Top of the Stack
The Park Avenue Desperado
In this corner, wearing a brown suit and tinted glasses, weighing in with 50 exclusive promotional contracts and grossing $25 million a year…
The Front Page
Don’t Waste Precious Time
Tom T. Hall’s wanderings in search of inspiration ceased Friday when he died at age 85. The best of the songs he left behind take chances, confront grown-up dilemmas, and bear the stamp of a literary sensibility.
Troy Donahue Was Always Just Like He Is
In Which We Learn the Truth about Hitler and the Beautiful People
Miller’s Tale
Arthur Miller, Lion in Winter
The Doobie Brothers—From the Top
Which Doobie, You-be?
Ron Rosenbaum Champions “Pale Fire”
Why this novel by Vladimir Nabokov was the “Novel of the 20th Century”
David Mamet’s Hard Sell
The first Broadway production of Mamet’s masterpiece was no sure thing.
Al Pacino: Out of the Shadows
How one of the great actors of his era went underground in the 1980s.
Shoplift Lit: You Are What You Steal
Ever wonder which books get stolen most from bookstores? Some will surprise you.
“Portnoy’s Complaint” by Philip Roth Looms as a Wild Blue Shocker and the American Novel of the Sixties
Philip Roth on the verge of celebrity.
The Notorious Libby Holman
Libby Holman, the consummate torch singer, never understood why almost every man she touched died violently. She had the opposite of the Midas touch, but lived a fascinating, doomed life.
Tom Stoppard, Nonstop
“Hello, I’m from journalism. I’ve come to inspect you. Take off your clothes and lie down.”
Death of a Playmate
The Dorothy Stratten Saga, the true story behind “Star-80.”