The 60s

The third installment in the esteemed magazine's superb decades series.As current New Yorker editor David Remnick astutely notes in his introduction, the tenor of the 1960s didn't necessarily jibe with the magazine's editor, William Shawn, whose "voice was barely a whisper in a raucous time." However, Shawn was "determined to change" the publication, and during the '60s, it "became more politically engaged, more formally daring, more vivid, and more intellectually exciting than it had ever been or wished to be." Those are bold words considering the outstanding work published in the New Yorker during the 1940s and '50s, but the selections on display here certainly warrant the praise. As in previous volumes, the contributor list is an embarrassment of riches: Rachel Carson, James Baldwin, Calvin Trillin, E.B. White, John Updike, Renata Adler, Sylvia Plath, and John McPhee, among other top names. The book is divided into sections such as "Reckonings," "Farther Shores," and "New Arrivals," and each features an insightful introduction from a current New Yorker contributor (Kelefa Sanneh, Jill Lepore, George Packer, Evan Osnos et al.). For fans of the magazine (and long-form journalism fans in general), the majority of the collection will be highly engaging, and even the "Brief Encounters" offer sparks of excellence--e.g., Lillian Ross on Glenn Gould, Hendrik Hertzberg on The Who. There are also numerous pieces that have since become classics: Carson's "Silent Spring," Hannah Arendt's "Eichmann in Jerusalem," and Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood: The Corner," which Remnick calls "the most sensational publication of the decade for the magazine," one which "Shawn quietly came to regret" due to its "lurid" violence. And yes, even though, as Remnick rightly points out, the New Yorker has never been known for its rock journalism, there are solid pieces on Bob Dylan (Nat Hentoff), Woodstock (Ellen Willis), and the Newport Jazz Festival (Whitney Balliett). The hits continue. Bring on the '70s. COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

October 1, 2016
From the chilling initial article, an excerpt from Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, to the breathtaking last story by Isaac Bashevis Singer (the pieces are arranged topically rather than chronologically), this latest in the series of decade-by-decade anthologies taken from the pages of one astonishing magazine not only demonstrates George Packer's contention that the '60s were the decade in which The New Yorker developed a social conscience but also shows its continuing commitment to the finest quality in everything from political reportage (Hannah Arendt on Eichmann; Richard Rovere; Calvin Trillin) to poetry (James Dickey, Sylvia Plath) and fiction. It is hard to tell, indeed, whether it is the rich decades or the articles (and brief introductions to each section), but any anthology containing such pieces as James Baldwin's Letter from a Region of My Mind, an excerpt from Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, Jacob R. Brackman's classic The Put-On, or Roger Angell on the '69 Mets (still thrilling) deserves a lasting place on one's shelves. Like its predecessors in the series, this collection is a time capsule and a keeper.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

May 15, 2016

The New Yorker's "decades" series compiling key historical pieces and new work by New Yorker staffers has hit the Sixties, allowing serious reflection on the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement with lighter excursions into Beatlemania and the Summer of Love.

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