The Yale Review of Books is the oldest undergraduate book review in the nation, which isn’t really saying a lot since we’re only five years old. Actually, we think we’re one of only three undergraduate book reviews in the country. The other two we know about are at Dartmouth and Harvard.
Every quarter, we publish about 16 book reviews as well as essays, satire and interviews with well-known authors. Anyone can write for the Yale Review of Books. Unlike other campus publications, which sometimes put freshman through a veritable boot camp of grueling, low-glory jobs before they can become editors or staff writers, we take pride in publishing the best reviews that come across our desks, regardless of the age of the reviewer. We have had freshmen on our editorial board and reviews by freshman writers featured on our cover.
The Yale Review of Books is a fun publication to write for since it requires so little commitment. Write what you want when you want, and get it noticed by the world. Publishing houses are sent copies of our reviews, and our Web site receives thousands of hits every month. Our reviews sometimes even get cited in best-selling books (check out the front of Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Hours,” for example).
Every two months, the Yale Review of Books holds a mass meeting at which we hand out books to anyone interested in reviewing them. Reviewers are usually allowed to choose any recently-published work that has caught their eye and are given two months (usually over a major school vacation) to write 1,200-word reviews. Virtually nothing escapes the purview of the Yale Review of Books. If you’re interested in writing about history, philosophy, literature, politics, science, art history or contemporary culture, the Yale Review of Books is the place to do it.