The New York Review of Books (or NYREV or NYRB) is a semimonthly magazine on literature, culture, and current affairs published in New York which takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity. Esquire has called it "the premier literary-intellectual magazine in the English language."http://chengdu.usconsulate.gov/periodicals_-_irc_chengdu.html As of 2007, the publication had a circulation of approximately 140,000.