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Tag Archives: Primo Levi
“Ballet taught me to stay close to style and tone. Literature taught me to be concerned about the moral life.” — Joan Acocella
Joan Acocella, longtime dance critic for The New Yorker, and regular contributor to the New York Review of Books died in 2024 at the age of 78, and I did not mark her passing. It’s her birthday today. Acocella brought … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged ballet, Bob Fosse, dance, Dorothy Parker, essays, H.L. Mencken, Joan Acocella, Martha Graham, nonfiction, Nureyev, Primo Levi
2 Comments
Recommended Books: Memoirs
More recommendations: Recommended Fiction Recommended Non-Fiction MEMOIRS The Fervent Years: The Group Theatre And The Thirties, by Harold Clurman Probably the most famous of all the Group Theatre-related books. Harold Clurman writes his memories of that time and what those … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Books, Directors, Music, writers
Tagged Anjelica Huston, Austria, Baby Doll, Benjamin Franklin, Bruce Springsteen, Carroll Baker, Czechoslovakia, Diane Keaton, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Elia Kazan, Ellen Terry, Elvis Presley, Frank McCourt, Ginger Rogers, Goldie Hawn, Group Theatre, Harold Clurman, Ireland, James Salter, Jeanette Winterson, John Strasberg, Katharine Hepburn, Kathleen Turner, Lana Turner, Lauren Bacall, Lee Strasberg, Marlon Brando, Maud Gonne, Memoirs, Patricia Bosworth, Primo Levi, Robert Evans, Rosalind Russell, Russia, Shane Leslie, Shelley Winters, Shirley MacLaine, Stefan Zweig, Steve Martin, The Kid Stays In the Picture, Victor Serge, WWII
2 Comments
Recommended Books: Non-Fiction
I have been meaning to do a Part 2 to my Recommended Books: Fiction list – put together years ago. I wanted to recommend non-fiction, from history books to biographies to essays to whatever. Here is the Non-Fiction list. I’ve … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Founding Fathers, Theatre
Tagged Abraham Lincoln, Afghanistan, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Alexander Hamilton, Austria, Balkan Ghosts, Balkans, baseball, Belfast, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, Catherine Drinker-Bowen, Central Asia, China, Crowds and Power, Dava Sobel, David McCullough, Edmund Burke, Edvard Radzinsky, Elias Canetti, Elvis Presley, England, Federalist Papers, Founding Brothers, France, Germany, Group Theatre, Gulag Archipelago, Hitler, Hunter S. Thompson, Imperium, Ireland, Iris Chang, Isaac Newton, James Madison, Janet Malcolm, Japan, Joseph Ellis, Michael Schmidt, Miracle at Philadelphia, nonfiction, Olivia Laing, Philip Gourevitch, poetry, Primo Levi, Rasputin, Rebecca West, Red Sox, Robert Conquest, Robert Kaplan, Roman empire, Russia, Rwanda, Ryszard Kapuściński, science, Serbia, Stalin, The Great Terror, The Soccer War, Tom Wolfe, true crime, Ukraine, Vincent Bugliosi, William Shakespeare, WWI, WWII, Yugoslavia
19 Comments
The Books: Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints, ‘A Hard Case’, by Joan Acocella
On the essays shelf: Twenty-eight Artists and Two Saints: Essays by Joan Acocella. The next essay I want to excerpt is called ‘A Hard Case’, a review of a new biography on Primo Levi, by Carol Angier. Acocella, like many … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged essays, Italy, Joan Acocella, politics, Primo Levi, Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints, war, William Styron
4 Comments
The Books: The Periodic Table, by Primo Levi
Daily Book Excerpt: Memoirs: Next book on the Memoir/Letters/Journals shelf is The Periodic Table, by Primo Levi The Periodic Table, by Primo Levi, the Italian chemist, is one of the great books of the 20th century. In 2006, the Royal … Continue reading
The Books: Survival in Auschwitz, by Primo Levi
Daily Book Excerpt: Memoirs: Next book on the Memoir/Letters/Journals shelf is Survival In Auschwitz, by Primo Levi Primo Levi, an Italian Jew, completed his memoir of his time in Auschwitz (he was there until the very end, even after the … Continue reading
Joan Acocella: Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints
Joan Acocella has been a staff writer for The New Yorker for I don’t know how many years, and I am just now starting to pay attention to her. She writes mainly about dance (her dance columns are amazing – … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Joan Acocella, Primo Levi, Stefan Zweig, Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints, Zelda Fitzgerald
10 Comments
1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die
Jessa Crispin has an interesting interview with Peter Boxall, editor of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. I loved what Boxall said at the end: Having benefited from an extraordinary number of emails and letters as well as … Continue reading
Posted in Books, James Joyce
Tagged A Tale of Two Cities, A.S. Byatt, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Alice in Wonderland, Amongst Women, Animal Farm, Annie Proulx, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, At Swim-Two-Birds, Atonement, Cat's Eye, Catch-22, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Bronte, D.H. Lawrence, Don DeLillo, E.M. Forster, Edgar Allan Poe, Edna O'Brien, Emily Bronte, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Finnegans Wake, Flann O'Brien, Flannery O'Connor, Frankenstein, Franny and Zooey, George Eliot, George Orwell, Great Expectations, Gulliver's Travels, Handmaid's Tale, Herman Melville, House of Leaves, Hunter S. Thompson, Ian McEwan, In Cold Blood, J.D. Salinger, J.R.R. Tolkien, James Ellroy, Jane Austen, Jane Eyre, Jeanette Winterson, John Irving, John McGahern, John Steinbeck, Jonathan Swift, Joseph Heller, Kazuo Ishiguro, Leo Tolstoy, Lewis Carroll, Lord of the Rings, Margaret Atwood, Mark Danielewski, Mary Shelley, Master and Margarita, Middlemarch, Mikhail Bulgakov, Moby Dick, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Notes From the Underground, Possession, Pride and Prejudice, Primo Levi, Sexing the Cherry, Stephen King, The Catcher In the Rye, The Country Girls, The Great Gatsby, The Hobbit, The Passion, The Shipping News, The Things They Carried, Thomas Mann, Tim O'Brien, Tom Wolfe, Truman Capote, Ulysses, Underworld, Vladimir Nabokov, Wuthering Heights
9 Comments
100 Greatest Novels of All Time
… as chosen by The Observer. I have read 37 of them. But, of course, being obnoxious, I have a couple of comments about some of the books: The Executioner’s Song? What? To have THAT book be on there and … Continue reading
Posted in Books, James Joyce
Tagged Catch-22, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Bronte, Charlotte's Web, children's books, D.H. Lawrence, E.B. White, E.M. Forster, Emily Bronte, England, fiction, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Henry James, Ireland, Italy, Joseph Heller, Primo Levi, Russia, Wuthering Heights
14 Comments