It is summer and time to read books. I recall the late editor of the editorial page of The Washington Post, the sainted Meg Greenfield, making fun of the idea of summer books, but I have long filed her quip away as a quip that was quipless. She could read books almost anytime she wanted, but busy people read when they have a special opportunity, and during summer break, I would like to remind them of good books to read. This summer there is an abundance of them.
Playwright David Mamet's conversion to conservatism proves that knowledge is a powerful thing ("David Mamet turns right," Commentary, Thursday).
Conservatives have a new celebrity spokesman-writer-thinker-philosopher. David Mamet, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, screenwriter, movie director and sometime essayist, has come out of the closet. No longer, he declares, is he a "brain-dead liberal." Now he's a wide-awake conservative. Sometime after arriving in Hollywood, of all places, and at age 60, he engaged in a conversation with his Republican rabbi (where did he find one?), who gave him the books of conservative writers, such as Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, Milton Friedman and Paul Johnson.
Three one-act plays by Woody Allen, Ethan Coen and Elaine May are being bundled together and heading to Broadway this fall.
A new play by Pulitzer Prize-winner David Mamet will make its world debut in London this fall.
A look at 20 quality films that didn't receive an Oscar nomination.
Julia Stiles will join Dane Cook and Josh Hamilton in a production of Neil LaBute's "Fat Pig" on Broadway this spring.
"Charlie Chan is one of the most hated characters in American popular culture," writes Jill Lepore at the New Yorker.
