Perfect Showbiz Couple In Smashing Sex Comedy

This is turning out to be a great season for actresses. Following Christine Ebersole’s acclaimed performance in Grey Gardens comes the hilarious Julie White in The Little Dog Laughed, now transferred happily from Off Broadway to the Cort Theatre. As Douglas Carter Beane’s super-agent with a heart of stone, Ms. White is giving one of Read More

Jacko Meets the Theory Jocks— And the Music Gets Left Out

New York Times critic Margo Jefferson has written a risky little book on Michael Jackson. “Risky” because, at 146 pages, it avails itself of none of the satisfactions of a proper biography, instead asking us to cough up $20 for the quality of Ms. Jefferson’s thoughts and opinions alone. Also risky because, arriving less than Read More

A Brief Tour of the Classics, Led by a Nimble Expert

The American Classics: A Personal Essay, by Denis Donoghue. Yale University Press, 295 pages, $27.

Rapping the knuckles of the American classics is good fun-especially if it’s done with a light, sharp touch. And nobody gets hurt, certainly not the great dead white males themselves, who ascended to their exalted position precisely because, as Denis Read More

How I Built My Rare-Book Connection

Lots of lurid stories have been written about how hard it is

to get into college these days. Excuse me, but when I was applying to schools a

generation ago, Harvard wasn’t exactly giving away free cruises or tote bags to

anyone who would consider spending the following four years in the frozen

wastes of Read More