Featured

Book Review: Susanna Hoffs’s “This Bird Has Flown” — A Satisfying Romcom

April 4, 2023
Posted in , ,

All in all, This Bird Has Flown is light but not brainless, and engagingly adorable. It’s a perfect beach read for the New Wave set.

Visual Arts Review: Minimalism — An Incomplete Project

April 3, 2023
Posted in , ,

What, we are led to wonder, is the project of minimalism today?

Book Review: Mona Simpson’s “Commitment” — E for Effort

April 3, 2023
Posted in , ,

Another installment in the author’s portraits of everyday struggles — and this one is a long-winded, shaggy affair.

Book Review: “The Ghost at the Feast” — Three Cheers for American Interventionism

April 3, 2023
Posted in , ,

The problem with The Ghost at the Feast is that the story it tells undermines its final argument. If America blundered by staying at home during the interwar period, it is blundering even more now by going relentlessly abroad.

Graphic Novel Review: “¡Ay, Mija!” — An Entertaining Mexican Adventure

April 2, 2023
Posted in , ,

Christine Suggs’s graphic novel is comforting, but it also offers serious proof of why representation, and its embrace of diversity, is so important.

Jazz Album Review: Pianist, Arranger, and Composer Oscar Hernández — Master of Latin Jazz

April 2, 2023
Posted in , , ,

These superb recordings provide ample proof that Oscar Hernández is at the pinnacle of his career as the leader of two divergent musical aggregations.

April Short Fuses — Materia Critica

April 2, 2023
Posted in , ,

Each month, our arts critics — music, book, theater, dance, television, film, and visual arts — fire off a few brief reviews.

Theater Review: “Clyde’s” – An Exhilarating Food Fight

April 2, 2023
Posted in , ,

The Huntington Theatre Company’s co-production of Lynn Nottage’s Clyde’s is spirited and sassy.

Book Review: “Waging a Good War” — A Civil Rights Strategy for the Future

April 1, 2023
Posted in , ,

In this valuable history, Thomas E. Ricks looks at the critical events of “The Second Reconstruction” as a series of campaigns in a nonviolent war.

Classical Album Review: Allen Shawn — An American Composer of Vivid and Varied Imaginings

March 31, 2023
Posted in , , ,

Allen Shawn is one of the great composers of piano music in America today, with seven piano sonatas, various suites and shorter pieces. An astounding concerto of his has been recorded by the remarkable Ursula Oppens.

Recent Posts

Popular Posts

Categories

Archives