Donor Gift Selections
Choose one of these exclusive gifts from The New Criterion as a “thank you” for your generous support. See below for all options.
Collectible Mug
Start your morning with the stimulation you deserve: a copy of The New Criterion by your side and a mug full of coffee in your hand. We are happy to offer our supporters this fine New Criterion mug, emblazoned with our classic logo and, this year, our November-issue color. It’s our gift to you for a modest contribution to our efforts. Value: $8
Boat Bag
Active literati need an easy way to cart books around town. We are pleased to offer our supporters our classic New Criterion boat bag once again. Made of sturdy, natural canvas, this bag features our classic logo, making clear your high-cultural preferences. Value: $15
Anniversary Boat Bag
While scarce supplies last, we are pleased to offer our supporters this sturdy, natural canvas bag featuring our fortieth-anniversary logo, making clear your high-cultural preferences. Value: $15
Fall Bowtie
There is no better way to combine your excellent taste in cultural criticism with your sartorial panache than with our signature New Criterion bowtie. Manufactured in Japanese silk by Seigo exclusively for The New Criterion, this year’s design features the return of our “fall” theme, with our September, October, November and December colors right there in the repp pattern. Value: $65
Where Next?
Autographed Copy
edited by Roger Kimball
Encounter Books
(hardcover, 200 pages)
At least since Oedipus met King Laius on the road from Delphi to Thebes, the image of a crossroads has signaled a dramatic and morally fraught turning point. It was with this cargo of significance in mind that The New Criterion published a special series of essays on “Western Civilization at the Crossroads” during its fortieth-anniversary season. Featuring contributions by Conrad Black, Victor Davis Hanson, Roger Kimball, Andrew Roberts, and other luminaries, this book collects the ten special essays to assess where Western civilization is now, and where it’s going. Value: $25
Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future
by Peter Thiel
Crown Currency
(hardcover, 224 pages)
In Zero to One, the legendary entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel shows how we can find singular ways to create new things. Zero to One presents at once an optimistic view of the future of progress in America and a new way of thinking about innovation: it starts by learning to ask the questions that lead you to find value in unexpected places. Value: $17
Some Problems with Autobiography
by Brian Brodeur
Criterion Books
(hardcover, 88 pages)
Some Problems with Autobiography, Brian Brodeur’s fourth collection, and the winner of the twenty-second New Criterion Poetry Prize, grapples with the porous and fragmentary nature of midwestern American identity in poems that range across prosodic forms and hybrid genres. In it, Brodeur explores the perils of digital technologies, ecological uncertainties, and the inadequacy of language to convey our collective distress, asking how much pleasure and hardship the human heart can bear. From dramatic-mono-logue sonnets and narrative sestinas to discursive lyrics cast in Rubáiyát stanzas and Alcaic strophes, Some Problems with Autobiography brings ancient modes into startlingly con-temporary contexts. Value: $25
The Twilight of the Intellectuals
Limited Supply
by Hilton Kramer
Ivan R. Dee
(paperback, 398 pages)
Hilton Kramer explores, in effect, the intellectual history of the cold war and its divisive impact on our politics and culture. We live now, he notes, in the aftermath of an immense intellectual upheaval. As relevant now as it was in 1999, The Twilight of the Intellectuals is certain to excite comment and argument as passionate as the debate it describes. Value: $17
The Bridges of Robert Adam: A Fanciful and Picturesque Tour
Autographed Copy
by Benjamin Riley
Triglyph Books
(hardcover, 156 pages)
The bridge has always stood as a transitional structure not purely a work of engineering, nor simply a work of architecture. Its functional requirements are more stringent than those of the average building; it not only must stand up; it must stand up, support those who cross it, and effectively span the space over which it stands. As Samuel Johnson said, “the first excellence of a bridge is strength . . . for a bridge that cannot stand, however beautiful, will boast its beauty but a little while.” The Scottish architect Robert Adam (1728–92) understood these precepts well, continually building bridges that were not just structurally sound, but also aesthetically pleasing. Unlike his contemporaries, Adam did not view bridges as mere skeletons upon which to apply ornament. Rather, he sought to achieve architectural totality, incorporating his bridge designs into greater architectural programs, thereby producing aesthetically pleasing and contextually specific designs. From the Pulteney Bridge in Bath to the ruined arch and viaduct at Culzean Castle in Ayrshire, in The Bridges of Robert Adam: A Fanciful and Picturesque Tour, Benjamin Riley, Managing Editor of The New Criterion, will take will take the reader across Britain, shedding new light on an understudied aspect of the great architect’s career. Value: $40