Books features
Truman Capote's In Cold Blood: A new introductionWednesday, 31 August 2011
Following the fanfare that accompanied the publication of In Cold Blood in 1965, Truman Capote, ever the consummate self-publicist, claimed to have written a book that was truly different and original - even, perhaps, the first of its kind. For many... Read more... |
My Summer Reading: Conductor Vladimir JurowskiTuesday, 30 August 2011
Born in Russia in 1972, the London Philharmonic Orchestra's principal conductor has galvanised the capital's music scene with some of the most thoughtful, groundbreaking and carefully prepared concert programmes today. His operatic credentials at... Read more... |
My Summer Reading: Singer Pauline BlackMonday, 29 August 2011
Pauline Black, the lead singer of 2-Tone band The Selecter, was born in 1953 to an Anglo-Jewish mother and Nigerian father and was adopted as a baby by a white working-class couple from Essex, who refused to acknowledge she was black. However, by... Read more... |
My Summer Reading: Composer Nitin SawhneyWednesday, 24 August 2011
Composer and music producer Nitin Sawhney (b 1964) is known for his variety of musical projects, reflecting his background fusing Indian and British heritage. He has written music for films, television, dance productions, studio albums and concert... Read more... |
Extract: Stealing RembrandtsTuesday, 23 August 2011
On October 10, 1994, a burglar with a sledgehammer smashed a window at the Rembrandt House Museum and stole a single painting, Man with a Beard (1647). The work had once been considered a Rembrandt, but is now attributed to an unidentified student... Read more... |
My Summer Reading: Tenor Ian BostridgeMonday, 22 August 2011
The career of acclaimed tenor Ian Bostridge (b 1964) has taken a somewhat unusual trajectory. He was reading for a PhD on witchcraft at Corpus Christi College, Oxford before he decided to turn his hobby of singing into his profession, despite not... Read more... |
My Summer Reading: Writer Louise WenerSunday, 21 August 2011
Louise Wener rose to prominence as part of the Britpop movement in the mid-Nineties. While Blur and Oasis flew the flag for laddism and Suede flirted with camp glam, Wener was one of the scene’s few high-profile women, inspired by David Bowie,... Read more... |
My Summer Reading: Playwright Alfred UhryThursday, 18 August 2011
Alfred Uhry, now 74, may boast the greatest ratio of accolades to output of just about any American playwright, having copped two Tony Awards and a Pulitzer Prize across merely a handful of works and an Academy Award for the film version of his best... Read more... |
My Summer Reading: Percussionist Colin CurrieTuesday, 16 August 2011
Third in line to share their summer reading selection with theartsdesk is Colin Currie (b 1976), the leading percussionist of his generation. A driving force behind new percussion repertoire for more than a decade, in 2000 Currie was awarded the... Read more... |
Extract: Soul of the Man - Bobby 'Blue' BlandSunday, 14 August 2011
Bobby Bland had waited through three difficult years, recording for three different labels with no hits and not much to show for it. He had waited through more than two boring years in the Army with no more than an honorable discharge and a bus... Read more... |
My Summer Reading: Musician Gary KempWednesday, 10 August 2011
Next in theartsdesk’s series of recommended summer reads is musician Gary Kemp, guitarist with Spandau Ballet, five working-class boys from north London who emerged from a surfeit of floppy fringes and pantaloons to become one of the most successful... Read more... |
My Summer Reading: Comedian Tim MinchinSunday, 07 August 2011
Tim Minchin, the Australian minstrel comedian, is known by his catweazel hair, thickly kohled eyes and dazzlingly witty songs bashed out at a grand piano about, among other things, the debatable existence of the Almighty. Lately his repertoire of... Read more... |
