Rebecca Mead

Rebecca Mead joined The New Yorker as a staff writer in 1997. She has profiled many subjects, among them Lena Dunham, Christine Quinn, Santiago Calatrava, Nico Muhly, Slavoj Zizek, and Shaquille O'Neal. She has also written more than a hundred Talk of the Town stories.

She is the author of “One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding” (Penguin Press, 2007) and “My Life in Middlemarch” (Crown, 2014).

**Reading List: **Rebecca Mead recommends Janet Malcolm's “Forty-One False Starts” about David Salle.

All Work

Cultural Comment
Princes William and Harry’s Guarded Confessions in “Diana, Our Mother”
In a new documentary focussing on the Princess’s influence on her sons, light chat over family photos seems contrived to mask a depth of feeling.
By Rebecca Mead
July 24, 2017
Cultural Comment
“Middlemarch” Gets Winningly Adapted as a Web Series
Rebecca Shoptaw, a Yale undergraduate, has reimagined the classic George Eliot novel through an L.G.B.T.Q. lens.
By Rebecca Mead
July 14, 2017
Cultural Comment
Paddington Bear, Refugee
In the figure of a furry, marmalade-encrusted bear, Michael Bond, who died this week, depicted the struggles that a new arrival to any land faces.
By Rebecca Mead
June 28, 2017
Cultural Comment
In Defense of the Trumpian “Julius Caesar”
Art is not life, and giving “Julius Caesar” a contemporary resonance does not amount to an endorsement of assassination.
By Rebecca Mead
June 12, 2017
Cultural Comment
The Public Theatre at Fifty: “A Machine for Making Community”
“Let the Sunshine In,” a song first sung at the Public fifty years ago, was freshly relevant on Monday evening at the Delacorte Theatre.
By Rebecca Mead
June 7, 2017
Persons of Interest
Rebecca Hall’s Complicated Inheritance
The daughter of theatre royalty has become a serious, modern heroine.
By Rebecca Mead
June 3, 2017
Culture Desk
A Lost Edith Wharton Play Emerges from Scholarly Sleuthing
The play, the first work of Wharton’s to be discovered in twenty-five years, centers on the issue of assisted suicide.
By Rebecca Mead
May 26, 2017
Profiles
May 22, 2017 Issue
Gerhard Steidl Is Making Books an Art Form
He is the printer the world’s best photographers trust most.
By Rebecca Mead
Cultural Comment
The Fidget Spinner Is the Perfect Toy for the Trump Presidency
At this political moment, the rise of a gadget that encourages the abdication of thought cries out for interpretation.
By Rebecca Mead
May 12, 2017
Cultural Comment
Sheryl Sandberg’s “Option B” and the Facebook Way to Grieve
In her new book, the Facebook C.O.O. explains how her husband’s death taught her to appreciate the platform's role in “helping people share.”
By Rebecca Mead
May 4, 2017

Older entries

Rebecca Mead

All Work

In a new documentary focussing on the Princess’s influence on her sons, light chat over family photos seems contrived to mask a depth of feeling.

July 24, 2017

Rebecca Shoptaw, a Yale undergraduate, has reimagined the classic George Eliot novel through an L.G.B.T.Q. lens.

July 14, 2017

In the figure of a furry, marmalade-encrusted bear, Michael Bond, who died this week, depicted the struggles that a new arrival to any land faces.

June 28, 2017

Art is not life, and giving “Julius Caesar” a contemporary resonance does not amount to an endorsement of assassination.

June 12, 2017

“Let the Sunshine In,” a song first sung at the Public fifty years ago, was freshly relevant on Monday evening at the Delacorte Theatre.

June 7, 2017

The daughter of theatre royalty has become a serious, modern heroine.

June 3, 2017

The play, the first work of Wharton’s to be discovered in twenty-five years, centers on the issue of assisted suicide.

May 26, 2017

He is the printer the world’s best photographers trust most.

At this political moment, the rise of a gadget that encourages the abdication of thought cries out for interpretation.

May 12, 2017

In her new book, the Facebook C.O.O. explains how her husband’s death taught her to appreciate the platform's role in “helping people share.”

May 4, 2017