publication. This tenth edition appears in crisp black on white, and comes equipped with a sturdy dual-purpose bookmark that also functions as a knife for opening those sealed pages. Contributors and friends from across the continent gather in a true potpourri, highlighting themes across film, music and literature: The Mediterranean at the centre of the world; Pope Francis’ note on the relationship between artificial and human intelligence; letters to strangers; political dreams; Germany’s looted libraries—and much more. On the JournalAt Work With Sander Pleij: ‘The ERB is necessarily more experimental, and even chaotic, than the London Review of Books and New York Review of Books (great magazines!). Experimental because while there is a ‘European’ orbit to the endeavour, it’s an orbit without a set center or superstructure. We need other metaphors: knocking on a thousand doors at once? We begin from the sense that ‘European’ is curiously up for grabs, and we very much want to keep it up for grabs.’READ MORE europeanreviewofbooks.com
