We are always on the look out for good new progressive content here at NLP, so we were very pleased to see the launch of a new leftist review site - Review 31. Below is a brief interview with the editor Houman Barekat.
Can you tell our readers what Review 31 is and what kind of content you will be carrying?
Review 31 is an online literary magazine; we publish reviews of the latest non-fiction titles. The principal focus is on politics and history, as well as art & culture. It’s - broadly speaking - a politically progressive review.
Why do you think there is a need for a site like Review 31? What is it offering that you feel is lacking elsewhere?
I’m a huge fan of the London Review of Books. It’s elegant, topical and critically engaged. But the essay-length review can be problematic for online reading - my eyes just can’t take the glare for long enough to read 4,000 words in one sitting. So what I wanted to do was produce something that combined the intelligence and flair of the LRB with a format better suited to the internet age. I should emphasise that we’re not talking about soundbites - our reviews are between 800 and 1600 words long - just something slightly more compact. The design of the site is very user-friendly, very clean and easy on the eye.
I suppose the other thing that distinguishes us is the types of books that we’re choosing to highlight. We review titles from the major academic presses, of course, but we also look to give extra attention to the lists of the smaller independent presses. They’re publishing fresh, exciting books that often don’t get anything like the exposure they deserve.
What are your aims and hopes for the site?
In the medium term we hope to establish Review 31 as one of the leading online reviews. There are some other people doing a similar sort of thing - the Los Angeles Review of Books, edited by Tom Lutz, looks very promising. It’s currently in development - their site is in ‘preview mode’ but it already looks great.
It’s early days yet - we only launched three months ago. But the initial feedback from readers has been very positive. We’ve got a really interesting range of contributors - a good mix of scholars and journalists; some really excellent writers.
Houman Barekat is editor of Review 31 and co-editor, with Mike Gonzalez, of Arms and the People: Popular Movements and the Military from the Paris Commune to the Arab Spring (forthcoming from Pluto Press).
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