Reviews of a book of local history titled Spirits of San Francisco and a book about the (alcoholic) spirits of San Francisco.
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Reviews of two 1930s books that satirize mediocre nightclub singers and the cities they inhabit: Gabriele Tergit’s Käsebier Takes Berlin and John O’Hara’s Pal Joey.
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Reviews of two recent-ish novels that take place in the late 1800s: Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent and Brian Doyle’s The Adventures of John Carson.
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Two novels that allowed me to journey to fantastical worlds and daydream of new adventures, even as I sheltered in place from Spring 2020 to Spring 2021.
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Reviews of C.S. Forester’s Mr. Midshipman Hornblower and William Golding’s The Inheritors, two books that are each indebted to Ernest Hemingway in their own way.
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Three illustrated books that attempt to evoke the magic of Paris by focusing on small objects and exquisite little moments.
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A record of the theater and opera I streamed, Zoomed, and even saw live in the chaos and confusion of 2020.
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One year late, I finally get around to blogging a list of the books & plays I read in the Last Normal Year.
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Reviews of Shakespeare’s two “Two Dudes” plays. TLDR: Gentlemen is about a sociopath and in Kinsmen, everyone’s gay.
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Richard Powers loves trees and Orhan Pamuk loves Ottoman miniatures, but that doesn’t necessarily make for great fiction.
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I read Shakespeare’s three Henry VI plays and I still can’t explain the Wars of the Roses.
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Reviews of TItus Andronicus and Timon of Athens, two of Shakespeare’s weirder (and more easily confused) tragedies.
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Reviews of Much Ado About Nothing and Love’s Labor’s Lost, two Shakespeare plays featuring witty intellectuals who surprise themselves by falling in love.
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On election-eve anxiety, E.M. Forster, and the audacity of believing in our fellow Americans, in spite of everything.
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Reviews of As You Like It and The Winter’s Tale, two Shakespeare plays that contrast corrupt, decadent court life and wholesome, natural countryside life.
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Reviews of Shakespeare’s obscure, oddball history plays King John and Henry VIII, after reading them for the first time for my Shakespeare book club.
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Reviews of George Sand’s Indiana and Victor Hugo’s Hernani: two 1830s French works full of melodrama, romanticism, and love quadrangles.
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My traditional round-up of the plays, musicals, staged readings, and operas I saw in the past year. Or as we now call it, “the Before times.”
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I like to give credit where it’s due, as well as making fun of the ridiculous, so here’s my ranking of the musical numbers in Cats from best to worst.
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The Golden Compass was the first book I ever stayed up all night to read so you know I had to read its sequel The Secret Commonwealth as soon as it came out.
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