Review

Book Review: Edward Gorey, Up Close—and Not Quite in Focus

September 14, 2026
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Christopher Seufert’s “Memento Gorey” offers an intimate, cluttered, sometimes illuminating portrait of the artist’s final years, but its unedited conversations rarely penetrate the mystery at their center.

Poetry Review: Thom Gunn’s AIDS Elegies Still Refuse Abstraction

September 13, 2026
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A new edition of “The Man with Night Sweats” brings the poet’s formal restraint, domestic intimacy, and unsparing attention to individual loss into sharper focus.

Book Review: Alexander Herzen’s “Future” Has Arrived

September 12, 2026
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A new annotated translation of “Past & Thoughts” restores the Russian revolutionary writer’s intimate family drama and brings his penetrating critique of tyranny, populism, and political extremism to American readers.

Classical Music Album Review: The Limits of Musical Consolation

September 12, 2026
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In “Silent Depths,” Kristian Sensini responds to the suffering of civilians in the West Bank and Gaza with sincere, accessible music that ultimately needs greater tension and complexity.

Doc Talk: “The Cycle of Love” — Tour De Romance

September 11, 2026
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Orlando von Einsiedel’s documentary follows an Indian portrait artist’s extraordinary bicycle journey from Delhi to Sweden—and the improbable love story that inspired it.

Classical Music Album: The American Songbook, Recast for Solo Violin

September 11, 2026
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Curtis Stewart transforms two dozen American songs into inventive, virtuosic studies for solo violin.

Rock Album Review: The Smiths’ Best I and Best II Compilations– Revisited in a Warholian Light

September 9, 2026
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Rhino’s reissues of “Best I” and “Best II” reveal the breadth of the band’s music and the striking parallels between Steven Morrissey and Andy Warhol.

Book Review: A Life Lived at the Boomer Crossroads

September 9, 2026
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Robert Dattoli’s “Boomer Madness” recounts a picaresque journey through sex, drugs, work, protest, and the cultural upheavals of postwar America—but its reflections on the generation often prove less compelling than its adventures.

Concert Review: Mavis Staples and Alabama Shakes Turn Tanglewood Into an “Army of Love”

September 8, 2026
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At the Koussevitzky Music Shed, two generations of artists joined forces in a rousing concert of gospel, rock, resistance, and solidarity.

Children’s Book Reviews: Hurray for Books!

September 8, 2026
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Two lively picture books invite children to discover the creativity, collaboration, and wonder behind the books they love.

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