Reviews Archives - Public Books https://www.publicbooks.org/category/reviews/ a magazine of ideas, arts, and scholarship Thu, 19 Mar 2026 00:51:38 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://www.publicbooks.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/cropped-favicon-2-300x300.png Reviews Archives - Public Books https://www.publicbooks.org/category/reviews/ 32 32 Salsa For Salsa’s Sake https://www.publicbooks.org/salsa-for-salsas-sake/ Thu, 19 Mar 2026 15:00:00 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=65169 When will we finally listen to a song for what it is, rather than for what it should have been?

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]]> The Once and Future Bathhouse https://www.publicbooks.org/the-once-and-future-bathhouse/ Thu, 12 Mar 2026 15:00:00 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=65036 Utilitarian public baths and pools once filled the world’s cities, but now new expensive spas are taking their place. Has even bathing become a luxury?

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]]> There Are More Prisons in Heaven & Earth… https://www.publicbooks.org/there-are-more-prisons-in-heaven-earth/ Tue, 10 Mar 2026 15:00:00 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=64938 "A political philosophy of the prison with no necessary relationship to the realities of the prison is a luxury we can ill afford."

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]]> Victor Frankenstein, ABD https://www.publicbooks.org/victor-frankenstein-abd/ Thu, 05 Mar 2026 16:00:00 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=65006 What happens to a young scientist whose primary mentor is an artificial intelligence?

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]]> Frankenstein’s Hideous Progeny https://www.publicbooks.org/frankensteins-hideous-progeny/ Wed, 04 Mar 2026 16:00:00 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=64743 What does it mean to abandon a sentient human that you have brought into the world? Del Toro doesn't answer.

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]]> Emily Brontë in Her Smut Era: The Romance Rebranding of “Wuthering Heights” https://www.publicbooks.org/emily-bronte-in-her-smut-era-the-romance-rebranding-of-wuthering-heights/ Thu, 12 Feb 2026 16:00:00 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=64800 Repackaging Wuthering Heights as a Valentine’s Day date movie is a perverse distortion of a text where the only union is found in the dirt of a shared grave.

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]]> Is the Cis Literary World Okay? https://www.publicbooks.org/is-the-cis-literary-world-okay/ Tue, 10 Feb 2026 16:00:00 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=64768 Contemporary trans literature is thriving in a highly freewheeling manner… How revealing, then, that David Brooks recently suggested that literary fiction has been declining in quality.

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]]> Deracialized Discos: On “Discomania” and “The Pepsi-Cola Addict” https://www.publicbooks.org/deracialized-discos-on-discomania-and-the-pepsi-cola-addict/ Tue, 27 Jan 2026 23:48:00 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=64589 It’s common for teenage fantasy to find an engine in fiction. But teenage fantasy runs out.

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]]> This Too Is Gaza https://www.publicbooks.org/this-too-is-gaza/ Thu, 22 Jan 2026 16:00:56 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=61561 “In Gaza, life unfurls as a treasury of daily surprises that many Westerners miss in their hurry to get through their days,” says a Palestinian journalist. How we are treated, he insists, does not define who we are.

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]]> Against Babel: Or, How to Talk to Strangers https://www.publicbooks.org/against-babel-or-how-to-talk-to-strangers/ Thu, 15 Jan 2026 16:00:43 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=61528 Allegedly, some 45% of languages descend from one, ancient ”Proto-Indo-European“ tongue. But why focus on a hypothetical lost language, when we can work instead to hear one another today?

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