PHOTOGRAPH: ROY BOTTERELL/CORBIS
FICTION: Soldier’S Joy, by Antonya Nelson
They made love in her bedroom, on the bed where they’d first made love, when they were sixteen years old…
NELSON READS MAVIS GALLANT

POEM

Learning to Read

by Franz Wright

FICTION

The Limner

by Julian Barnes

POEM

Eh?

by Nathalie Anderson
ILLUSTRATION: TODD JAMES
FICTION: Pumpkin Head, by Joyce Carol Oates
Her husband had died and abandoned her. Now other men would drop by the house…

THE YEAR IN REVIEW

Ten Favorite Books of 2008

by James Wood
Fiction, essays, and more.

The Year in Review

Fiction

Alice Munro, Jonathan Lethem, and more short stories from last year.

FICTION

Roberto Bolaño: “Meeting with Enrique Lihn.”

FICTION

Donald Antrim: “Another Manhattan.”

FICTION

William Trevor: “The Woman of the House.”

FICTION

Amos Oz: “Waiting.”

FICTION

Daniyal Mueenuddin: “In Other Rooms, Other Wonders”

FICTION

Edwidge Danticat: “Ghosts.”

FICTION

Jonathan Lethem: “Lostronaut.”

FICTION

Wells Tower: “Leopard.“

FICTION

Louise Erdrich: “The Fat Man’s Race.”

FICTION

Roddy Doyle: “Sleep.“

FICTION

Yiyun Li: “Gold Boy, Emerald Girl.“

FICTION

Daniel Alarcón: “The Idiot President.”

FICTION

Andrea Lee: “Three.“

FICTION

Aleksandar Hemon: “The Noble Truths of Suffering.”

FICTION

Daniyal Mueenuddin: “A Spoiled Man.”

FICTION

Alice Munro: “Face.”

FICTION

Janet Frame: “Gorse Is Not People.”

FICTION

Tobias Wolff: “Awake.”

FICTION

Joshua Ferris: “The Dinner Party.”

FICTION

Roberto Bolaño: “Clara.”

FICTION

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala: “The Teacher.”

FICTION

Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum: “Yurt.”

FICTION

T. Coraghessan Boyle: “Thirteen Hundred Rats.”

FICTION

Alice Munro: “Deep-Holes.”

FICTION

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: “The Headstrong Historian.”

FICTION

Vladimir Nabokov: “Natasha.”

FICTION

Janet Frame: “A Night at the Opera.”

FICTION

John Updike: “The Full Glass.”

FICTION

Julian Barnes: “East Wind.”

FICTION

Yiyun Li: “A Man Like Him.”

FICTION

Roddy Doyle: “Bullfighting.”

FICTION

Sana Krasikov: “The Repatriates.”

FICTION

T. Coraghessan Boyle: “The Lie.”

POETRY

Louise Glück: “At the River.”

POETRY

Michael Robbins: “Alien vs. Predator.”

POETRY

Richard Wilbur: “Anterooms.”

POETRY

Richard Wilbur: “Trismegistus.”

POETRY

Liz Waldner: “The Sovereignty and the Goodness of God, Together with the Faithfulness of His Promises Displayed.”

POETRY

Roger Angell: “Greetings, Friends!”

POETRY

Jonathan Aaron: “Acting Like a Tree.”

POETRY

Michael Dickman: “My Autopsy.”

POETRY

Bob Hicok: “As I Was Saying.”

POETRY

Richard Wilbur: “Terza Rima.”

POETRY

Stanley Moss: “Peace.”

POETRY

Clive James: “Signing Ceremony.”

POETRY

Charles Simic: “Master of Disguises.”

POETRY

Rita Dove: “The Bridgetower.“

POETRY

Jack Gilbert: “Summer at Blue Creek, North Carolina.”

POETRY

Rae Armantrout: “Prayers.”

POETRY

Eamon Grennan: “From This to That.”

POETRY

W.S. Merwin: “Alba”

POETRY

Gerald Stern: “The Crossing.”

POETRY

Ruth Padel: “Learning to Make an Oud in Nazareth.”

POETRY

Gary Snyder: “Mu Ch’i’s Persimmons.”

POETRY

Donald Hall: “Nymph and Shepherd.”

POETRY

Frederick Seidel: “Poem by the Bridge at Ten-Shin.”

POETRY

Albert Goldbarth: “The Way.“

POETRY

Spencer Reece: “Eclogue.“

POETRY

Bryan D. Dietrich: “Electra Woman.“

POETRY

Anne Carson: “Tag.”

POETRY

Rosanna Warren: “Romanesque.”

POETRY

John Ashbery: “The Virgin King.”

POETRY

Bob Dylan: “17.”

POETRY

Bob Dylan: “21.”

POETRY

Marilyn Hacker: “Names.”

PERSONAL HISTORY

Zadie Smith: “Dead Man Laughing.”

PERSONAL HISTORY

Edwidge Danticat: A life in Haiti.

THE LITERARY LIFE

Dana Goodyear: What can two hundred million dollars do for poetry?

FAITH AND DOUBT

Fiction writers on praying for food, attending Catholic school and the madrassa, and more.

SUMMER MOVIES

Fiction writers on making a first film, going to the drive-in, playing commando, and more.

Q. & A.

Colson Whitehead: The relationship between fiction and real life.

Q. & A.

Robert Chandler: Weights and measures.

Q. & A.

Paul Theroux: Minstrel show.

Q. & A.

Maxim Biller: The sad optimist.

Q. & A.

David Hoon Kim: Living language.

Q. & A.

Jonathan Lethem: Beyond Brooklyn.

Q. & A.

Tatyana Tolstaya: Writing and Ravenna.

Q. & A.

Ann Goldstein: Translating Primo Levi.

Q. & A.

C. K. Williams: The blind joy of poetry.

Q. & A.

Roger Angell: Fifty years of editing fiction.

Q. & A.

Ismail Kadare: Life as a writer in Communist Albania.

AUDIO

Thomas McGuane: Reading “Last Night,” by James Salter.

AUDIO

Roddy Doyle: Reading “Christmas Eve,” by Maeve Brennan.

AUDIO

A. M. Homes: Reading “The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson.

AUDIO

Gary Shteyngart: Reading “Brothers and Sisters Around the World,” by Andrea Lee.

AUDIO

Tobias Wolff: Reading “Dog Heaven,” by Stephanie Vaughn.

AUDIO

Jeffrey Eugenides: Reading “Spring Fugue,” by Harold Brodkey.

AUDIO

Aleksandar Hemon: Reading “A Summer’s Reading,” by Bernard Malamud.

AUDIO

Mary Gaitskill: Reading “Symbols and Signs,” by Vladimir Nabokov.

AUDIO

Hilton Als: Reading “Children Are Bored on Sunday,” by Jean Stafford.

AUDIO

Louise Erdrich: Reading “Dance in America,” by Lorrie Moore.

AUDIO

Jonathan Lethem: Reading “The Wood Duck,” by James Thurber.

AUDIO

T. Coraghessan Boyle: Reading “Bullet in the Brain,” by Tobias Wolff.

AUDIO

E. L. Doctorow: Reading “Graven Image,” by John O’Hara.

AUDIO

Jhumpa Lahiri: Reading “A Day,” by William Trevor.

AUDIO

Antonya Nelson: Reading “When We Were Nearly Young,” by Mavis Gallant.

AUDIO

Paul Theroux: Reading “The Gospel According to Mark,” by Jorge Luis Borges.

AUDIO

Nell Freudenberger: On “Somewhere Else,” by Grace Paley.

AUDIO

George Saunders: Reading “You Must Know Everything,” by Isaac Babel.

AUDIO

Donald Antrim: Reading “I Bought a Little City,” by Donald Barthelme.

AUDIO

Edwidge Danticat: On “How to Date a Brown Girl (Black Girl, White Girl, or Halfie),” by Junot Díaz.

AUDIO

Richard Ford: Reading “Reunion,” by John Cheever.

AUDIO

Louise Erdrich: An excerpt from “The Plague of Doves.”

AUDIO

Philip Levine and Galway Kinnell: Readings.

AUDIO SLIDE SHOW

Quinn’s Bishop: Alice Quinn on Elizabeth Bishop’s uncollected poems.

VIDEO

Paul Muldoon and Seamus Heaney: A coversation about history and homeland, from the 2008 New Yorker Festival.

VIDEO

Young Shakespeareans: Adam Gopnik with Ethan Hawke, Kristen Johnson, and Martha Plimpton, from the 2008 New Yorker Festival.
 
01 16, 2009
The diplomatic questions facing President-elect Obama and his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.
BLOGS
In the News: Hudson River plane crash.
Sasha Frere-Jones shares a YouTube user’s experience.
Steve Coll dips into the mailbag.
Hendrik Hertzberg thinks dogmatic centrism is a mistake.
George Packer welcomes a President who can explain things.
Roger Angell recalls how Rickey Henderson made him wince and gasp.
James Surowiecki says most American companies borrowed responsibly.
The Book Bench: Hortense Calisher, addicted to Scrabble, an Inaugural pilgrimage.
Goings On: Valentin Berlinsky, Boy George goes to jail, solid as Barack.
The Cartoon Lounge: A lesson on snowflakes, Gordon Ramsay in a Ferrari.
SEE ALL BLOG POSTS
The Eustace Tilley Contest
Create a cover featuring our iconic dandy. Submit your design by January 15, 2009.
IN THIS ISSUE
View the table of contents.
Covers
Browse the complete archive using the cover gallery.
AUDIO
War of Words: A discussion about Scrabble, both online and off.
The Living Dead: A reading of James Salter’s “Last Night.”
Face Time: Staff photographers Martin Schoeller and Steve Pyke discuss their work.
Joy Revision: Ariel Levy discusses the relevance of “The Joy of Sex.”
The Transition: A discussion on Obama’s economic and counter-terrorism plans.
MORE PODCASTS
VIDEO
Justin Vernon Express: An interview with Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon.
Hot Seats: How an illegally logged tree becomes a toilet seat at Wal-Mart.
Not a Game: Scenarios from Virtual Iraq, with commentary by Sue Halpern.
Trapped: The ordeal of Nicholas White, who was trapped in an elevator for forty-one hours.
Stories from the Near Future: Video from the 2008 New Yorker Conference.
SLIDE SHOWS
Deserted: A portfolio of images from Sudanese refugee camps in Chad.
Sexual Evolution: A portfolio of images from “The Joy of Sex” and “Our Bodies, Ourselves.”
The Face of Death: Paintings and drawings from the Marlene Dumas retrospective at MOMA.
Secrets of the Bomb: Images and documents that tell the story behind the first atomic bomb.

Search Capsule

Reviews

Thousands of short takes from the pages of The New Yorker.

GOINGS ON
Browse listings for what’s happening in New York.
Goings On Blog
Avedon’s “Portraits of Power,” and more events involving New Yorker contributors.

newsletter sign-up

Links to articles and Web-only features, delivered weekly to your e-mail inbox.


Events & Promotions
RSS Feeds
Stay up to date on everything happening at newyorker.com.
See every page of the latest issue on Mondays.
Order your 2009 Desk Diary. Now available in six vibrant colors.
Cartoon and cover art: prints, T-shirts, licensing, and other gifts.
Your connection to exclusive events and offers from The New Yorker promotion department, including ShopTNY, AdvanceWord, and more.
Subscribe to a weekly audio download of selected articles from the magazine.
Download podcasts, events video, audio issues, and animated cartoons at the iTunes music store.
The New Yorker
The New Yorker 47 issues for $39.95
*plus applicable sales tax
Non-USA - Click here
privacy policy | User Agreement
t 
Name
Address 1
Address 2
City
State
Zip
E-mail