Tough Room
/What does a movie-maker do? Legendary director Francis Ford Coppola's new book, Live Cinema and Its Techniques, offers a strange blend of answer and feint by way of responding.
Read MoreNames for Storms
/a poem
Read MoreIt’s a Mystery: “Family deaths cut off the highway to treasured memories”
/Lisbeth Salander, the charismatic bad girl with the dragon tattoo is back in The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye; plus a debut thriller, Good Me Bad Me, that is creepy, unsettling and impossible to put down.
Read MoreOn the Fifth of November
/"Whoever devotes himself to decency and to virtue /he beguiles with deceptions, corrupting their temptingly innocent hearts...."
Read MoreWaiting for the Dough
/Near the end of his life, Orson Welles tape-recorded his lunches with a faithful industry friend. By turns hilarious and self-pitying, they give a brilliant glimpse of the aging titan.
Read MoreThe Heavy Blanks
/An aspiring young writer encounters the journals of legendary Canadian novelist Elizabeth Smart, whose virtuoso novella By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept gives no hint of her struggles with her own writing
Read MoreNorman Lebrecht's CD of the Week - Scriabin: 2nd Symphony, Piano Concerto
/Scriabin, as he so often does, takes us to the brink only to skitter away on some frivolity. But there is much to enjoy here, so long as you don’t expect too much.
Read MoreBook Review: James Conant, Warrior Scientist
/US weapons-making scientist in two world wars and a path-making president of Harvard James Conant gets a generous biography, written by his granddaughter.
Read MoreBook Review: Pious Fashion
/A new book looks at the intricate world of Muslim women's clothing fashions.
Read MoreBook Review: Lightning Men
/Racially charged 1950 Atlanta is the setting for Thomas Mullen's brutal, terrific new crime thriller.
Read MoreBook Review: The Templars
/The Knights Templar have been captured on stage, page, and screen countless times; a new book separates history from legend.
Read MoreNorman Lebrecht's Album of the Week - Haydn: Cello Concertos
/The instant appeal of this recording is that it contains not just two well-known Haydn concertos but three extra pieces that complement and contextualize them. The second benefit is the performance.
Read MoreBook Review: Purpose & Desire
/A new book stares into the divide between living and non-living matter and finds the darndest things staring back.
Read MoreBook Review: Bunny Mellon
/Renowned socialite Bunny Mellon, who made headlines for an entire century, gets a big, generous new biography.
Read MoreInterview: Mark Helprin
/Novelist Mark Helprin talks about his new book, "Paris in the Present Tense"
Read MoreNorman Lebrecht's Album of the Week - Surviving: Jewish Women
/Four releases, arriving in timely fashion for the upcoming New Year, explore the shushed-up sounds of creative Jewish femininity.
Read MoreBook Review: iGen
/Are cell phones and 'smart' technology rotting the minds of today's young people? A controversial new book makes the case.
Read MoreBook Review: The Unfinished Palazzo
/A small portion of the life of one famous Venetian palace is told through the lives of three remarkable women who ruled it in the 20th century.
Read MoreBook Review: Out of China
/The roots of new Chinese nationalism extend back through well over a century of foreign meddling, as a comprehensive new history shows.
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