Review
“Learning to Listen” is less about a jazz journey than it is about a prodigiously talented artist for whom music came easily while his own life was a puzzle.
Read MoreThis expansive biography of Ted Williams is not awash in sentimentally, thanks to Ben Bradlee’s praiseworthy search for the facts, no matter where they lead, and his command of language, honed during his 25-year career as a reporter and editor at “The Boston Globe.”
Read MoreWhat feels absent in Bruce Norris’s “Domesticated” is some sort of moral center to its familiarly skewed, down sliding spiral of relationships.
Read MoreIt’s possible to argue with several of Stephen Sondheim’s selections. Are all of these his best achievements? Yet it hardly matters, because the composer’s tales of his artistic life, culled from probably a dozen interviews, are completely fascinating.
Read MoreThink of these novellas as variations on a common theme: a complicated world is scrutinized through the elemental viewpoint of one of the most memorable characters in American fiction over the past quarter-century.
Read MoreThe more I hear performed by the BEMF, especially their operas, the more deeply impressed – and thankful – I am.
Read More“Becky’s New Car” turns out to be a ride worth taking, especially if we suspend our disbelief long enough to embrace the notion that malice is not necessarily aforethought even though our actions might be construed to suggest otherwise.
Read More“Le Joli Mai” is serious and sober, a bit of a downer, climaxing in a lengthy interview with a dullard union official about why he supports the French Communist Party.
Read MoreThere will be readers who appreciate Daniel Menaker’s brevity and lack of emotional engagement, but for me, much of “My Mistake” reads like notes for a memoir.
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