The Greatness that was Downton
/Julian Fellowes' "Downton Abbey" was shot in a castle, but it may have a nearer relationship to "Mad Men" than "Brideshead Revisited." Joanna Scutts tracks the evolution of the British costume drama.
Read MoreDross of a Passing Dream
/A conversation with Open Letters' new curator, Katie Caron, and an exploration of her upcoming show, "Displaced"
Read MoreThe Light in Their Eyes
/Thomas Lawrence was the rising young star painter of the politicians, soldiers, rakes, and mistresses of Regency London, but his work had a life and intelligence that transcended the trendy. A new book looks at a forgotten master.
Read MoreLiterature is Dead, Long Live Literature
/Is the death of literature finally dead? If not, it's been dealt a healthy blow by Gregory Jusdanis' Fiction Agonistes, even it art does have to “justify itself in a way not necessary before.”
Read MoreDebo Speaks!
/For most of the 20th century, the vivacious, controversial Mitford sisters captivated the imagination of the Western world. In a long-awaited memoir, Deborah Mitford, Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, the last living Mitford sister, tells her story at last.
Read MoreThe Tao of Steve
/For their wit and challenge, Stephen Sondheim's lyrics have virtually come to symbolize our modern musical theater. A new collection gathers the lyrics to all those maddening, memorable songs, and adds to them with Sondheim's own comments.
Read MoreThere Are Heroes, and You Aren't One of Them
/A gutted world, a shattered helmet, a battle lost before you ever joined it ... in "Halo: Reach," the franchise delves into the mythology underpinning all heroic narrative, and still manages to deliver some fun.
Read MoreArt Beneath the Floorboards
/Dostoevsky's moody, brilliant "Notes from the Underground" was recently given an edgy, provocative theater treatment. Can Russia's most unfilmable writer be acted on the stage?
Read MoreThe Annotated Mix-Tape, #7
/Black cars, night escapes, spinning vinyl, "Why should I care / Driving's a gas / it ain't gonna last..."
Read MoreOn the Scent: Difficult Pleasures
/Our regular scentstress extols the difficult: sharp notes, throwbacks, and sweaty musks over easy patchoulis and fruity bores.
Read MoreEmotional Contagion
/A Conversation with Carissa Halston and Randolph Pfaff about his images for their short play "Patsy"
Read MoreLooking at Betty Draper
/Mad Men's Betty Draper is spoiled and uppity, but also tragically thwarted by the chauvinism of the era. As Season Four begins, her fate on the show is coming to a head.
Read MoreCat's Owls
/"Owls are majestic creatures. Their stolid quality is exactly what attracts me to them. I purposefully chose those images based on the ability that this animal has to move with such grace and poise, as if always in perfect control."
Read MoreYou Oughta Know that (Music) is a Battlefield
/"Sisters are doin' it for themselves" ... but the Spice Girls? Marisa Meltzer's "Girl Power" picks some strange hall-of-famers, and gets Megan Kearns shaking her head, "with friends like these ..."
Read MoreThe Napping Anthropologists
/They have been with us for fourteen thousand years, and they're sleeping on the couch right now; a new book takes a comprehensive yet personal look at dogs.
Read MoreThe Man of Steel Revealed?
/The most famous fictional creation this side of Tarzan has undergone innumerable changes over the years, and author Tom DeHaven tries to chart them all in his new book on the Man of Steel.
Read MoreThe Why of the Beholder
/Can Fantagraphics' Spectrum series of contemporary fantasy art yield the same sort of enjoyment as a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art? Steve Donoghue looks into the newest collection.
Read More“This Spider — No More!”
/In the 1970s, two giants of the Spider-Man comic book, writer Stan Lee and artist John Romita, reunited for a daily newspaper comic strip. Paradise? Ask Khalid Ponte.
Read MoreThe Pleasures of Paranoia
/In Assassin’s Creed II, the player plays a player playing a player, all hunting for buried memories and hidden clues to the nature of identity. Philip A. Lobo explains.
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