Sarah Montague

If the meek are going to inherit the earth, then Wally Shawn will be in the vanguard. The diffident playwright and essayist, known for such works as "My Dinner with Andre," "Aunt D...

In 2004, New York City was galvanized by the property dispute of a red-tailed hawk called Pale Male and his mate Lola, and the Upper East Side co-op where the pair had established a n...

WNYC interviews Novelist Michael Korda about his new biography of T. E. Lawrence, "Hero."

As the light pleasures of summer give way to the denser ones of autumn, our meals get denser, too. This week, “Last Chance Foods” looks at hunting and that means it’s time to call the dogs.

When it comes to things that go bump in the night, or things that bump each other off in the night, Otto Penzler is the man. The proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop purveys classic and contemporary crime novels, chillers, and thrillers, but in recent years has also become a kind of anthology Master of Ceremonies, rounding up choice selections in such genres as pulp and vampire fiction. Most recently, he has curated two volumes in Houghton Mifflin’s “Best American” series—“The Best American Mystery Stories 2010” (with Lee Child) and “The Best American Noir of the Century” (with James Ellroy).

Unless the person behind the shutter is Richard Avedon or Annie Leibowitz, it's hard to get too excited by the celebrity portrait. But something amazing happens when the camera shifts...

New York City prides itself on diversity—its rich ethnic tapestry, its international visitors, its confluence of cultures. This past weekend, those traits were celebrated with a twist...

Israel, China, and Afghanistan figured in works presented at the Happy Ending Music and Reading series at Joe’s Pub on October 6^th. 

WNYC reviews a double bill of two “radio plays”: a reenactment of "War of the Worlds," and an unsettling, deconstructed "Macbeth" using Welles’ original play script.

“In comedy down is up.”  Yesterday, England’s most prestigious literary award, the Man Booker Prize for Fiction, was won by a literary dark horse, Manchester-born Howard Jacobson, for his comic novel “The Finkler Question.” The racing simile is apt, for the Booker is followed -- and bet on -- like a sporting event, and Jacobson nosed out the odds-on favorite, Tom McCarthy (for “C”).

“To paint The Appearance of Christ to the People is Art and to paint nude broads is also art. To write The Iliad is art and to write "Nana" is also art. To paint a holy icon is art and to treble your banjo is also art, and clowning is art, and riding your horse is art, and making chicken pates is art, and hair styling is art and wardrobe making is art! All is art.”

The annual New Yorker Magazine Festival colonizes the city for one weekend a year. When the magazine was founded by the legendary editor Harold Ross in 1925, he famously said that it was not “for the little old lady in Dubuque.” Today, the magazine is national and international in scope, but for the Festival, it calls home its impressive roster of critics, investigative reporters, writers, editors, and other contributors of all stripes to host panels, conduct interviews, and perform in venues all over the city.

The Happy Ending Music & Reading Series recently began its new season on an unsettling but vivid note: a program of tales about fateful accidents. 

Not only the dead love Brooklyn. This Sunday, the borough celebrates its multi-faceted heritage and the global community of writers at the fifth annual Brooklyn Book Festival. With readings and panel discussions showcasing over 200 national and international authors and ranging in subject matter from memories and mothers to writing, war, Brooklyn food and “poetry of the gumshoe,” the festival is one big literary block party.

One of the hottest tickets in London, the stage show "War Horse" is making its long-awaited American premiere at Lincoln Center in March 2011, and Steven Spielberg is set to release a...

If you like your pleasures to come, not singly, but in battalions, you can do no better than to visit your local county fair. One of the Hudson Valley’s biggest, the Dutchess County Fair, celebrated its 165^th anniversary this past weekend, and thousands of families thronged the Rhinebeck Fairgrounds to pet the cows, ride the Ferris wheel, and marvel at dozens of exhibits displaying everything from prize tomatoes to huge Belgian draft horses.

Bookstores nationwide are releasing Jonathan Franzen’s novel Freedom to the public on Tuesday. Franzen’s new book is a chronicle that examines the notion of family, history and perso...

If Ridley Scott gets his way, tomorrow may be one of the most documented in history. 

The Happy Ending Reading and Music Series ended its season on a fantastical note, in a program promising “Metaphors and Epiphanies.”

Throughout the 1950s, reports of sex crime and pathological murder rattled America. "Psycho" both exploits and "explains" one such murder, with a rather heavy-handed psychiatrist. But beyond the screeching violins and the risque shower scene, the movie's real legacy is that Hitchcock makes us care so much about ...