I Act, Therefore I Am I Act, Therefore I Am
Admired from a distance and reviled up close, Laurence Olivier could establish a relation with his audience that was like an infection. His official biography chronicles a personal...
Nov 17, 2005 / Books & the Arts / David Thomson
Monster’s Ball Monster’s Ball
Party in the Blitz, the final volume of Nobel laureate Elias Canetti's memoirs, is a chaotic, horribly fascinating memoir of a man who was a slave to love, an omnivorous intellect ...
Nov 17, 2005 / Books & the Arts / John Banville
The Ring Cycle The Ring Cycle
When Joe Louis defeated Nazi sympathizer Max Schmeling in 1938, it was the boxing match that reverberated across the world. Three new books chronicle the match and all the racial a...
Nov 16, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Gerald Early
From Beirut to Damascus From Beirut to Damascus
Four works trace the intertwined history of Lebanon and Syria and the interplay of political radicalism, military strength and miseries of war and murderous political intrigue.
Nov 10, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Charles Glass
Postcards From the Abyss Postcards From the Abyss
Anthony Shadid's Night Draws Near is a moving account of life in Iraq before and after the US occupation. Liberal hawk George Packer's The Assasins' Gate delves into the history be...
Nov 10, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Chris Toensing
The World According to Dowd The World According to Dowd
Maureen Dowd has done her best to declare feminism dead. But by insisting that men are scared of spunky successful women, it doesn't occur to her that she is promoting, rather than...
Nov 10, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Katha Pollitt
Five Questions for Robert Greenwald Five Questions for Robert Greenwald
What motivated director Robert Greenwald to spend a year on a documentary detailing Wal-Mart's impact on American life, culture and commerce?
Nov 8, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Sam Graham-Felsen
Scooter Libby: A Republican Nursery Rhyme Scooter Libby: A Republican Nursery Rhyme
Catching small fry, letting the big fish go.
Nov 3, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Calvin Trillin
All the King’s Media All the King’s Media
The scandals suffocating the Bush Administration seem less like Nixon and Watergate and more like Louis XV and pre-Revolutionary France. They are harbingers of a potent cultural ev...
Nov 3, 2005 / Books & the Arts / William Greider
The True Story of Equiano The True Story of Equiano
Vincent Carretta's Equiano, the African is the complex narrative of a Carolina slave who bought his freedom, married an English woman and published a memoir on his life as a seafar...
Nov 2, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Robin Blackburn