tony buchsbaum

Non-Fiction: The Way We Were: The Making of a Romantic Classic by Tom Santopietro

June 5, 2023 Tony Buchsbaum 0

The Way We Were is one of my favorite movies. What’s not to love? It’s got Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford at the top of their games. It’s got the timeless, Oscar-winning song by Marvin Hamlisch and Marilyn and Alan Bergman. It has Hamlisch’s lush, Oscar-winning score, plus 1950s-era politics; and rich, juicy dollops of romance as the two ill-fated opposites attract each other. I was eager to read a book about how the movie […]

Fiction: The Ferryman by Justin Cronin

May 14, 2023 Tony Buchsbaum 0

There is so much to love about The Ferryman that I hardly know where to begin. Justin Cronin’s first novel since his amazing Passage trilogy is filled with unforgettable characters, twists galore, and plenty of gravitas and pathos to get your heart racing…and breaking. I’m hesitant to say too much because there are so many ideas in this book, and so many things to spoil. What I can say is that Cronin goes out of […]

Fiction: The Acrobat by Edward J. Delaney

November 18, 2022 Tony Buchsbaum 0

Who doesn’t love Cary Grant? In comedies with Katharine Hepburn and thrillers directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Cary Grant was the man every woman wanted to sleep with and the man every man wanted to be. Handsome. Mannered. Glamorous. Even when his movies were in color, he was the epitome of classy black-and-white. But who was the Archie Leach behind Cary Grant? Who was the man behind the icon? The new book The Acrobat, by Edward […]

Fiction: Crossings by Alex Landrigan

July 24, 2020 Tony Buchsbaum 0

Over the years, there have been a good number of books that delight with messing with your mind. Think: House of Blue Leaves. Think: The Dictionary of the Khazars. Think: Cloud Atlas. And now there’s Crossings, a new mind-bender from Alex Landragin. I love books like this, but — also — I’ve never read a book like this. It’s an intelligent tale, ingeniously told. It’s not so much a puzzle for the reader, but it […]

New CD from Dear Evan Hansen Actor

February 6, 2018 Tony Buchsbaum 0

It’s possible you’ve never heard of Michael Lee Brown, but you’re about to—and I don’t mean just here. Michael appears on Broadway at least twice a week, and his first CD was released recently. It’s sure to be the first of many. Every Wednesday and Saturday, Brown plays Evan Hansen in the hit musical Dear Evan Hansen, and he’s an alternate for Evan at other performances as well as for two other lead roles, […]

Fiction: The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin

January 19, 2018 Tony Buchsbaum 0

In Chloe Benjamin’s luminous new novel, The Immortalists (Putnam), four siblings, all children, seek out a woman who, they’ve heard, can tell each of them the day they will die. Not how, but when. A casual few words: a month, a day, and a year. They’re given a glimpse around a corner and then go on with their lives, not oblivious exactly, but not unaffected by the information either. The year is 1969. The nation […]

SF/F: Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

July 22, 2016 Tony Buchsbaum 1

You’ve Never Read Anything Like Dark Matter. There. I said it. The new novel by Blake Crouch, is a terrifying, enthralling, lightning-fast, brilliant book. You have no idea how much I want to write about it. I want to tell you everything about it, but that would spoil everything, and that would be very, very bad. Because Dark Matter is the kind of book you want to know absolutely nothing about. Further, to get the […]

Book Expo 2016: Day 2

May 13, 2016 Tony Buchsbaum 1

by Tony Buchsbaum Things got much more crowded — and much more musical — on day two of Book Expo 2016. There were stacks of books everywhere and more authors than you could easily count. There was an even a mini-concert: Kenny Loggins performed two songs in the Quarto booth to announce his debut children’s book, Footloose. I didn’t get look at the book, but Loggins was terrific. He sang a version of his big hit “Footloose” with […]

Book Expo 2016: Day 1

May 12, 2016 Tony Buchsbaum 0

by Tony Buchsbaum I think of it as book publishing’s running of the bulls. Thousands of people — booksellers, assorted book professionals, and press — gather in quasi-defined lines, crowds really (okay, hordes), hearts aflutter, as the minutes count down to the opening of Book Expo, North America’s biggest book-publishing trade show. There’s a great anticipation as people crane to see beyond the barricades to the publishers’ booths, where all manner of books are stacked up and waiting […]

Art & Culture: Holiday Bonding

December 21, 2015 Tony Buchsbaum 0

It’s inevitable, really. Every 007 movie brings forth new books about the Bond phenomenon. Some are updated versions of older books, some are new. But they appear as part of the vast Bond marketing machine that hasn’t stopped since the early 1960s. This fall’s release of Spectre, the 24th film in the series, saw its share. Here’s a look at three. The best by far is The James Bond Archives (Taschen). Created with the full cooperation […]