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Happiness: Ten Years of n+1: Ten Years of n+1
The first anthology of America's foremost intellectual magazine.
n+1 appeared in the fall of 2004, the brainchild of a group of writers working out of a small apartment. Intended to revive the leftist social criticism and innovative literary analysis that was the hallmark of the Partisan Review and other midcentury magazines, n+1 was a rejoinder to the consumerism and complacency of the Bush years. It hasn't slowed down since. n+1 has given us the most clear-eyed reporting on the 2008 crash and the Occupy movement, the best criticism of publishing culture, and the first sociological report on the hipster. No media, new or old, has escaped its ire as n+1 's outspoken contributors have taken on reality TV, Twitter, credentialism, drone strikes, and Internet porn.
Happiness , released on the occasion of n+1 's tenth anniversary, collects the best of the magazine as selected by its editors. These essays are fiercely contentious, disconcertingly astute, and screamingly funny. They explore our modern pursuits of happiness and take a searching moral inventory of the strange times we live in. Founding lights Chad Harbach, Keith Gessen, Benjamin Kunkel, Marco Roth, and Mark Greif are featured alongside Elif Batuman, Rebecca Curtis, Emily Witt, and other young talents launched by n+1 .
This n+1 anthology is the definitive work of the definitive twenty-first century intellectual magazine.
n+1 appeared in the fall of 2004, the brainchild of a group of writers working out of a small apartment. Intended to revive the leftist social criticism and innovative literary analysis that was the hallmark of the Partisan Review and other midcentury magazines, n+1 was a rejoinder to the consumerism and complacency of the Bush years. It hasn't slowed down since. n+1 has given us the most clear-eyed reporting on the 2008 crash and the Occupy movement, the best criticism of publishing culture, and the first sociological report on the hipster. No media, new or old, has escaped its ire as n+1 's outspoken contributors have taken on reality TV, Twitter, credentialism, drone strikes, and Internet porn.
Happiness , released on the occasion of n+1 's tenth anniversary, collects the best of the magazine as selected by its editors. These essays are fiercely contentious, disconcertingly astute, and screamingly funny. They explore our modern pursuits of happiness and take a searching moral inventory of the strange times we live in. Founding lights Chad Harbach, Keith Gessen, Benjamin Kunkel, Marco Roth, and Mark Greif are featured alongside Elif Batuman, Rebecca Curtis, Emily Witt, and other young talents launched by n+1 .
This n+1 anthology is the definitive work of the definitive twenty-first century intellectual magazine.
- GenresNonfictionEssays
384 pages, Paperback
First published September 9, 2014
16 people are currently reading
219 people want to read
About the author
n+1
63 books138 followersn+1 is a print journal of politics, literature, and culture, published originally twice a year and now three times a year.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
May 23, 2023
n+1 is a pretentious, anti-populist literary magazine, and I say that half with love and half with scorn.
On the one hand, I am humbled not to have read a J.M. Coetzee or Issac Babel, but on the other hand, why use the word "sebaceous" when "oily" will do? Some topics are only accessible to the most well-read of the bookish humanities students, and the general readability of the prose tend to go downhill after Mary Karr's introduction. But this is the magazine that published Elizabeth O'Gieblyn "Babel," which still remains to be the more nuanced and clarifying writing on AI language models along with Ted Chiang's New Yorker piece. I'm still a fan of n+1 even if some of these writers and editors need to do me a favor and get over themselves.
My favorites from the collection:
- "Diana Abbott: A Lesson" by Benjamin Kunkel: a short story disguised as a review of J.M. Coetzee's oeuvre (or maybe it's the other way around?)
- "Gut-Level Legislation, or, Redistribution" by Mark Greif: an Aristotelian argument for wealth redistribution
- "Rise of Neuronovel" by Marco Roth: Although my discomfort after reading Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was more to do with my ablism, I get what Roth means about these neuronovels' attempt to "combine the pathological and the universal."
- "Fish Rot" by Rebecca Curtis
My favorite n+1 pieces from the more recent issues:
- "Babel" by Meghan O'Gieblyn from Issue 40
- "HUMAN_FALLBACK" by Laura Preston from Issue 44, best paired with "Babel"
- "The Suitors of Helen" by Stephen Squibb from Issue 44
On the one hand, I am humbled not to have read a J.M. Coetzee or Issac Babel, but on the other hand, why use the word "sebaceous" when "oily" will do? Some topics are only accessible to the most well-read of the bookish humanities students, and the general readability of the prose tend to go downhill after Mary Karr's introduction. But this is the magazine that published Elizabeth O'Gieblyn "Babel," which still remains to be the more nuanced and clarifying writing on AI language models along with Ted Chiang's New Yorker piece. I'm still a fan of n+1 even if some of these writers and editors need to do me a favor and get over themselves.
My favorites from the collection:
- "Diana Abbott: A Lesson" by Benjamin Kunkel: a short story disguised as a review of J.M. Coetzee's oeuvre (or maybe it's the other way around?)
- "Gut-Level Legislation, or, Redistribution" by Mark Greif: an Aristotelian argument for wealth redistribution
- "Rise of Neuronovel" by Marco Roth: Although my discomfort after reading Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was more to do with my ablism, I get what Roth means about these neuronovels' attempt to "combine the pathological and the universal."
- "Fish Rot" by Rebecca Curtis
My favorite n+1 pieces from the more recent issues:
- "Babel" by Meghan O'Gieblyn from Issue 40
- "HUMAN_FALLBACK" by Laura Preston from Issue 44, best paired with "Babel"
- "The Suitors of Helen" by Stephen Squibb from Issue 44
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December 13, 2025incredible writing, felt very authentic and genuine. will have to read the second decade
September 28, 2014
As a fan of N+1, I was really looking forward to this collection—but it ended up being lumpier than I expected.
For sure, there are some fantastic pieces included in the book. Elif Batuman's "Babel in California" is still incredibly funny, and a must-read if you haven't already seen it in her book The Possessed. Mark Grief's "Afternoon of the Sex Children" is one of the best, and most challenging Important Essays to come out in the last decade. Wesley Yang's "The Face of Seung-Hui Cho" is a searing look at male alienation shot through with racial considerations. And Lawrence Jackson's "Slickheads" inculcates you into its world through tremendous use of language.
But not every piece still stands out as strong after a decade running in the magazine. The "Intellectual Situation" pieces, electrifying at their time (and still one of my favorite parts of each new issue), now seem like artifacts of the cultural moments that produced them. They're interesting in that sense, at least, but don't really hold up as calls to action removed from their environs. Likewise, some of the other political pieces from early in the magazine (and they almost all are), seem a reaction to the Bush-era millieu. And quite frankly, some of the other novelistic essays fall flat in my eyes, like "Fish Rot" and "How to Quit".
Collections like this are often a guide to how a publication sees itself, and judging from this one, N+1 wants to be seen as an incubator of exciting new talent, and a fresh viewpoint from literary upstarts. This means setting aside the book reviews at the end of each issue—outstanding, thought-provoking stuff... but not quintessentially "N+1" enough to justify inclusion in the collection. The result is a book that doesn't quite capture everything I love about the magazine, but makes a compelling case for why you should read N+1 for the next decade. And for those of us who have loved the magazine for a while, it's a chance to rediscover some of your old favorites and a way to push them on others.
For sure, there are some fantastic pieces included in the book. Elif Batuman's "Babel in California" is still incredibly funny, and a must-read if you haven't already seen it in her book The Possessed. Mark Grief's "Afternoon of the Sex Children" is one of the best, and most challenging Important Essays to come out in the last decade. Wesley Yang's "The Face of Seung-Hui Cho" is a searing look at male alienation shot through with racial considerations. And Lawrence Jackson's "Slickheads" inculcates you into its world through tremendous use of language.
But not every piece still stands out as strong after a decade running in the magazine. The "Intellectual Situation" pieces, electrifying at their time (and still one of my favorite parts of each new issue), now seem like artifacts of the cultural moments that produced them. They're interesting in that sense, at least, but don't really hold up as calls to action removed from their environs. Likewise, some of the other political pieces from early in the magazine (and they almost all are), seem a reaction to the Bush-era millieu. And quite frankly, some of the other novelistic essays fall flat in my eyes, like "Fish Rot" and "How to Quit".
Collections like this are often a guide to how a publication sees itself, and judging from this one, N+1 wants to be seen as an incubator of exciting new talent, and a fresh viewpoint from literary upstarts. This means setting aside the book reviews at the end of each issue—outstanding, thought-provoking stuff... but not quintessentially "N+1" enough to justify inclusion in the collection. The result is a book that doesn't quite capture everything I love about the magazine, but makes a compelling case for why you should read N+1 for the next decade. And for those of us who have loved the magazine for a while, it's a chance to rediscover some of your old favorites and a way to push them on others.
June 30, 2015
I really enjoyed this essay collection. Though n+1 can be... out there.. you have to admire their willingness to commit to their intellectual exercise. But the most successful pieces to me were the ones that felt less like they were striving for intellectual ideals and were more raw explorations of a topic in the real world. Being intellectual is only helpful in so much as it helps us explain the world around us, not as an exercise for it's own sake.
October 7, 2023
my brain is too smooth and fond of literary, character-driven fiction to appreciate most of the essays in this anthology, but the ones that did land, landed !!!!!beautifully!!!
a lot of interesting takes, also a lot of theory that flew over my head.
money was a relatively easy-ish read and also one of my favorites ? the face of choi seung ho also made an impression. reading what do you desire? in the wild (at my local coffee shop) was an actually insane experience. how to quit was beautiful. babel in california was a vibe.
“It feels so early in her life—earlier than it actually is—and at the same time so late in the day, much later than a clock would admit.”
“… everyone has two lives—one open and visible, full of work, convention, responsibilities, jokes, and the other “running its course in secret”—and how easy it is for circumstances to line up so that everything you hold most important, interesting, and meaningful is somehow in the second life, the secret one.”
“It seemed to me that every kind of life, and even the extinction of life, was preferable to the one that I was living, which is not to way I had the strength either to change my life, or to end it.”
a lot of interesting takes, also a lot of theory that flew over my head.
money was a relatively easy-ish read and also one of my favorites ? the face of choi seung ho also made an impression. reading what do you desire? in the wild (at my local coffee shop) was an actually insane experience. how to quit was beautiful. babel in california was a vibe.
“It feels so early in her life—earlier than it actually is—and at the same time so late in the day, much later than a clock would admit.”
“… everyone has two lives—one open and visible, full of work, convention, responsibilities, jokes, and the other “running its course in secret”—and how easy it is for circumstances to line up so that everything you hold most important, interesting, and meaningful is somehow in the second life, the secret one.”
“It seemed to me that every kind of life, and even the extinction of life, was preferable to the one that I was living, which is not to way I had the strength either to change my life, or to end it.”
March 16, 2025
This is an anthology of pieces from the first 10 years of the magazine n+1, which focuses on literature, culture, and politics.
Like many anthology books, this was hit or miss in my opinion. I didn’t know much about n+1 beforehand, but I was looking for a magazine to subscribe to, and a friend recommended this to me. I found the pieces about culture and cultural criticism to be the most interesting. I don’t fully align politically with the magazine, and I gave up on some of the fiction pieces when I didn’t really get what they were driving at.
Like many anthology books, this was hit or miss in my opinion. I didn’t know much about n+1 beforehand, but I was looking for a magazine to subscribe to, and a friend recommended this to me. I found the pieces about culture and cultural criticism to be the most interesting. I don’t fully align politically with the magazine, and I gave up on some of the fiction pieces when I didn’t really get what they were driving at.
August 8, 2025
N+1 is a cool ass magazine. As some of the other reviews have made clear, there were a few stories in this anthology that might not deserve 5 stars, but most of them did. This anthology introduced me to the joys of reading Mark Greif, served a delightful Batuman piece with “Babel in California”, and also included some incisive editorials, such as the titular essay on happiness (which the colonizer exports) and critique (which makes you actually want to live). Thanks Prof. Kruger for the gift. On to the next anthology!
February 2, 2020
A mix of the best essays from n+1 across 10 years, a number of these are real gems. Personal favorites include "Babel in California," by Elif Batuman, "What Do You Desire," by Emily Witt, and "The Face of Seung Hui-Cho" by Wesley Yang.
November 15, 2017
Loved it all: maybe a lame review, but nevertheless true. Refreshing & good. No essay or story left me disappointed. Will be buying the magazine on the
reg now.
reg now.
December 2, 2020
A solid issue for our not so sanguine times.
October 7, 2022
the essays are so good they make you want to die but the stories are a bit too erudite and soulless
January 30, 2015
I just finished reading it and I'm still kind of flabbergasted by the last story, Kristin Dombek's "How to Quit." Frankly, the collection started out rather boring. I had no previous experience with N+1 but I recognized the name and thought I'd give it a shot. I was disappointed for quite a while. But I persevered and I was rewarded with some amazing stories with Kristin Dombek, Emily Witt, and Rebecca Curtis's being the best imho. I also really enjoyed everything from the editors and some of the more literary focused pieces like Benjamin Kunkel's and Keith Gessen's.
February 5, 2015
Solid collection of essays culled from the first ten years of upstart lit journal n+1. Not every essay hits, but the ones that do are chewy.
Personal faves were the nonfiction, including the Intellectual Situation pieces and the Wesley Yang essay about ugliness and the Virginia Tech shooting.
Not as huge on the fiction that n+1 publishes but the selection here is good. Ben Kunkel's meta-essay about JM Coetzee is a high point and worth the read.
Personal faves were the nonfiction, including the Intellectual Situation pieces and the Wesley Yang essay about ugliness and the Virginia Tech shooting.
Not as huge on the fiction that n+1 publishes but the selection here is good. Ben Kunkel's meta-essay about JM Coetzee is a high point and worth the read.
August 22, 2016
Vice: "In 2008, Wesley Yang published an essay in n+1 about the Virginia Tech mass shooter; fierce, analytical, and dangerously confessional, it had a testy Naipaulian energy."
I wanted to read this essay ("The Face of Seung-Hui Cho") but it's paywalled & otherwise unavailable online. Libraries to the rescue
Essay was ok. I skimmed the others but nothing grabbed me
I wanted to read this essay ("The Face of Seung-Hui Cho") but it's paywalled & otherwise unavailable online. Libraries to the rescue
Essay was ok. I skimmed the others but nothing grabbed me
March 5, 2015
It feels odd reviewing an anthology since it's kind of like reviewing the food at a buffet - you have bits you like and can choose to skip bits you don't. This one however strikes me as a must read just to see what is so great about n+1. It's not a perfect read from cover to cover but damn entertaining and it will make you think. hell it makes me want to subscribe to the magazine.
December 8, 2014
fantastic collection from some very talented young writers (some familiar voices coupled with totally new ones). Does an excellent job of making writing a perfectly relevant enterprise by intertwining literary theory and in-the-world moments. Wesley Yang's essay is jaw-dropping. Absolute gem.
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January 27, 2015Hard to rate this sort of collection, I liked some of the essays, got bored by others.
December 29, 2015
A wildly disparate collection where I preferred the measured and intellectual more than the wild fiction and memoir.
December 17, 2014
Not lumpy.
January 27, 2015
Emily Witt's contribution is excellent.
October 14, 2015
Mark Grief is my idol.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews