Archive
The complete Open Letters Monthly Archive.
Daniil Trifonov thinks nothing of coming on stage with one wrist in a bandage, no explanation offered, or of asking the audience not to applaud at any time through a 90-minute recital, so it would be absurd to expect him to release a conventional Chopin album.
Read MoreBestselling biographer Walter Isaacson adds another massive tome to the pile of those devoted to the quintessential Renaissance man, Leonardo Da Vinci.
Read MoreStephen Kotkin's groundbreaking multi-volume biography of Stalin continues with the uneasy alliance between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.
Read MoreNoa Wildschut first appeared on Dutch television at six years old and at the Concertgebouw a year later. She's 16 now, old enough to take a bit of criticism and interesting enough to warrant adult consideration.
Read MoreThe gap between the religious and the "New Atheists" seems wider than ever - but have both sides failed even to understand each other? A pocket-sized new book examines some of the oldest questions of all.
Read MoreA new translation of the New Testament strips away the baroque filigree and presents the raw, jumbled voices of the original.
Read MoreIn his boisterous new book, veteran video game writer and industry leader Walt Williams tells the story of his past and shares his thoughts on the industry's future.
Read MoreWhat 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.
Read MoreNear 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.
Read MoreAn 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
Read MoreScriabin, as he so often does, takes us to the brink only to skitter away on some frivolity. But there is much to enjoy here, so long as you don’t expect too much.
Read MoreUS weapons-making scientist in two world wars and a path-making president of Harvard James Conant gets a generous biography, written by his granddaughter.
Read MoreA new book looks at the intricate world of Muslim women's clothing fashions.
Read MoreA new book stares into the divide between living and non-living matter and finds the darndest things staring back.
Read MoreRenowned socialite Bunny Mellon, who made headlines for an entire century, gets a big, generous new biography.
Read MoreNovelist Mark Helprin talks about his new book, "Paris in the Present Tense"
Read MoreA 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.
Read MoreWomen have never had the same freedom to wander the streets as men; a delightful new book explores the stories of those who did it anyway.
Read MoreAn enormous earthquake is an inevitable feature of America's near future, and yet as Kathryn Miles' gripping new book makes clear, the country is completely, willfully unprepared.
Read MoreA new book contends that one particular year in the wake of the First World War changed the literary landscape forever.
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