- 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.)...
- Books: “Blueprints for Building Better Girls” review.
Schappell’s second collection is framed by two stories about a woman named Heather. She first appears as a high-school student, “a good girl with a bad reputation,” who dreams of becoming a marine biologist. In the later story, she tries to discourage her teen-age . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Books: “The Outlaw Album” review.
In this collection’s twelve stories, Woodrell expands upon the unremittingly bleak portrait of Ozark life drawn in his novel “Winter’s Bone” and in the acclaimed film based on it. In one, a young woman tends to a rapist who was brain-damaged when she . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Books: “Noon” review.
In this collection of four linked stories, Rehan Tabassum grows up in Delhi with his strong-willed single mother and sets out to “enjoy his strange patrimony”—his father being a Pakistani media tycoon with an array of in-fighting heirs and informers. Tabassum’s sprawling . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Books: “Driving Home.”
In 1990, Raban left London “on impulse, for casual and disreputable reasons.” He met someone, he tells us, and made for Seattle, the “far-western stronghold of the second chance, second family, second career.” The essays collected here describe, among other things, his attempts to get . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Books: Victor Cha’s “The Impossible State” review.
8220;Industrialized,” “urbanized,” and “high tech” are not words one typically associates with North Korea. Yet, in the wake of the Second World War, as China and the U.S.S.R. vied for influence in the Korean peninsula, it was just that. Since then, political paranoia, economic . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Books: “Feeding on Dreams” review.
This latest memoir by the Chilean-American author and former Allende adviser resumes the tale of his countless “dislocations” since fleeing Chile, in 1973. Dorfman shuttles among three continents and two languages, adrift in “an eternal victimhood of regret.” The resulting “wrath” may help . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Goings on About Town: Readings and Talks
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A. L. Kennedy reads from her latest collection of short stories, “What Becomes.” (52 Prince St. No tickets necessary. Sept. 6 at 7.)
92ND STREET Y
Arianna Huffington discusses her new book about the state of the country, “Third World America.” . . ....
- Books: “[sic]” review.
Intended as a “riposte to the literature of disease”—inspirational stories in which illness presents an opportunity to discover how beautiful life actually is—Cody’s memoir is a manic and often dispiriting account of a young Manhattan composer’s struggle with cancer. Drawn . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Books: “[sic]” review.
Intended as a “riposte to the literature of disease”—inspirational stories in which illness presents an opportunity to discover how beautiful life actually is—Cody’s memoir is a manic and often dispiriting account of a young Manhattan composer’s struggle with cancer. Drawn . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Books: “The Idea of America.”
8220;The Americans revolted not out of actual suffering but out of reasoned principle,” Wood argues in a set of probing essays, which explore how the principles of these revolutionaries became distorted by events outside their control. Many of the Founders imagined republicanism as an antidote to the private . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Books: “The World That Never Was.”
This history follows the radical anti-authoritarians who flourished in the years between the Paris Commune, in 1871, and the First World War and the politicians, policemen, and agents provocateurs who opposed them, casting the conflict as “the first international ‘War on Terror.’ ” Butterworth shows how . . ....
- Books: “The Chairs Are Where the People Go.”
After Heti decided that “the world should have a book of everything” that Glouberman knows, the two friends drafted a list of promising topics. Then Glouberman, a well-known performance artist, talked, Heti transcribed, and the result is a triumph of what might be called conversational philosophy. Heti . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Books: “Is That a Fish in Your Ear?” review.
This lively survey asks “what translation has done in the past and does today,” and “whether it is one thing or many.” In thirty-two wide-ranging chapters, Bellos variously corrects bits of misguided folk wisdom (Eskimo, it turns out, does not have a hundred words . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Anthony Lane: “Robin Hood.”
What do you get if you mix “Gladiator,” “The Return of Martin Guerre,” “Saving Private Ryan,” “Elizabeth,” “Troy,” “The Seventh Seal,” and a hundred buckets of mud? The answer is “Robin Hood”—the latest version . . ....
- Books: “Double Happiness.”
The stories in this excellent collection meander with the sureness of streams discovering their paths. Hughes keeps her prose close to her characters’ thoughts, and doles out the most crucial information on the sly. Many stories deal with women or girls coming to terms with the failings, or deaths . . ....
- Books: “O.”
8220;You ever wonder why stories like yours get buzz?” Cal Regan, a handsome young campaign manager for O, asks Maddy Cohan, a beautiful young reporter. The answer, he volunteers, is that “you imprinted a stupid Hollywood psychodrama on the race when there are no facts to support . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Books: “O.”
8220;You ever wonder why stories like yours get buzz?” Cal Regan, a handsome young campaign manager for O, asks Maddy Cohan, a beautiful young reporter. The answer, he volunteers, is that “you imprinted a stupid Hollywood psychodrama on the race when there are no facts to support . . . (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.)...
- 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.)...
- Goings on About Town: Art
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MUSEUMS AND LIBRARIES
METROPOLITAN MUSEUM
Fifth Ave. at 82nd St. (212-535-7710)—“Velázquez Rediscovered.” Through Feb. 7. | “Art of the Samurai: Japanese Arms and Armor, 1156-1868.” Through Jan. 10. | “American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765-1915.” Through Jan. 24. | “ . . ....
- Books: “Young Romantics.”
Hay examines the “turbulent communal existence” of the English Romantic poets, astutely parsing the intricate circumstances that led to this network’s distinctive creative output; she shows, for instance, that “Frankenstein” emerged not merely out of fireside “conversations about ghosts and galvanism” but . . ....
- Goings on About Town: Art
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MUSEUMS AND LIBRARIES
METROPOLITAN MUSEUM
Fifth Ave. at 82nd St. (212-535-7710)—“The Drawings of Bronzino.” Opens Jan. 20. | “American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765-1915.” Through Jan. 24. | “Velázquez Rediscovered.” Through Feb. 7. | “Sounding the Pacific: Musical Instruments . . ....
- Books: Francis Spufford’s “Red Plenty,” review.
The first sign that this is not an orthodox history is the “cast” list up front, in which real people mingle with fictional ones. This hybrid approach, Spufford argues, befits the “fairytale” nature of his subject: the Soviet Union’s attempt—via a centralized . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Ian Frazier: “Messages from Dr. Abravenel.”
8220;Monday, October 17th, 12:47 P.M.”
“Hello, Mr. Singer, this is your physician, Dr. Morris Abravenel, calling with your test results, and I’m just as glad, quite frankly, not to find you in. This way, I can be brief. I am out of the . . ....
- Books: “Luka and the Fire of Life.”
This sequel to “Haroun and the Sea of Stories” is a twenty-first-century myth, with tropes drawn from video games, a multicultural cast of gods and demons, and distinctly postmodern quandaries. Twelve-year-old Luka, a left-handed boy who is “slow to anger and quick . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Anthony Lane: “The Fighter” and “I Love You Phillip Morris.”
Is David O. Russell’s “The Fighter” really a boxing movie? It certainly reeks of the ring, and the plotline, culled from life, follows the ascent of Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg), a welterweight from Lowell, Massachusetts, who became a world champion in 2000, and remains a hero . . ....
- Goings on About Town: Art
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MUSEUMS AND LIBRARIES
METROPOLITAN MUSEUM
Fifth Ave. at 82nd St. (212-535-7710)—“American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765-1915.” Through Jan. 24. | “Velázquez Rediscovered.” Through Feb. 7. | “Sounding the Pacific: Musical Instruments of Oceania.” Through Sept. 6. | “Peaceful Conquerors . . ....
