Simon Callow | The New York Review of Books

Mozart the Modernist

In his new biography, Patrick Mackie conjures a vertiginous version of Mozart as the quintessential artist of the modern world.

Mozart in Motion: His Work and His World in Pieces

by Patrick Mackie

November 2, 2023 issue

The Foolscap Pages

“I never stopped writing: diaries, plays, even, God help me, poetry.”

December 24, 2022

Ol’ Blue Eyes

Paul Newman's posthumous memoir is a many-sided self-interrogation by a man who was a mystery to himself.

The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man

by Paul Newman, based on interviews and oral histories conducted by Stewart Stern, compiled and edited by David Rosenthal, with a foreword by Melissa Newman and an afterword by Clea Newman Soderlund

The Last Movie Stars

an HBO documentary series directed by Ethan Hawke

December 22, 2022 issue

Shape-Shifters

In The Method Isaac Butler traces the evolution of an acting theory that was both ferociously denounced and fanatically embraced.

The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act

by Isaac Butler

August 18, 2022 issue

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Pianist

Jeremy Denk's memoir is not just about piano lessons but about life lessons—how the artist creates a self.

Every Good Boy Does Fine: A Love Story, in Music Lessons

by Jeremy Denk

April 21, 2022 issue

A Taste for the Difficult

In his performing, his critical writing, and his conversation, the prodigious Charles Rosen was driven by ceaseless curiosity and the urge to share his knowledge.

The Joy of Playing, the Joy of Thinking: Conversations About Art and Performance

by Charles Rosen and Catherine Temerson, translated from the French by Catherine Zerner, with a foreword by Israel Rosenfield

February 11, 2021 issue

Early Life isn’t Everything

Setting the record straight on Mike Nichols’s mother, Brigitte

October 22, 2020 issue

Charm Defensive

Mike Nichols was charismatic, witty, invariably quotable. But do I feel I knew him? Not at all.

Life Isn’t Everything: Mike Nichols, as Remembered by 150 of His Closest Friends

by Ash Carter and Sam Kashner

September 24, 2020 issue

Letter

Robert A. Nichols

Early Life isn’t Everything

Setting the record straight on Mike Nichols’s mother, Brigitte

October 22, 2020 issue

Pandemic Journal, March 17–22

Dispatches on the coronavirus outbreak from Madeleine Schwartz in Brooklyn, Anne Enright in Dublin, Joshua Hunt in Busan, Anna Badkhen in Lalibela, Lauren Groff in Gainesville, and more.

March 22, 2020