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Jay Neugeboren
Beyond the Asylum

Over the past decade a range of politicians and public figures have called to rebuild asylums in order to address the country’s mental health crisis. But there is another, better way forward.

Philip Clark
The Atonal Genie

Arnold Schoenberg’s music still challenges listeners, but his twelve-tone technique also turns up in all sorts of unexpected places, from horror film scores to cartoons to jazz.

Colin Thubron
The Haven of Wilderness

In a quartet of books about life in the mountains of southern Bulgaria and North Macedonia as they descend into Greece, Kapka Kassabova gives voice to the shepherds, nomads, horse breeders, dog breeders, villagers, and refugees who live there.

Lauren Kane
One Cubit at a Time

Medieval theologians produced ornate architectural drawings in their efforts to comprehend divine instructions. A recent book recovers their contributions to the form.

Will Simpson
Sovereign Wager Fascinator

Photographs from the 2025 Kentucky Derby

Free from the Archives

Tenzing Norgay was born 111 years ago today. A Nepalese sherpa, Norgay was the first person to ascend Mount Everest—alongside Edmund Hillary—seventy-two years ago today, on his thirty-ninth birthday.

In the Review’s October 21, 1999, issue, Pico Iyer wrote about the fraught and triumphant history of the sherpas’ stewardship of Everest and their relationships with the wealthy adventurers from around the world who descend on the mountain.

Pico Iyer
Room at the Top

“To many Sherpas, surely, it is the people from Seattle who seem most like residents of Shangri-La. The Nepalis on treks find themselves not just in the position of local bellboys in a luxury hotel, catering to foreign needs (for simplicity or peace), but in that of gatekeepers to a shrine of sorts, who accept payment to let infidels trample over their sacred ground.”

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