Silvers was co-editor of The New York Review of Books with Barbara Epstein for 43 years, until she died in 2006, and was the sole editor of the paper after that until his own death in 2017.

Philip Marino of Liveright Publishing wrote of him: "Like a chemist pairing ingredients to induce a specific reaction, Silvers has built his career matching the right author and subject, in hopes of generating an exciting and illuminating result.

[4] For an issue of the magazine in 1959 focusing on the state of writing in America, he engaged Elizabeth Hardwick to contribute her essay "The Decline of Book Reviewing", which fifty years later he described as "one of the most thrilling pieces I've ever published".

[1] In 1960, he edited the book Writing in America and translated La Gangrene, which describes the brutal torture of seven Algerian men by the Paris Security Police in 1958, shortly after Charles de Gaulle came to power.

[22][23] Silvers and Epstein "became an inseparable double act", editing The New York Review of Books together for the next 43 years, until her death in 2006.

[15] A long-time vegetarian, Silvers "was struck by the essays of ... moral philosopher Peter Singer, who has written extensively about animal rights.

[38] The New York Times described him as "the voracious polymath, the obsessive perfectionist, the slightly unknowable bachelor-workaholic with the colossal Rolodexes and faintly British diction",[4] and, in his obituary, stated that "under his editorship [The Review] became one of the premier intellectual journals in the United States, a showcase for extended, thoughtful essays on literature and politics by eminent writers.

"[40] Susan Sontag, a prolific contributor to the Review and a close friend of Silvers, called him a "fantastic, fanatical, brilliant" editor.

[4] Roger Cohen wrote, after Silvers' death, "No eye for imprecise thought was ever more discerning; no edit a sharper yet gentler distillation than his. ...

'"[42] Philip Marino, in The University of Chicago Magazine, commented: "Like a chemist pairing ingredients to induce a specific reaction, Silvers has built his career matching the right author and subject, in hopes of generating an exciting and illuminating result. ...

It was important that a journal which has the authority of the Review in a sense took up the slack and presented viewpoints which were extremely hard to get into the established media.

"[44] The Nation added, during the Iraq war:One suspects [the editors of the Review] yearn for the day when they can return to their normal publishing routine – that gentlemanly pastiche of philosophy, art, classical music, photography, German and Russian history, East European politics, literary fiction – unencumbered by political duties of a confrontational or oppositional nature.

The Time magazine review of the book expressed surprise at Silvers' position near the top of the list: "Robert Silvers, the editor of the New York Review of Books, the magazine that [Kadushin] indicates is favored by intellectuals who want to reach other intellectuals ... is an able editor but an infrequent writer; it must be assumed that his ranking at the top ... is due to a power not unlike that of the maître d' of an exclusive restaurant.

[48] In 2011, Oliver Sacks identified Silvers as his "favorite New Yorker, living or dead, real or fictional", saying that the Review is "one of the great institutions of intellectual life here or anywhere.

"[49] Timothy Noah at Politico concluded that Silvers "made the New York Review the country’s best and most influential literary journal".

[12] Claire Messud wrote in 2012 that she was impressed, when submitting reviews for novels to the Review, that Silvers had "read the novel at hand, and sometimes with more sensitivity than I had ... he pointed out, delicately, that I'd attributed a quotation to the wrong character, and upon another occasion, that I'd summarized an event in a misleading way ... [but] Bob is unfailingly generous and kind, someone who carefully suggests rather than commands alteration.

Extracting reviews from writers is not, in his case, a métier, or even a way of life, but a genuine form of self-expression, and he exercises it with dignity, tact and what sometimes feels like excessive sympathy.

He has made writers feel that producing articles for him is not a business transaction or even process of communication, but simply a reciprocal act of friendship.

You must choose writers carefully, having read all of their work, rather than being swayed by 'reputations that are, shall we say, overpromoted', and then anticipate their needs, sending them books and news articles" while seeking greater clarity, comprehensiveness and freshness in the writing.

[10] Stokes commented that Silvers "radiates a genial warmth [but told her that] it is part of the editor's role ... not to be swayed by friendships with authors but to let reviewers express their genuine views.

'"[16] James Atlas wrote of a typical day for Silvers: "In the late afternoon, he'd rush out to a lecture at the Council on Foreign Relations, show up at a dinner party, and then head back to the office to deal with the next breaking crisis.

"[52] Timothy Noah wrote: "Silvers edited three successive galleys for every piece, sharpening the argument, requesting additional evidence, removing pompous jargon and infelicitous phrases.

He arrived at the office early and left late, if at all, to the kind of heavyweight cocktail party that was, for him, a happy hunting ground for writers and ideas.

"[7] At the time of his death, Silvers left the Review with a circulation of more than 130,000,[53] its book publishing operations, and a reputation as "the country’s best and most influential literary journal. ...

"[50] The 50 Year Argument, a 2014 documentary film about the Review, co-directed by Martin Scorsese,[54] is "'[a]nchored by the old-world charm' of its editor, Robert Silvers".

"[2] The annual Robert B. Silvers lectures at the New York Public Library were established by Max Palevsky in 2002 and are given by experts in the fields of "literature, the arts, politics, economics, history, and the sciences.

"[64][65] The event has included lectures given by Joan Didion, J. M. Coetzee, Ian Buruma, Michael Kimmelman, Daniel Mendelsohn, Nicholas Kristof, Zadie Smith, Oliver Sacks, Derek Walcott, Mary Beard, Darryl Pinckney,[64] Lorrie Moore,[66] Joyce Carol Oates,[67] Helen Vendler,[68] Paul Krugman,[69] Masha Gessen,[70] Alma Guillermoprieto,[71] Mark Danner,[72] Sherrilyn Ifill,[73] and Justice Stephen Breyer.

[74] On November 15, 2006, Silvers, together with Epstein, received the National Book Foundation Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community.