- Goings on About Town: Readings and Talks
BOOKCOURT
The novelist James Ellroy reads from his latest book, “Blood’s a Rover.” (163 Court St., Brooklyn. Sept. 30 at 7.)
“ON THE WATERFRONT IN NEW YORK”
Following a screening of “Street of Ships,” a 1982 documentary by Charles Richards about the . . ....
- Joan Acocella: Why do people love Stieg Larsson’s novels?
Having got American readers to buy more than fourteen million copies, collectively, of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy books—“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” (2008, American edition), “The Girl Who Played with Fire” (2009), and “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’ . . ....
- Ben Greenman: Johnny Cash’s “American VI: Ain’t No Grave.”
paragraph class="noindent">There are several good things about “American VI: Ain’t No Grave” (American Recordings), the second posthumous release from Johnny Cash and the final page in Rick Rubin’s final-chapter reclamation project. The title song demonstrates admirable defiance in the face of . . ....
- Joan Acocella: Frederick Wiseman’s “Ballet” at MOMA.
In Frederick Wiseman’s “Ballet” (1995), a documentary on American Ballet Theatre, Agnes de Mille, in a wheelchair, rehearses her final piece, “The Other.” “You must look like something that’s absolutely broken, and stuck up in the wind,” she tells Amanda . . ....
- Books: “Bird Cloud.”
Proulx’s memoir chronicles her years-long quest to build a “final home” in the harsh Wyoming landscape that has provided a setting for much of her fiction. The project is plagued by obstacles, and Proulx’s enthusiasm is fickle. “I still do not know . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Books: “Bird Cloud.”
Proulx’s memoir chronicles her years-long quest to build a “final home” in the harsh Wyoming landscape that has provided a setting for much of her fiction. The project is plagued by obstacles, and Proulx’s enthusiasm is fickle. “I still do not know . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Tad Friend: Andrew Stanton, “Finding Nemo” and “Wall-E,” director tries live action.
If Andrew Stanton’s career has taught him anything, it’s the power of toys, fish, and robots. Stanton was the lead writer of Pixar Animation Studios’ “Toy Story” trilogy; he also wrote and directed “Finding Nemo,” about a father fish’s . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Books: “William Golding.”
Carey’s thorough and illuminating biography, the first of Golding, also serves as a crucial introduction to the Nobel Prize-winning novelist’s output. Golding’s novels, which include “The Inheritors,” “Pincher Martin,” and “Darkness Visible,” have always stood in the . . ....
- Goings on About Town: Dance
goatTitle-->NEW YORK CITY BALLET
In the final week of its spring season, the company will present Balanchine’s evening-length “Jewels” and Christopher Wheeldon’s “Mercurial Manoeuvres,” as well as a special “Dancers’ Choice” program on June 12. This . . ....
- Goings on About Town: Art
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MUSEUMS AND LIBRARIES
METROPOLITAN MUSEUM
Fifth Ave. at 82nd St. (212-535-7710)—“Vermeer’s Masterpiece ‘The Milkmaid.’” Through Nov. 29. | “Looking In: Robert Frank’s ‘The Americans.’” Through Jan. 3. | “American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765-1915.” . . ....
- Books: “Walks with Men.”
Beattie’s novella is set in the Manhattan of literary aspirants’ dreams: a recent Harvard graduate, Jane, takes up with Neil, a man twenty-three years her senior, who provides an education in food, clothing, and sex. “You’re smart,” he says, “but you . . ....
- Richard Brody: Jean-Pierre Melville’s “Le Deuxième Souffle.”
The director Jean-Pierre Melville’s chilled underworld romanticism, one of the most influential of modern cinematic styles, reached the height of its personal expression in “Le Deuxième Souffle” (“Second Wind”), from 1966. It screens at French Institute Alliance Française on . . . (Subscription required.)...
- David Denby: Sidney Lumet’s “Prince of the City”
Of Sidney Lumet’s trilogy of films about police corruption in New York—“Serpico” (1973), “Prince of the City” (1981), and “Q. & A.” (1990)—the middle film (screening on July 24 at Film Society of Lincoln Center) is probably the . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Books: “The Dead Republic.”
Doyle’s ninth novel, the concluding volume of a trilogy that began with “A Star Called Henry,” chronicles the return to Ireland, after almost thirty years of exile in America, of Henry Smart, a former I.R.A. assassin. The first section, in which Henry works with John Ford . . ....
- Books: “The War Lovers.”
Before embarking for Cuba, in 1898, the Rough Riders, led by Theodore Roosevelt, chanted, “Rough, tough, we’re the stuff / We want to fight and we can’t get enough / Whoopee!” In Thomas’s telling, that spirit—manliness so loudly asserted that it’ . . ....
- Hilton Als: “Early Plays” by Eugene O’Neill, “CQ/CX,” “Rx” reviews.
The director Richard Maxwell’s adaptation of Eugene O’Neill’s “Early Plays” (at St. Ann’s Warehouse) has the supreme realism of a dream. It is happening, and sometimes you don’t want it to happen, but you’re powerless to . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Books: “The Last Stand.”
On June 25, 1876, Lieutenant Colonel George Custer looked down through binoculars at an immense Indian village on the Little Bighorn River. All he saw were women and children; the men seemed to be away. “Hurrah, boys, we’ve got them!” he shouted. “We’ll . . ....
- Jane Kramer: Two to tango: “Don’t Dress for Dinner.”
The English actor Ben Daniels and the American actress Spencer Kayden were on the Roundabout’s Broadway stage the other day, rehearsing the tango for a French farce called “Don’t Dress for Dinner”—or, as it’s known in Paris, “Pyjamas pour . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Books: “Verdi’s Shakespeare” review.
In the essays collected here, Wills examines how Verdi—who, though he did not read English, “adored Shakespeare”—composed and staged “Macbeth,” “Otello,” and “Falstaff,” all “solid masterpieces,” and the latter two “arguably the greatest things he . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Hilton Als: Diane Keaton’s “Then Again.”
Part of what makes Diane Keaton’s memoir, “Then Again,” truly amazing is that she does away with the star’s “me” and replaces it with a daughter’s “I.” Writing in a collaboration of sorts with her late mother, Dorothy . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Sam Tanenhaus: Populism, politics, and the power of Sarah Palin.
The last time the publication of a political memoir aroused as much interest as Sarah Palin’s “Going Rogue: An American Life” (Harper; $28.99) was probably in 1995, when Colin Powell’s autobiography, “My American Journey,” came out. Like Palin’s bus . . ....
- Emily Nussbaum: NBC’s “Whitney” and CBS’s “2 Broke Girls.”
Whitney Cummings may be this year’s most unnerving success, having launched two network sitcoms, an unheard-of achievement for a newcomer. On “Whitney,” which airs on NBC, she stars as a version of herself; with Michael Patrick King, she’s the co-creator of “ . . ....
- Lauren Collins: Dinner with Christopher Hitchens and Salman Rushdie.
8220; ‘Laughterhouse Five,’ ” Guest No. 1 said. “ ‘Romeo and Julie.’ ”
“No, no, no,” Guest No. 2 replied. “That’s the ruining-everything-by-changing-one-letter game. Let’s do the substitute-‘dick’-for-‘heart . . ....
- Books: “Three Stages of Amazement.”
Edgarian’s second novel follows an idealistic couple who want their marriage to be “a flexible, romantic sort of agreement” but find that it has become “a mousetrap.” Lena used to be a “nail-the-bastards” radio producer; now she cares for two . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Books: “Three Stages of Amazement.”
Edgarian’s second novel follows an idealistic couple who want their marriage to be “a flexible, romantic sort of agreement” but find that it has become “a mousetrap.” Lena used to be a “nail-the-bastards” radio producer; now she cares for two . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Ann Beattie: Mrs. Nixon joins the final photograph.
MRS. NIXON JOINS THE FINAL OFFICIAL PHOTOGRAPH
I said, “Oh, Ollie, we’re always glad to see you, but I don’t think we need any pictures now.”
Dick refutes me. “Oh, come on, Ollie. Take a few shots.”
Dolly gets up and suggests . . ....
- Goings on About Town: Dance
goatTitle-->PAUL TAYLOR DANCE COMPANY
This is the final week of the company’s annual season at City Center, so if you haven’t seen “Beloved Renegade,” from 2008—a meditation on mortality and love, set to Poulenc’s deeply moving “Gloria” . . ....
- James Wood: Teju Cole’s prismatic début novel, “Open City.”
Publishers now pitch their books like Hollywood concepts, so Teju Cole’s first novel, “Open City” (Random House; $25), is being offered as especially appealing to “readers of Joseph O’Neill and Zadie Smith,” and written in a prose that “will remind . . ....
