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This book is a treat for anyone interested in musical theater, modern Jewish life, or the dynamic between art and life. Solomon's book has three parts. The first is about Sholem-Aleichem, the author of the stories on which Fiddler was based. The second is a "making of" story of the musical, and the third is about certain post-Broadway productions of Fiddler and how they reveal contemporary social and cultural concerns. The "making of" section is the best account I have read of the creation of a musical. Solomon wades through a mass of detail and homes in on the most significant moments, the decisions that made Fiddler the moving, funny, and delightful show it is. The other sections are too long, but Solomon is such a good storyteller that I didn't care.

Everyone should read this book! Wu argues that every breakthrough communications technology of the 20th century--telephone, films, AM radio, FM radio, broadcast TV, cable TV--went through the same cycle: wide open to all at first, and hailed as an innovation that would change the world, but later bought up and controlled by large corporations who closed the technology down and restricted users' freedom of speech. Will the Internet, still very young, be the great exception? Wu doesn't think so, and he has an idea of how to prevent it.

This was the first Philip Roth book I've read in decades, and I was fascinated and rather awed by how his powers as a novelist have grown. The Human Stain is a much bigger, more ambitious book than Portnoy's Complaint or Goodbye Columbus. Although it's the story of one man, Colman Silk, a New England college professor whose career comes to a humiliating end, it's also about the state of the nation at the close of the 20th century. The characters--Silk's family, his colleagues, his girlfriend, the girlfriend's Vietnam vet ex-husband--all ring true, although some sexism mars his portrayal of Silk's faculty nemesis. I kept reading to find out what happened to everyone as well as to see where Roth was going with his analysis of contemporary America. Now I want to read the first two books in his American Pastoral trilogy.

This is one of the most enjoyable and well-written biographies I've ever read. My image of Theodore Roosevelt had been that of a macho, jingoistic imperialist--a crude caricature, it turns out. I didn't know he was a pioneering reformer who cleaned up the corrupt New York City police department, straightened out the federal and New York State civil services, and, as governor, initiated so much pro-labor legislation that party bosses and corporate titans conspired to run him out of the state by making him vice president in 1900. All this did, of course, was to make him president a year later when William McKinley was assassinated. And along the way, he was a cowboy, war hero, and author of many books. Morris tells the story vividly, gracefully, and with a sense of humor. I'm looking forward to the second book in this series.

Until I read this book, I knew little of Lincoln's assassin other than he was a famous actor from a famous acting family. American Brutus was very enlightening as to Booth's character and motives. He was not a monster, a lunatic, or a pawn of other interests. He was in many ways a good man--loving, kindhearted, charming, considerate, and (despite what some have said) an excellent actor. But he was also a white supremacist and passionate Confederate partisan. As it became clear that the South was going to lose the war, Booth became desperate to do something for the cause. This is not so much a biography of Booth as an account, carefully researched and vividly told, of the assassination, with an extensive backstory on Booth. I would have preferred more detail on his stage career, and perhaps less on the trials of the conspirators, but all in all this is a fascinating read.

Who'd think you could write such a delightful book on such a grim subject? Sarah Vowell has always been fascinated (she would say "obsessed") with the assassinations of American presidents, so she set off on a pilgrimage to the places where these killings have occurred, as well as to the museums and memorials associated with them. From the mountain that Teddy Roosevelt was climbing when he became president (due to Leon Czolgosz murdering William McKinley) to the offshore prison in which some of the Lincoln conspirators were kept, she tries to get a feel for what the experience was like for all those involved. What makes the book so charming is Vowell's style. By turns wry, witty, tender, and thoughtful, she is the kind of companion who would make any journey a pleasure. (I do wish, though, that she had explained why she omitted the Kennedy assassination from her trip.)

I've read all of Elinor Lipman's books and enjoyed every one, but three of them stand out, and this is one of them. Her first novel, Then She Found Me, deals with the clash between a loud, uninhibited, rather vulgar woman and a prim one, and she repeats this theme in all of her subsequent novels, save two--The Ladies' Man and The Family Man. (Despite the similarity of title, the two books are completely unrelated.) In The Family Man, Henry, a middle-aged gay man, is accidentally reunited with Thalia, the adopted daughter whose custody he'd relinquished years before. Despite their differences--he's a well-to-do retired lawyer and she's a struggling, unsuccessful actress---they become friends. He's thrilled to have a child again, even if she's now nearly thirty, and persuades her to move into the basement apartment in his Manhattan town house. They're both unattached when the novel begins, but acquire partners during the course of the book. The romance between Henry and Todd, a younger, very witty, professionally unambitious Jewish man, is beautifully rendered, and in this often very funny book, the scene in which Todd comes out to his mother is hilarious. As always with Lipman, the characters seem so real that you want to meet them, and the dialogue sparkles with truth and wit. There's a happy ending for every character, but it doesn't seem contrived. I hated to put down this book.

For those of us who grew up watching Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music and listening to the original cast albums of My Fair Lady and Camelot, Julie Andrews has always been something of an idol. This, the first volume of her memoirs, confirms the impression I've always had of her as not just a fine actress and glorious singer, but a thoughtful and gracious lady, too. "Home" is really two books: one about growing up in 1940s and 1950s England in a family that can only be described as dysfunctional, and one about her great theatrical successes in The Boyfriend (when she was only 19), My Fair Lady, and Camelot. I found the first book much more interesting. Relating her early life, she recaptures the feelings of the girl she was while interpreting them from the vantage point of the woman she has become. Discussing her bitter, alcoholic mother, her frightening stepfather, and her career as a child performer in music halls (vaudeville) and major family breadwinner, she is never angry, just thoughtful, analytical, and generous. Her childhood was not lacking in joy: she adored her kindhearted father, reveled in her developing powers as a singer, and found an occasional haven as an honorary member of the family of her best friend, who became her first husband. For those of us who have read many accounts of British life in the war and post-war years, this one is particularly interesting as being about ordinary, middle-class people (two of Andrews’s grandparents had been servants) rather than members of the upper classes. Beginning with her Broadway success in The Boyfriend, the memoir takes a different turn. Her account of the shows she appeared in and the famous people she worked with have a rote-like quality, as though she knew she had to write about these things but wasn’t very interested in them. There are certainly some wonderful behind-the-scenes stories, but I missed the personal voice that told us how these experiences affected her. This is why I give it the book only 4 stars. Nonetheless, this book is a must for theater buffs and lovers of good memoirs of the period as well as Julie Andrews fans. In an era of relentlessly self-indulgent screen stars, how refreshing it is to spend time with a lady who embodies the graciousness of a bygone age.

In his career, Nureyev touched every part of the ballet world, and much of the modern dance world, too. Anyone interested in dance between 1961 (the year he defected) and 1993 (when he died, of AIDS) will find something to interest them in this well-researched, thoughtful, and very readable biography.

The comedy of manners isn’t dead; it just needs to be relocated from the tea table to the contemporary equivalent: the workplace. Caro Fraser understands this. In an addictive series, of which this is the second of seven (so far) books, Fraser (a former barrister and daughter of Flashman author George MacDonald Fraser) follows the fortunes of the barristers practicing at 5 Caper Court—a most apposite address. Chief among them is Leo Davies, a charming, successful lawyer whose sexual tastes, which run to both men and women, have a tendency to land him in hot water from which he nonetheless usually manages to escape. But these are not cynical novels. Leo isn’t successful because he is ruthless. Fraser follows him and his fellow barristers, clerks, clients, solicitors, and pupils as they make their way along the tightrope of contemporary middle-class London life, with often hilarious, sometimes poignant, always entertaining results.