Ross Barkan thinks magazines like n+1, The Drift, and The Point should review more newly published books. They publish strong essays about culture, he argues, but too often a book appears as evidence for a larger argument rather than as a work worth assessing on its own.
- Newspapers have cut book coverage, leaving fewer regular venues for reviews.
- Deeply researched review-essays take time and money; shorter, focused criticism still has a place.
- Traffic incentives favor broad discourse over a review of an unfamiliar novelist.
- Barkan points to capsule reviews and proposes that little magazines cover at least five new novels per issue.
He also picks up n+1’s warning that the endless rediscovery of old books can eclipse living writers. The point is not to stop reading the past; it is to make a record of the literature being written now, while its authors can still take part in the conversation.