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The complete Open Letters Monthly Archive.

Open Letters Monthly

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December 01, 2017

OLM Favorites: A Great and Sustaining Mystery

December 01, 2017/ Greg Waldmann
OLM Favorites: A Great and Sustaining Mystery

Anthony Burgess the novelist had dreams of being a composer. He had little success, but along the way he delved deep into the nature and meaning of music.

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December 01, 2017/ Greg Waldmann/
Arts & Life
December 2017, greg waldmann, literary criticism, music, Anthony Burgess, literary studies, musicians, biography
November 30, 2017

OLM Favorites: The Cute One Redux

November 30, 2017/ Zach Rabiroff

A sprawling new biography looks at both the quotidian day to day life and the pivotal music of the "cute" Beatle, Paul McCartney.

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November 30, 2017/ Zach Rabiroff/
Arts & Life
biography, December 2017, music, Zach Rabiroff
December 01, 2017

OLM Favorites: The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit

December 01, 2017/ Steve Danziger

William S. Burroughs's notorious Cut-up Trilogy was his fiercest broadside against what he felt was the tyranny of linear thought. Steve Danziger delves into their Word Hoard.

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December 01, 2017/ Steve Danziger/
Arts & Life
biography, December 2017, literary criticism, Steve Danziger
November 20, 2017

Book Review: The Dawn Watch

November 20, 2017/ Steve Donoghue

A fantastic new biography of Joseph Conrad follows him around in his travels and delves into the heart of his many books.

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November 20, 2017/ Steve Donoghue/
Arts & Life
biography, joseph conrad, November 2017, Steve Donoghue
October 25, 2017

Book Review: Grant

October 25, 2017/ Steve Donoghue

Bestselling biographer Ron Chernow tells the story of famous general and infamous president Ulysses S. Grant.

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October 25, 2017/ Steve Donoghue/
Arts & Life
biography, October 2017, Steve Donoghue
October 16, 2017

Book Review: Calder

October 16, 2017/ Steve Donoghue

The legendary avant-garde sculptor Alexander Calder gets his very first biography, written by art critic Jed Perl

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October 16, 2017/ Steve Donoghue/
Arts & Life
biography, fine art, October 2017, Steve Donoghue
October 12, 2017

Book Review: Leonardo Da Vinci

October 12, 2017/ Steve Donoghue

Bestselling biographer Walter Isaacson adds another massive tome to the pile of those devoted to the quintessential Renaissance man, Leonardo Da Vinci.

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October 12, 2017/ Steve Donoghue/
Arts & Life
biography, leonardo da vinci, October 2017, Steve Donoghue
October 11, 2017

Book Review: Stalin - Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941

October 11, 2017/ Steve Donoghue

Stephen Kotkin's groundbreaking multi-volume biography of Stalin continues with the uneasy alliance between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.

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October 11, 2017/ Steve Donoghue/
Arts & Life
biography, October 2017, Steve Donoghue, world war II
September 30, 2017

Tough Room

September 30, 2017/ Alex Sorondo

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.

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September 30, 2017/ Alex Sorondo/
Arts & Life
Alex Sorondo, biography, film, October 2017
September 30, 2017

Waiting for the Dough

September 30, 2017/ Steve Danziger

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.

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September 30, 2017/ Steve Danziger/
Arts & Life
biography, film, October 2017, Steve Danziger
September 30, 2017

The Heavy Blanks

September 30, 2017/ Jason Purcell

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

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September 30, 2017/ Jason Purcell/
Arts & Life
biography, October 2017
September 27, 2017

Book Review: James Conant, Warrior Scientist

September 27, 2017/ Steve Donoghue

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.

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September 27, 2017/ Steve Donoghue/
Arts & Life
biography, science, September 2017, Steve Donoghue
September 18, 2017

Book Review: Bunny Mellon

September 18, 2017/ Steve Donoghue

Renowned socialite Bunny Mellon, who made headlines for an entire century, gets a big, generous new biography.

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September 18, 2017/ Steve Donoghue/
Arts & Life
biography, September 2017
September 14, 2017

Book Review: The Unfinished Palazzo

September 14, 2017/ Steve Donoghue

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.

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September 14, 2017/ Steve Donoghue/
Arts & Life
biography, September 2017, venice
August 20, 2017

Book Review: The World Broke in Two

August 20, 2017/ Steve Donoghue

A new book contends that one particular year in the wake of the First World War changed the literary landscape forever.

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August 20, 2017/ Steve Donoghue/
Arts & Life
August 2017, biography
July 31, 2017

Wastelands – Stephen Crane’s War

July 31, 2017/ A. E. Smith

Stephen Crane was born too late to go to war, but The Red Badge of Courage endures, not only as a story about war and what happens to people in war, but also as a remarkable experiment in literary modernism.

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July 31, 2017/ A. E. Smith/
Arts & Life
August 2017, biography, comics
July 31, 2017

The Writings of the War

July 31, 2017/ Peter L. Belmonte

A century ago this year, the American Expeditionary Force set off for Europe to end all wars. Andrew Carroll's new book looks at the lives of the men who faced the Great War, and the enigmatic general who led them.

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July 31, 2017/ Peter L. Belmonte/
Arts & Life, Politics & History
August 2017, biography
July 05, 2017

Book Review: Patrick Henry

July 05, 2017/ Steve Donoghue

A lavishly-detailed new biography tells the story of the Virginia plantation-owner and early voice for independence from Great Britain

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July 05, 2017/ Steve Donoghue/
Arts & Life
biography, July 2017
July 03, 2017

Book Review: Warner Bros

July 03, 2017/ Steve Donoghue

The latest entry in Yale's "Jewish Lives" series is the story of Warner Brothers Studo, by the great film historian David Thomson

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July 03, 2017/ Steve Donoghue/
Arts & Life
biography, film, July 2017
June 30, 2017

The Parties Were Hell

June 30, 2017/ Laura Tanenbaum

Diana Trilling worked in her eminent husband’s shadow; a new biography hints at the toll that took and brings her accomplishments into the light.

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June 30, 2017/ Laura Tanenbaum/
Fiction, Arts & Life
biography, fiction, July 2017
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