OXFORD
REVIEW
of BOOKS

AUTUMN 2025

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Current Issue

Published in association with Stanford University

Featuring a wide variety of opinion pieces, reviews on striking new releases and prescient reprints, and interviews with literary figures. This edition features Janet Frame and Brandon Taylor in review, and Peter Singer and Kiran Desai in conversation.

The new edition is now available for print order.

SHOP

FEATURED

Mapping Knowledge in Damascus

SELINA CHEN - The bus ride was bumpy and the Syrian sunset was molten gold.

DIARY

Dec 16, 20257 min read

Reciting the Vocabulary

RALUCA DAVID - One wall listens, one window does not listen

POETRY

Oct 24, 20252 min read

Dreams of Californiacation

MÍA ZENDEJAS - Sun, sweat and the inscrutable male ego…

FICTION

May 13, 20258 min read

You Are What You Eat

MERCY FORD asks: what makes food beautiful?

SHORT PIECES

Apr 30, 20253 min read

A Hotel Mindset

MADELEINE JACOB reviews Ta-Nehisi Coates on the Jim Crow South, Palestine, and learning from the past.

REVIEWS

Apr 19, 20256 min read

Mistaking Marx

RUTH THRUSH on the labour of reading and translating Capital.

REVIEWS

Apr 9, 20257 min read

Mapping Knowledge in Damascus

SELINA CHEN - The bus ride was bumpy and the Syrian sunset was molten gold.

DIARY

Dec 16, 20257 min read

The Tightrope Act

Richard Kuehl - In front of her, there was nothing but the rope.

FICTION

Dec 10, 20257 min read

In Review: Susan Howe's Penitential Cries

ADAM JUDAH KRASNOFF - A lifetime of reading yields strange ghosts.

REVIEWS

Dec 4, 20257 min read

REVIEWS

In Review: Susan Howe's Penitential Cries

ADAM JUDAH KRASNOFF - A lifetime of reading yields strange ghosts.

Empire’s Steel Skeleton: Dissecting the New V&A East Storehouse

AVIN HOURO - The question remains: has the colonial skeleton of the museum been shaken, or simply re-dressed?

In Review: Alice Vincent's 'Hark'

LOTTIE WALKER - In Hark: How Women Listen, Alice Vincent tunes into the frequencies and silences of womanhood.

In Review: Didion's 'Notes to John'

ROY SHINAR COHEN - A posthumous Joan Didion journal offers raw intimacy - along with guilt for reading what she never meant to publish.

ESSAYS

Mapping Knowledge in Damascus

SELINA CHEN - The bus ride was bumpy and the Syrian sunset was molten gold.

Jonathan Miller: a tribute to my mentor

DARIUS SANAI - For a mentor, Jonathan Miller could give some pretty damn terrible advice.

Behind the scenes of one of London’s great hotels

ALBERT WARD reports from the underbelly of the Hotel Grand on the labourers who make it possible.

On Shoelaces

FRANCESCA GARDNER - Shoelaces in metaphor, practice and as literary form.

IN CONVERSATION

Healing in the Fault Zone: Talking to Eleni Stecopoulos on Illness, Poetics, and Collective Impasse

MANDY QUAN and DIEGO MARTINEZ MENDIOLA in conversation with Eleni Stecopoulos on illness, poetics and collective impasse.

The Oxford Review of Books

Missing Pieces

JOHN LIVESEY chats to Anthony Passeron about the untold stories of the AIDS epidemic.

The Oxford Review of Books

In Conversation with Colin Burrow

MADELEINE JACOB chats to scholar and critic Colin Burrow about the art of reviewing.

The Oxford Review of Books

CURATOR'S PICK

Kathleen Quaintance

FICTION

The Tightrope Act

Richard Kuehl - In front of her, there was nothing but the rope.

They Call it Spirit Airlines

GIDEON LEEK - Shortlisted in the ORB’s TT24 Short Fiction Competition.

The Baby

IMOGEN DRAKE - Winner of the ORB’s MT24 Short Fiction Prize.

Room with Pink Elephant

F C ZERI - A young artist meets an unusual housemate.

POETRY

Missing Person

NICOLA HEALEY - Because I could not find a place, I stopped fighting

Reciting the Vocabulary

RALUCA DAVID - One wall listens, one window does not listen

Portrait of a Mother in the Garden, Weeding

ROWAN TATE - The sun is in my mouth, God ripens in me

Play 'Misty' For Me

TROUT FISHING IN AMERICA - ‘I am a little too misty’ Either meaning foggy, or meaning nothing at all, she was from a part of Europe that travel agents would pretend exists...

INTERVIEWS

Healing in the Fault Zone: Talking to Eleni Stecopoulos on Illness, Poetics, and Collective Impasse

MANDY QUAN and DIEGO MARTINEZ MENDIOLA in conversation with Eleni Stecopoulos on illness, poetics and collective impasse.

Classically Trained

JUAN FUEYO-GOMEZ - Daniel Mendelsohn on relating to and reworking Ancient Greece.

States of Disrepair

CATHERINE BORTHWICK - Vincent Bevins on participatory political reporting.

Wild Typography and Bootleg Books: An Interview with Leah Whitman-Salkin

"We have a bootlegging practice where we print and bind books ourselves. "

READING

LIST

LAST ISSUE ARCHIVE

Mapping Knowledge in Damascus

DIARY

The Tightrope Act

FICTION

In Review: Susan Howe's Penitential Cries

REVIEWS

VIEW ALL

MAGAZINE

OXFORD
REVIEW
of BOOKS

Published in association with Stanford University

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OXFORD REVIEW of BOOKS

OXFORD REVIEW of BOOKS

AUTUMN 2025

Current Issue

Published in association with Stanford University

FEATURED

Mapping Knowledge in Damascus

Reciting the Vocabulary

Dreams of Californiacation

You Are What You Eat

A Hotel Mindset

Mistaking Marx

Mapping Knowledge in Damascus

The Tightrope Act

In Review: Susan Howe's Penitential Cries

REVIEWS

In Review: Susan Howe's Penitential Cries

Empire’s Steel Skeleton: Dissecting the New V&A East Storehouse

In Review: Alice Vincent's 'Hark'

In Review: Didion's 'Notes to John'

ESSAYS

Mapping Knowledge in Damascus

Jonathan Miller: a tribute to my mentor

Behind the scenes of one of London’s great hotels

On Shoelaces

IN CONVERSATION

Healing in the Fault Zone: Talking to Eleni Stecopoulos on Illness, Poetics, and Collective Impasse

Missing Pieces

In Conversation with Colin Burrow

CURATOR'S PICK

Kathleen Quaintance

FICTION

The Tightrope Act

They Call it Spirit Airlines

The Baby

Room with Pink Elephant

POETRY

Missing Person

Reciting the Vocabulary

Portrait of a Mother in the Garden, Weeding

Play 'Misty' For Me

INTERVIEWS

Healing in the Fault Zone: Talking to Eleni Stecopoulos on Illness, Poetics, and Collective Impasse

Classically Trained

States of Disrepair

Wild Typography and Bootleg Books: An Interview with Leah Whitman-Salkin

LAST ISSUE ARCHIVE

Mapping Knowledge in Damascus

The Tightrope Act

In Review: Susan Howe's Penitential Cries

MAGAZINE

OXFORD REVIEW of BOOKS

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OXFORD REVIEW
of BOOKS

OXFORD
REVIEW
of BOOKS

OXFORD
REVIEW
of BOOKS