Bookforum is an American literary quarterly devoted to books and the discussion of literature, founded in 1994 as a supplement to its sister publication Artforum. For nearly three decades, the magazine carved out a distinctive position in literary media — more adventurous than the established review journals, more intellectually rigorous than the weekend book pages, and consistently interested in the kind of writing that treats books not as consumer products to be rated but as ideas to be engaged with, argued about, and taken seriously.
When Bookforum announced that its December 2022 issue would be its last — a casualty of Penske Media Corporation's acquisition of Artforum, which did not include its literary sibling — the loss was felt across the literary world. The magazine had been, in the words of one observer, a vital bellwether of book culture, a publication that gave space to emerging voices, took risks on avant-garde literature and theory-inflected nonfiction, and published criticism with genuine personality. Its reviewers did not summarise plots or tally strengths and weaknesses. They used books as springboards into larger cultural conversations.
The story did not end there. In June 2023, The Nation — America's oldest continuously published weekly magazine — announced that it would acquire Bookforum's archives and intellectual property, relaunching the quarterly with its full existing editorial team under editor-in-chief Michael Miller. The relaunch, overseen by Nation president Bhaskar Sunkara, preserved the magazine's editorial independence while providing the institutional infrastructure needed to sustain a literary publication in an era when such things are considered economically impossible.
The relaunched Bookforum has stayed true to its roots: reviews, essays, and interviews that challenge readers to think beyond the book in hand and into the ideas it provokes. In a media landscape that often treats literary criticism as an endangered species, Bookforum's return is a small, stubborn act of faith — proof that a quarterly magazine devoted to reading and thinking can survive, and that there are enough people who care about such things to keep it alive.
Explore Bookforum at <a href="https://www.bookforum.com/" target="\_blank">bookforum.com