Article Archive for April 2012
Book Review: The Uninvited Guests
A darkly dazzling new Edwardian novel to tempt fans of “Downton Abbey”
Comics: Essential Avengers Volume 8
the latest black-and-white omnibus collection of the adventures of Marvel Comics’ super-team par excellence, The Mighty Avengers
CD of the Week – Elgar Conducts Elgar
Every conductor tries to locate the key to Edward Elgar’s famous compositions — a new release lets listeners hear how Elgar interpreted himself
Book Review: That Woman
A new biography of Wallis Simpson, the woman for whom a King of England abdicated
Book Review: Uncovering the Truth about Meriwether Lewis
a new book sifts the evidence for a few flash-point topics in the life of Meriwether Lewis
Book Review: The Weird
A gigantic new anthology of creepy, unbalanced, and openly threatening short fiction
Classics Reissued: The Marsh Lions
A new reprint of a classic book about a hardscrabble pride of lions in Kenya
CDs of the Week – Gustav Mahler
A year after the centennial of his death, Gustav Mahler is still inspiring interesting performances. Norman Lebrecht listens to five newly released recordings.
Book Review: Paris, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down
A talented young novelist writes a nonfiction account of living and working in Paris!
Interview with Tom O’Rourke
First off, thanks for joining us – and congratulations on writing a fantastic book! Can you tell us a little about yourself? Writing is not, as it were, your day job, correct?
It’s good to be …
Book Review: West Briton Story
A novel of 6th century England, full of blood and mud and love and valor!
CD of the Week – Henryk Mikolaj Górecki: Totus Tuus
Music from the adventurous Polish composer Henryk Mikolaj Górecki finds a perfect match with the National Youth Choir of Great Britain.
Now in Paperback: Berlin at War
An exceptionally powerful history of Berlin’s rise and fall during the course of World War Two
Book Review: Songs of the Earth
The valiant young hero of Elspeth Cooper’s debut novel must flee from a Church that condemns his growing energy-powers as evil …
Book Review: Mutants & Mystics
A new book explores the connections between superhero comics and the extraordinary beliefs of some of their creators
Book Review: Human Rights Watch World Report, 2012
The latest World Report of the Human Rights Watch draws a sobering – but still hopeful – picture of mankind in 2011
CD of the Week – Anton Rubinstein: Persian Love Songs
19th-century Russian composer Anton Rubinstein has always been justifiably overshadowed by Tchaikovsky, but a new recording of his Persian music proves a surprising delight
An Interview with John Summers of The Baffler
An interview with The Baffler‘s new Editor-in-Chief, John Summers.
The Baffler Returns
The Baffler, an unapologetically radical journal that always punched above its weight, has had a troubled history. But a long-term publishing contract has rejuvenated it, and shown that an old formula is as relevant as ever.
Book Review: Love, Fiercely
He was a taciturn, bookish heir to staggering wealth; she was a high-spirited nonconformist ‘new woman’ – and, in a lost era of privilege and social progress, they were very much in love.
Book Review: Empire of Shadows
A new book dramatizes the adventurous – and bloody – opening of the American West.
Good Enough
A new book takes readers back to a time when, according to historian Ira Shapiro, politics could sometimes be noble and senators could sometimes be giants.
Into the Breach: Battle Royale and Hunger Games
The box office record-setting movie adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games is the latest incarnation of an unsettling children-as-prey plot that’s been with us in one form or another for a long time – and never more vividly than in Koushun Takami’s Battle Royale
Odi et Amo
The work of the Roman poet Catullus has always challenged the received idioms of poetry and society, and a daring new translation both underscores and undermines that iconoclastic Catullan stance.
Downright Rude: Reading Catullus
The raw sexuality of the Catullus’ love poems keeps them alive even today, and the things he implied about Julius Caesar STILL can’t be repeated in polite conversation – how do we deal with this young man who’s always making us feel just a bit uncomfortable?
The People’s Prisoner
When the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in 2010, it was given to an empty chair. Its recipient, Liu Xiaobo, was in prison for advocating human rights in China. Though he is still incarcerated, a collection of essays sheds light on his thought and struggle.
Second Glance: Seth Morgan and the Kamikaze Novel
With its headspinning wordplay and lunatic cast of characters, Seth Morgan’s 1990 novel Homeboy blazed like a comet into the literary pantheon. Steve Danziger revisits this grime crime classic.
On the Scent: Adventures in Perfume Layering
You choose a perfume, you apply it, and you let it live and breathe on your skin – but you never, never mix and match. Or so goes the conventional wisdom. Our resident maitresse de parfums begs to differ – and shares some interesting discoveries
American Aristocracy – Harvard Pulpit: Boston Brahmin Liberalism
To the quintessential virtues the Puritans lent to a fledgling republic – globality, philantropy, and autonomy – the ‘speaking aristocracy’ of the Boston Brahmins added one more: the love of learning
Making the List
Long-time critic John Sutherland’s latest book The Lives of the Novelists takes readers on a biographical tour of 294 creators’ lives. But does it work? Long-time critic Steve Donoghue and novelist John Cotter try to figure that out.
Designing Desire
Steve Jobs, the visionary predator who founded Apple and forged a new way of thinking about technology, wasn’t a particularly nice man (as even his dutiful biographer must occasionally concede) – but was he a genius?
A Man Could Stand Up: On Downton Abbey’s Second Season
Unlike the soap operas with which it is often dismissively aligned, Downton Abbey is defined by change rather than stasis – by its beautifully produced attention to social evolution.
It’s a Mystery: “The world is a great honeycombed thing”
In Nick Harkaway’s altogether remarkable novel Angelmaker, blistering gangster noir meets Rabelaisian comedy
When She Was Lost
One hundred years ago this month, the luxury liner Titanic struck an iceberg and sank, with the loss of over 1500 lives. The centenary has released a flood of books, including some gems not to be missed.
“highly contrived and stylized”
“Spending a summer night alone in Hannibal, watching the Mississippi River, staying in a rundown motel, and getting drunk by yourself … that’s a solid way to spend a day.” — A conversation with poet and cover artist Joshua Ware
Humanitarian Disaster Romance
In The Orphan Master’s Son, Adam Johnson evokes the brutality of North Korea’s authoritarian regime by way of an over-the-top love story. Joyce W. Lee investigates whether torture and romance can coexist in one novel.
Dystopia Now
A simpler, sleeker update of the dystopian 90′s classic Syndicate raises some uncomfortable questions about the here and now.
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