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Anyone who reads this bestselling, critically acclaimed novel becomes part of the focus group for the inevitable television or Hollywood stinker.
An engaging new memoir explores how the fusion of man and machine is about maintaining humanity, not creating monsters.
For fans of jazz, world music, Americana — in short, for fans of all the genres guitarist Bill Frisell has explored over the past decade — “East/West” is a must. By James Marcus Will the real Bill Frisell please stand up? It’s a question his admirers have been asking with increasing frequency over the past…
An increasingly popular movement in the visual arts prides itself on picturing everything that is the raw, untutored, and irrational.
By Vincent Czyz In his latest book, acclaimed writer Orhan Pamuk has penned an intriguing memoir that focuses on his relationship with Istanbul, the city in which he has always lived. Istanbul: Memories and the City by Orhan Pamuk. Knopf. Ottoman poets were fond of referring to Istanbul, then known to the world as Constantinople,…
Kazuo Ishiguro’s latest novel explores a future that’s already happened. “Never Let Me Go” by Kazuo Ishiguro. (Knopf) By Liza Weisstuch In the popular imagination, science fiction novels are supposed to be set in the future, anywhere from two years ahead to centuries. Often, these stories ruminate on how the latest technology changes humanity and…
By Milo Miles Iranian expatriate Marjane Satrapi continues to expand the art of the comic book. Back in the ’40s, the long-standing prejudice that comic books were incapable of presenting serious, adult matters was exploded by such artists as Bernie Krigstein, Harvey Kurtzman, and Will Eisner. But the discovery of how just how uniquely valuable…
A new book gives a philosophical analysis of American culture’s obsession with nonsense.
Urban Bush Women go back to the past in the name of a more communal and compassionate future. By Debra Cash View Gallery The names of Sojourner Truth, W.E.B. Dubois, Shirley Chishom and Ossie Davis roll down like a mighty stream. On stage, Amara Tabor-Smith of the Urban Bush Women reaches across space, at turns…
Film Commentary: A Touch of Awe
By Bill Marx At a time when special effects in films are increasingly computerized, it is inspiring to be reminded that images can be more than surfaces that thrill. A festival of movies by the master of the silent cinema, F.W. Murnau, will screen at the Museum of Fine Arts and Harvard Film Archive…
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