An early, amazing punk concert. One of the best nights of my youth.

An infuriating book about a truly despicable company.

Three stars for this coming-of-age boxing mystery.

An unforgettable year in the life of a child actor coming of age in classic '80's Manhattan

My first book of 2026. A fabulous, devastating novel. Five star material.

A fraught family drama that left me completely unmoved.

Seeing my fave band at my own university.

A cinematic masterpiece (and one of my favorite films) gets the deep-dive treatment, with glorious results.

A photo book where the sum of the photos is much greater than the individual parts

A quiet, moving meditation on life and grief. One of the best books I've read this year.

A pretty decent examination and evaluation of a seminal punk album

I’ve always had a soft spot for J.M. Coetzee. Disgrace  really floored me when I first read it — one of those rare novels that sticks with you for years. Nothing else of his ever hit me quite as hard, but The Pole  reminded me why I keep coming back to him: the cool precision, the moral unease, the emotional restraint that somehow still stings. The Pole is a 70-year-old Polish concert pianist, famous for his austere interpretations of Chopin. Beatriz, 24 years his junior, is

Jethro Tull at Radio City – 49 Years Ago Today (!) On this day, 49 years ago (!), I saw Jethro Tull  at Radio City Music Hall . Hard to believe it’s been that long. I was 16 years old, three months shy of my 17th birthday. Back in high school, my two favorite bands were Jethro Tull  and The Kinks . This tour was in support of Songs from the Wood , which had just come out — a return to form for Tull, in my opinion. They’d released War Child  in ’74 (which I liked) and Minstrel

If you're a long-time fan of SNL, this (enormous) tome is the book for you.

A photography book that makes you want to grab your camera and hit the streets.

A moody, unsettling debut set in the Dutch countryside of 1961

A cool book about a very cool album.

Four and a half stars for this underground classic.

A Memoir and a Mystery

A reflection on the mysterious Chilean photographer whose images — and life — reveal the poetry of seeing. Now at the International Center for Photography.