Instagram Story Save

The Spring 2026 issue is online now, featuring Brandon Taylor on Ben Lerner’s “Transcription,” Christine Smallwood on the first four volumes of Solvej Balle’s “On the Calculation of Volume,” Stephanie Wambugu on the novels of Vigdis Hjorth, and essays and reviews on Greg Tate, Edward Said, Emily LaBarge, and much more. On the Cover: Mamma Andersson, About a Girl, 2005, acrylic and oil on two panels, each: 24 × 63”. Courtesy Galleri Magnus Karlsson. Photo: Per-Erik Adamsson.

☀️The Winter 2026 issue of @bookforum is out now! Inside: Omari Weekes on Namwali Serpell’s study of Toni Morrison, Anahid Nersessian on Kay Gabriel’s Perverts, Mary Turfah on Wasim Said’s Witness to the Hellfire of Genocide: A Testimony from Gaza, Lizzy Harding on Anthony Bourdain, Andrew Chan on Taylor Swift, a conversation between Christian Lorentzen and A. S. Hamrah, and more. Link in bio! 🍇
Subscribe or renew to get the issue and support Bookforum.
On the cover: Kay Gabriel, Fire Island, July 30, 2022. Photo by David Velasco.

PRESENTED BY SHAPESHIFTER PLUS (501C3) @SHAPESHIFTERLAB:
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2025 > 7-9PM ET > FREE

Join us to celebrate the holidays and the latest issue of Bookforum.

At 7:30 pm, there will be a live taping of Bookforum’s Reading Writers podcast. Hosts Charlotte Shane and Jo Livingstone will interview novelist Stephanie Wambugu, author of Lonely Crowds. Drinks will follow.
We hope to see you there!

Stephanie Wambugu is the author of the novel Lonely Crowds, published by Little, Brown in July. Born in Mombasa, Kenya, she grew up in New England and currently lives in New York. Her fiction has appeared in Granta, The Drift, and elsewhere.
Charlotte Shane is the author of several books, the most recent of which is An Honest Woman (Simon & Schuster, 2024). She is a co-founder of TigerBee Press and frequent contributor to Bookforum.
Jo Livingstone is a nonfiction writer and visiting professor at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York.

@bookforum
@shapeshifterlab

Ticket link: https://shapeshifterplus.org/event/bookforum-holiday-party-event/

#shapeshifterlab #shapeshifterplus #ssl #brooklynmusic #nycconcert #nycnonprofit #nonprofit #nycmusic #brooklynarts #brooklynlivemusic #brooklynmusic #brooklynnonprofit #communityevents #livemusic #parkslopeentertainment

Bookforum is pleased to announce that we are partnering with writers @jo__livingstone and @charoshane on Season 3 of their podcast Reading Writers. Each episode, Livingstone and Shane will talk about what they’ve been reading and invite their special guests to enthuse about a significant or provocative book of their choice. Please consider supporting Reading Writers on Patreon, where you can access bonus materials and share your guest and book-coverage requests. Link in bio!!

The Spring 2025 issue of Bookforum is out now! This edition features Lidija Haas on Shulamith Firestone’s portrayal of life with mental illness; Moira Donegan on Peter Hujar’s photobook “Portraits in Life and Death”; and Jane Hu on “Audition,” the final novel in Katie Kitamura’s translation trilogy. Also in the issue: David Velasco talks with Sarah Schulman about her new book on solidarity and resistance, Harmony Holiday considers Nettie Jones’s 1983 novel “Fish Tales,” Audrey Wollen writes about Ariana Reines’s “Wave of Blood,” Kay Gabriel and Patrick DeDauw review the complete three-volume set of Peter Weiss’s “The Aesthetics of Resistance,” and so much more.

Subscribe or renew your subscription today to receive the print issue and support Bookforum. And consider making a donation or gifting a subscription. Thank you, as ever, for reading.

On the cover: Peter Hujar, “Self-Portrait Jumping (I),” 1974. © 2025 The Peter Hujar Archive / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

The Winter 2025 issue of "Bookforum" is out now! This edition features Audrey Wollen on Joy Williams’s stories of angels, demons, and the fate of humanity; Hermione Hoby on narratives of marriage and its dissolution; Jessi Jezewska Stevens on Ágota Kristóf’s confounding fictions of exile. On the cover is artist and poet Joe Brainard’s 1968 watercolor collage, Pansies, accompanying Andrew Chan on Brainard’s letters to friends, lovers, and fans. Also in the issue: Jamie Hood on Virginie Despentes’s "Dear Dickhead," Ariana Reines in conversation with Emily Witt, Anahid Nersessian on John Kelsey’s "I Forget," Mary Turfah on Isabella Hammad’s "Recognizing the Stranger," Lizzy Harding on Elaine May, and much more. https://www.bookforum.com/print/3103

The Summer 2023 issue of Bookforum is out now!

When the magazine was shuttered late last year, we weren’t sure we’d ever be able to make Bookforum again, and the essays in our summer 2023 issue reflect our own preoccupations with death, rebirth, money, belonging, and the place of art in society. Read Sarah Nicole Prickett on Jacqueline Rose,Moira Donegan on trauma and justice, Jane Hu on Emma Cline, Harmony Holiday on Christina Sharpe, and so much more . . .

Follow the link in our bio to read the issue now! And if you don’t already, consider subscribing, or gifting a subscription, or donating to keep Bookforum going. On the cover: Pavlina Alea, Pretty in Blue (detail), 2022, acrylic on linen, 80 × 60". © Pavlina Alea.

Help us spread the news: Bookforum is back and will be coming out with our first new issue in August! We’re very excited to resume working with writers and publishing engaged, idiosyncratic, opinionated, surprising pieces about books and culture. If you haven't already, subscribe to show your support by following the link in our bio.

Bookforum is back! We’re thrilled to announce the magazine’s return, in partnership with @nationmag. We need your support to stick around for the long haul. Follow the link in our bio to get a yearlong subscription for only $30.

This is our last day at Bookforum. Thank you to our writers and readers, and everyone else over the years who made the magazine what it is. Farewell, The Editors

The Dec/Jan/Feb 2023 issue of Bookforum is out now!

In this edition, read: Harmony Holiday on Hilton Als’s conflicted love letter to Prince; Justin Taylor on whether Cormac McCarthy is “our most minor major novelist or is he our most major minor novelist”; Christine Smallwood on a new biography of Shirley Hazzard; Becca Rothfeld on Colette’s Chéri novels and the mantle of girlhood; George Saunders interviewed by Angelo Hernandez-Sias; Siobhan Phillips on choreographer George Balanchine; Lisa Borst on Sam Lipsyte’s 1990s neopunk noir novel; Rebecca Ariel Porte on Ian Patterson’s new translation of Proust’s "Finding Time Again"; Michael Robbins on science writer David Quamman’s investigation of COVID-19—and bats; and so much more.

Plus: the best books of year, recommended by Lucy Sante, Merve Emre, Lynne Tillman, Amitava Kumar, Sarah Jaffe, Hua Hsu, Andrew Martin, Rachel Tashjian, Charlie Tyson, Beatrice Loayza, Leo Robson, and Daphne Merkin.

Follow the link in our bio to read the issue now! And if you don’t already, consider subscribing or gifting a subscription using our holiday discount—you’ll save up to 50 percent off the newsstand price.

On the cover: Hilton Als photographed by Caterine Opie. © Catherine Opie, Courtesy Regen Projects, Los Angeles and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, London, and Seoul

Writer James Hannaham and artist Nina Katchadourian cover many subjects for the November episode of Artists on Writers, Writers on Artists. They discuss what it’s like to observe and experience change—whether that’s the changes to a city, or to neighborhood. James talks about infusing fictions with the textures of real life, and Nina addresses what it means to survive the unsurvivable, asking questions about what humans are capable of living beyond, or living with.

Follow the link in bio to watch or listen to the full episode.

@ninakatchadourian
@thespectacleisreal
@littlebrown
#JamesHannaham
#NinaKatchadourian