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The Marauders by Tom Cooper Crown, 2015; 320pp “Of course he knew that searching for an island of marijuana was crazy. But he also knew that every so often fools stumbled upon fortune, whether by fate or fluke.” This is Cosgrove, one of the gallery of scofflaws and no-hopers that fill out Tom Cooper‘s cracking debut […]
Read More“Event television” has been replaced by a new phenomenon in recent years, and that’s in no small part thanks to Beau Willimon. On February 1, 2013, Netflix released the entire first season of a show Willimon had (loosely) adapted from a BBC series from 1990, itself a translation of a political thriller published the year […]
Read MorePsychosis. Architecture. Rock music. Dead stars. Racial politics. Could this be another Seriously Entertaining show from the House of SpeakEasy? You might think that; we couldn’t possibly comment. But yes, this month’s line-up is certainly a sizzler. Best-selling novelist Tom Rob Smith rubs shoulders with House of Cards creator Beau Willimon; poet and actress Amber Tamblyn clinks glasses with Turkish […]
Read MoreThe Farm by Tom Rob Smith Grand Central Publishing, 2014; 400pp You’re walking home. You get a phone call from your father. He’s upset. Your mother has been committed to an asylum. “The symptoms started gradually,” he tells you; “anxiety and odd comments, we can all suffer from that. Then came the allegations. She claims […]
Read MoreDark Sparkler by Amber Tamblyn Harper Perennial, 2015; 128pp “It’s not easy to write about your dead peers,” said Amber Tamblyn in an interview with Rachel Simon at Bustle published this week. “I was giving myself a lot of permissions that I normally wouldn’t… and telling myself that’s how I am going to get closer to the story, that’s […]
Read MoreThe Architect’s Apprentice by Elif Shafak Viking, 2014; 432pp In a world of inter-religious conflict, plague, and natural disasters, the most elegant teleology may be found in architecture. This is Elif Shafak‘s proposition in her ambitious new novel, The Architect’s Apprentice. Shafak is the mostly widely read female writer in Turkey, has 1.7 million Twitter followers, and in 2010 she […]
Read MoreReadEasy is a new feature for 2015, diving for pearls in a sea of noise. John Adams's "dazzling portrait of virtuosic femininity" @nyphil this week: http://t.co/MxhTjO85CI (Photo: Chris Lee) pic.twitter.com/1hpW8FVS4r — House of SpeakEasy (@SpeakEasy_House) March 29, 2015 Stephen Kotkin and Slavoj Zizek on Stalin… On Tuesday night in the New York Public Library’s beautiful […]
Read MoreScheherazade.2 — Dramatic Symphony for Violin and Orchestra (2014) by John Adams New York Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall; conducted by Alan Gilbert; soloist Leila Josefowicz World premiere: Thursday, March 26, 2015 Insights at the Atrium — Artist and Muse: John Adams and Leila Josefowicz David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center Monday, March 23, 2015 John Adams isn’t […]
Read MoreThere Goes Gravity: A Life in Rock and Roll by Lisa Robinson Riverhead Books, 2014; 368pp In Cameron Crowe’s 2000 movie Almost Famous, the rock critic Lester Bangs offers some elder-brotherly advice to Crowe’s young avatar, William Miller, who’s about to go on tour with up-and-coming band Stillwater. “You cannot make friends with the rock stars… They’re gonna buy you drinks, […]
Read MoreSoho Rep’s An Octoroon written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, directed by Sarah Benson Theatre for a New Audience, Brooklyn, New York City running till Sunday, March 29 The fact that the Oxford English Dictionary‘s first citation for “mashup” is from Dion Boucicault’s play The Octoroon (1859) is highly significant in the context of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins‘ Obie Award-winning remix An Octoroon. There’s hip-hop, mixed […]
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