This month seems to be a time of fresh starts and new beginnings in area arts. Susie Dempsey’s three pianos have just returned to her Jacksonville home, waiting for new melodies after the March 19 tornado. A quilt display including an Alabama Bicentennial quilt will open later this month fea…
To read “Elsey Come Home,” the new novel from Susan Conley, is to come into contact with any search for self that any individual might ever have experienced. The novel is an intimate declaration of independence. It’s a story told many times over, true, but Conley tells it with such understan…
In the past year since her feature film “Best Mom” premiered, former Anniston resident Meg Weidner has been on an emotional roller coaster. “I probably need to make a playbook about what to do, and what not to do, for the next go-around,” she said. “In order to minimize the stress and maximi…
If words can’t say it all, art and music can. Visual art speaks through its subjects and textures; music can awaken our deepest emotions.
“Wolves of Eden” is a remarkable mash-up of a novel. It’s both a western and a noir murder mystery. It is all the more remarkable since it is from the pen of Irish author Kevin McCarthy, whose two previous novels have been thrillers set against the background of the Irish Civil War.
Virtuosity is spotlighted in two ways this month as we applaud people featured in the arts. There’s no doubt that Leonard Bernstein, the subject of the Czech National Symphony Orchestra performance at Knox Concerts on Feb. 16, was a virtuoso. But in the eyes of a certain Alabama artist, a cr…
Restoration touches every page of “Old Newgate Road,” the new novel from Keith Scribner. It is a portrait of an American family still threatened by the past as its members labor to construct a sustainable present.
This month brings to light the works of celebrated composers and an equally celebrated area photographer. The JSU Civic Symphony and an art exhibit at Nunnally’s Noble Frame and Gallery have much to do with the composers’ and artist’s passion for making art — even if these works didn’t find …
The essence of “A Ladder to the Sky,” the new novel for adults from Irish author John Boyne, is an old proverb. Late in the novel, Maurice Swift, the amoral writer at the novel’s center, tells a much younger writer: “And you’ve heard the old proverb about ambition, haven’t you? … That it’s l…
“A moment’s insight is sometimes worth a life’s experience.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes.
The “Winters” in this new work from Tom Barbash are the members of the Winters family who live in the Dakota, the famous residence in the heart of New York City. “The Dakota Winters” is a novel populated by characters both fictional and actual, and it is a novel that is very much about the l…
More than 100 years ago, in the town of Radcot “along the upper reaches of the Thames,” sits the Swan Inn, as famous for its storytelling as it is for its thatched roof. It’s here that “Once Upon a River,” the new novel by Diane Setterfield, begins.
First of all, there’s the cover art. Against a bright, red-orange background are Joe Biden at the wheel of a Dodge Charger, safety belt harnessing him in, while Barack Obama stands through the car’s sunroof with an absolute sense of urgency, pointing ahead while his tie flaps over his should…
Perennial favorite Black Jacket Symphony returns to the Historic Ritz Theatre in Talladega next week with two performances of Queen’s “A Night at the Opera.”
How can we keep the spirit of Christmas cheer and giving aglow after the last candle grows dim? I have two suggestions: First, follow an Anniston family’s example in creativity by placing 24 trees in your home. And second, see an oil painting in Nunnally’s art exhibit that motivates giving f…
Know how it is when you like a book so much that you wonder how you’ve managed to miss other books by the same writer? Be prepared for that experience at the end of “Virgil Wander,” a new novel from Leif Enger.
Just as the Star of Wonder guided the Three Kings to the Christ Child’s manger, just think: Our calendars are schedules of wonder, too! The number of holiday events is amazing. The calendar is full as plays, concerts and parades guide us toward the Christmas spirit.
The polka dot is to Yayoi Kusama as the soup can is to Andy Warhol.
Redemption and hope are the themes of performances in three different venues this month. Two are choral presentations to be given in churches; the third is a drama on stage in a high school. All fuel the feeling of joy, salvation and a change for a better world.
The bright lights are going up and the Christmas bells are ringing! Each outdoor holiday display seems more colorful than the one before. But remember, some inside Yule events match this festivity.
Six days, seven parades. Can we make them all?
It was in 2005 that Markus Zusak first published in Australia what in this country a year later was touted as a book for young people. Adult readers quickly embraced it.
Finding Christmas early in the season is easily possible this week in two ways: Attend JSU’s A Cappella Choir and Chamber Singers concert today at 2:30 p.m. at First United Methodist Church in Anniston, and see “The 1940s Radio Hour” by Theatre of Gadsden on the weekends of Nov. 30-Dec. 8 at…
Volunteers who are making holiday events happen are not only in the spirit but working with the spirit on a daily basis, using the performing arts to enhance the excitement of the season.
A rising star was in Birmingham to support a musical legend on Veteran’s Day. The wind whipped fierce rain across the entire state the holiday weekend and the sky was dark and moody. Inside the Lyric Theater, J.S. Ondara strode to the stage in a resplendent white suit carrying an acoustic gu…
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