Books

Arts

Reading List: Recent Books by Local Authors

Peter Biskind, author of such film classics as Easy Riders, Raging Bulls and Down and Dirty Pictures writes an intimate, revealing and balanced biography of a Hollywood legend in Star: How Warren Beatty Seduced America (Simon & Schuster, 2009).  In it, Biskind makes the case that, for all his excesses,

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Arts

Beatty Biographer Peter Biskind Talks Shop With Fellow-Author Sheila Weller

Last week—vying with the latest economic, Tiger Woodsian, and failed-Northwest-Airlines-terrorist-bombing-blame-game news that was zinging around the web—was a certain number: 12,775. Specifically, it was the cool surmisal that, if you did "simple arithmetic," Warren Beatty has likely bedded a total 12,755 women, "give

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Arts

Seth Rogovoy Sees Dylan's Jewish Spirit Blowin' in the Wind

It's not hyperbole to say that Seth Rogovoy considers listening to—and performing—the music of Bob Dylan a spiritual experience. Rogovoy, the editor in chief of Berkshire Living who was the rock critic for the Berkshire Eagle for nearly two decades, has been a die-hard Dylan fan

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Arts

Apples & History: a Q & A with Leila Philip

It's not the usual reading and book-signing: Instead of taking place at a bookstore or library, it is being held in a restaurant; instead of a glass of white wine, there will be a complimentary apple tasting, courtesy of Philip Orchards, and guests will have the option of

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Arts

Elizabeth Cunningham Brings Her Latest "Maeve" to Oblong Books

Fans (and you know who you are) of the Maeve Chronicles, Elizabeth Cunningham's series of novels that combine scholorship, whimsy, and delectable fiction to relate the life, times, and spiritual journey of a Celtic Mary Magdalene, named Maeve, may meet the author and hear her read from her

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Arts

A Conversation with "House of Cards" Author William D. Cohan

Author William D. Cohan, our neighbor in Columbia County, was an investment banker for 17 years before he left Wall Street and wrote his first best-seller, The Last Tycoons.  On Saturday evening, March 28, he will be at the Hammertown Barn in Pine Plains to talk about his latest book,

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Arts

Nostalgia Now: "Barns of the Berkshires"

Stephen Donaldson is a photographer who thinks like a cultural anthropologist. His latest book, Barns of the Berkshires (Schiffer Publishing, $24.95), not only documents a significant and vanishing part of our rural landscape but also sounds the alarm for saving barns before it's too late. "The

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Arts

Photographer Annie Leibovitz Signs New Book

The difference between great photographers and the rest of us is that for them life occurs in slow motion and without a distracting sound tract, affording them plenty of mental space and time to appraise a scene, consider camera angles, change lenses, and adjust f-stops, while the rest of us

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Arts

A Serious Conversation About "Scrapbooks: An American History" with Jessica Helfand

When I met Jessica Helfand five or six years ago, I was dumbstruck when she told me that one of the joys of having moved full-time to Falls Village from New York City was having more time to work. (I thought country life was all about recreation, but I'

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Arts

Celebrity Book Signings at Hammertown and Privet House

A bona fide celebrity—not just someone who is accomplished or has a well-known name—is a person whom you've always wanted to see in the flesh to determine whether the image you have from magazines and television is accurate.  Both Mario Batali, the restaurateur and Food Network

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Arts

6th Annual Local Authors Day in Sheffield

If you have any lingering doubts that our region has more than its fair share of writers in residence, just take a look at the list (below) of 49 authors and illustrators who will be signing books in Sheffield on Saturday, November 1, at the 6th annual Bushnell-Sage Library'

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Arts

Susan Orlean Discovers That It's A Small World After All

Susan Orlean, the esteemed New Yorker staff writer, never expected that a publisher would approach her about turning her 1996 "Shouts & Murmurs" piece called "Shiftless Little Loafers" into a sweet children's book retitled Lazy Little Loafers. "I was surprised," she says

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