The Passion of Anna The Passion of Anna
In Elaine Feinstein's new biography, the complicated life of Russian poet Anna Akhmatova is flattened into a fable of suffering and redemption.
Jun 21, 2006 / Books & the Arts / Elif Batuman
Life Is Sweet Life Is Sweet
Federico Fellini: His Life And Work effaces nearly everything written about the great Italian director, offering a distinct critical analysis and an absorbing account of his privat...
Mar 2, 2006 / Books & the Arts / Peter Cowie
Bad Will Hunting Bad Will Hunting
Two new books on Shakespeare examine his shadowy life, his times and the origins of his imagination. A third explores whether the Bard of Avon was, in fact, Edward de Vere.
Feb 28, 2006 / Books & the Arts / Daniel Swift
Compromising Positions Compromising Positions
Richard Schickel's biography of Elia Kazan is a laudatory postscript to a life marked by social turmoil, political strife and artistic intensity.
Feb 23, 2006 / Books & the Arts / David Bromwich
In a Lonely Place In a Lonely Place
Elizabeth Cady Stanton's legacy as both an admirable revolutionary and a profound thinker is brought to life in Vivian Gornick's The Solitude of Self.
Feb 9, 2006 / Books & the Arts / Martha C. Nussbaum
Heidegger Made Kosher Heidegger Made Kosher
Two new books explore the work of philosophers Emmanuel Levinas and Martin Heidegger.
Feb 2, 2006 / Books & the Arts / Richard Wolin
Music for the End of Time Music for the End of Time
A new biography examines the life and work of composer and theorist Olivier Messiaen, who moved French music out of the cafes and back to the cathedrals.
Jan 25, 2006 / Books & the Arts / David Schiff
The Tower of Babel The Tower of Babel
Jerome Charyn's Savage Shorthand: The Life and Death of Isaac Babel examines the life the revolutionary idealist murdered by Stalin in 1940 and explodes the literary myths that hav...
Nov 17, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Lee Siegel
Agee’s Gospel Agee’s Gospel
Two new volumes in the Library of America series present the life and work of James Agee, whose flashes of greatness as an essayist, screenwriter, novelist and Nation film reviewe...
Nov 17, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Phillip Lopate
The Scrivener and the Whale The Scrivener and the Whale
Andrew Delbanco's new biography of Herman Melville reveals that the great writer came to realize that what torments men is not the longing to believe that there is meaning in the u...
Nov 17, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Vivian Gornick