Notes From the Bookroom

April 20, 2007 | Link This | Email this | Comments (2)

My most recent late-night reading spree had me glued to the pages of a debut thriller, but last night's reading found me in thrall to an old pro---in the absolute best sense of the term. The world of movies, theater, opera, TV---and yes, books---lost a vibrant practitioner of those arts with Wednesday's death of Kitty Carlisle Hart at age 96.  And talk about a long-running hit: from her glorious clowning with the Marx Brothers in A Night at the Opera, to her celebrated Metropolitan Opera gig as Prince Orlofsky in Johann Strauss's Die Fledermaus (at age 51) to an 11-year stint on TV's To Tell the Truth (and other legendary game shows), Kitty Carlisle Hart brought grace, dignity and a helluva sense of humor wherever she went. As one of h...Read More

April 18, 2007 | Link This | Email this | Comments (3)

Reading before bed---i.e., before dousing the light---is a pastime, I'm pretty sure, that all book lovers share. And, though I have no statistical data to back this up, I also would bet that a lot of us don't get through more than 10 pages without nodding off and/or re-reading that 10th page three or four times. Imagine my surprise and pleasure a couple of nights ago when I started an advance copy of a terrific new thriller, Heartsick, a September debut from St. Martin's by a writer named Chelsea Cain. (Full disclosure: I am not getting any sort of kickback from that esteemed publisher for the following kudos.)

Now what sort of literary masochist starts a book when he's already reading three or four others (The Double Bind; Here When You Need Me; Oh the Hell of It All; the new Armistead Maupin)? First off, I'd bet we a...Read More