Author: GR

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The Mysterious Romance of Murder

“This is a masterwork in which Lehman’s encyclopedic knowledge of film, literature, and cultural history is synthesized by way of lively exegesis, quotes, poems (his own), catalogs, mini-biographies, and eclectic, brilliantly illuminated byways, both classical and pulp. His vivid, chromatic style is what one expects from a poet and critic of Lehman’s stature. The Mysterious Romance of Murder must take a prominent place, stylistically and critically, alongside Luc Sante’s Low Life, Julian Symons’s Bloody Murder, and Cyril Connolly’s The Unquiet Grave. As with the very best mysteries—of the heart and the intellect—you can’t put it down.” – Nicholas Christopher

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The Rediscovery of a Lost Black Playwright

The playwright Alice Childress, who lived from 1916 to 1994, never saw her work produced on Broadway. Unlike some of her Black contemporaries—Lorraine Hansberry, August Wilson—she wasn’t canonized or widely taught. In her later years, “she felt like she had been forgotten,” the dramaturge Arminda Thomas said the other day. Lately, though, Childress has been remembered. This past winter, her 1955 play, “Trouble in Mind,” about an actress navigating backstage racism, made its long-awaited Broadway début. And, this month, Theatre for a New Audience is staging her drama “Wedding Band” at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center, in Brooklyn, its first New York production in half a century. Read more

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“Trust” by Hernan Diaz

For all its elegant complexity and brilliant construction, Diaz’s novel is compulsively readable, and despite taking place in the early 1900s, the plot reads like an indictment of the start of the twenty-first century with its obsession with obscure financial instruments and unhinged capital accumulation. A captivating tour de force that will astound readers with its formal invention and contemporary relevance. Read more

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Find Books Set in Your Hometown With This Neat Tool

Now readers can discover books set closest to their hometown with Books Around America, this cool Internet tool, developed by Crossword Solver using Goodreads data. It also spits out a bunch of fun facts, like: Bisbee, AZ, is home to the highest percentage of mystery novels. Bloomington, IN, is apparently where the romance happens. Read more

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