FICTION: The Road
The subject of Cormac McCarthy’s new novel is as big as it gets: the end of the civilized world, the dying of life on the planet and the spectacle of it all.
DRAMA: Rabbit Hole by David Lindsay-Abaire
This wrenching play by David Lindsay-Abaire includes some of the most revealingly nuanced acting to be seen on a stage or screen this year.
HISTORY: The Race Beat
After ignoring the story for years, the news media came to play a major role in the struggle for civil rights.
BIOGRAPHY: The Most Famous Man in America
The Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, an eloquent champion of abolition and woman suffrage, became a celebrity of a far less exalted kind as a result of a sex scandal.
POETRY: Native Guard
In her introduction to Trethewey’s book “Domestic Work,” Rita Dove said, “Trethewey eschews the Polaroid instant, choosing to render the unsuspecting yearnings and tremulous hopes that accompany our most private thoughts.” (poets.org)
GENERAL NONFICTION: The Looming Tower
Lawrence Wright offers a detailed, heart-stopping account of the events leading up to 9/11, carried along by villains and heroes that only a crime novelist could dream up.
MUSIC: Sound Grammar
This breathtaking concert recording captures the alto saxophonist and his quartet at the height of their humanistic powers.
Summaries from The New York Times.
And here’s the winning breaking news photo:
Oded Balilty of The Associated Press: “For his powerful photograph of a lone Jewish woman defying Israeli security forces as they remove illegal settlers in the West Bank.”
the foto has got a set-piece quality about it, like the whittier poem ‘barbara frietchie’ (“Shoot, if you must, this old gray head”). the long bleak queue and columns of smoke are conjuring dachau.
in the eighties ornette released a wonderfully accessible album called ‘virgin beauty’ which features jerry garcia on at least one of the trax. it’s a danceable delight.