ENJOYABLE CINEMA We ended the Sarasota Film Festival on a high note with two very good films, one a feature and the other a documentary from Argentina. The Congressman. Starring Treat Williams with George Hamilton, this feature-length film was written by former Long Island representative, Robert Mzarek. Set in Maine, it’s an old-fashioned film with …
Category Archives: Books
Tidy Tidbits: Bits & Bites
THOUGHT-PROVOKING THEATER We were at the first preview performance of Asolo Rep’s production of Disgraced and it was excellent! Ayad Akhtar’s Pulitzer Prize winning play is simultaneously hard-hitting and nuanced about issues of race and religion. Amir, a young lawyer on the track to partner, has hidden and, to a great extent, set aside his Pakistani …
Reading & Eating
PRAISE FOR FICTION You may have seen the reports that reading fiction can improve your social skills. Ann Lukits of the Wall St. Journal writes the following: “People who read a lot of fiction are known to have stronger social skills than nonfiction readers or nonreaders. A new study suggests that reading fictional works, especially …
Tidy Tidbits: Mothers & Meals
NOVEL PAIRING The Expatriates by Janice Y. K. Lee I really enjoyed Lee’s first novel, The Piano Teacher, and so approached her new one with enthusiasm. It too is wonderful, but in a different way. Set in the present rather than the past, it details the daily lives over the course of a year of …
