Archives for September 18, 2013

I woke up this morning, logged on, and discovered that Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington made the National Book Awards longlist for nonfiction. This is the first time that any book of mine has received anything like that kind of recognition–and of the ten books on the list, Duke is the only one about the arts.
The finalists will be announced on October 16. To find out more about the nonfiction award, including the names of the other books on the list, go here.

Igor Stravinsky records his L’histoire du soldat suite in 1954. The players are Alexander Schneider, Julius Levine, David Oppenheim, Loren Glickman, Robert Nagel, Erwin Price, and Alfred Howard:

(This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday and Wednesday.)

“There is a great deal of difference between the eager man who wants to read a book, and the tired man who wants a book to read.”
G. K. Chesterton, Charles Dickens