Magazines: Pop-Out

The cover of the New York Review of Books, a biweekly publication that offers highly literate book reviews to highly literate readers, normally carries nothing more than large-type announcements of what is inside. What is inside is words, with a sprinkling of pen-and-ink caricatures with oversized heads by David Levin. Last week, to the wondering eyes of its white, middle-class readers, Review devoted the lower third of a cover dealing with books on Negro rebellion to a detailed, do-it-yourself diagram of a Molotov cocktail. Some were amused, some were startled, none were likely to make much use of the blueprint. What was meant to give everybody a bang turned out to be just a little pop art.