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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

TT: News of the book in review

May 10, 2004 by Terry Teachout

Thanks to Sarah (who accompanied it with some greatly appreciated praise of her own), I returned from my Secure Undisclosed Location to find Victoria A. Brownworth’s review of A Terry Teachout Reader, published in yesterday’s Baltimore Sun:

Teachout’s engaging style and diversity of tastes means there is something for everyone in this book as he covers subjects from Elvis Presley to John Steinbeck (the newly adopted darling of the Oprah book club) to the end of vinyl to the horrific lynching of an African-American man in the town he grew up in. For those who enjoy criticism, this Reader is a book to savor, get angry with and reflect upon.


If Teachout has one consistent topic it is genius – great (Louis Armstrong), middling (Dawn Powell) and small (Randolph Scott) – and the majority of pieces collected here – essays, profiles, reviews – reflect that attraction. One charming trait of Teachout the cultural critic is he appears to genuinely want his readers to enjoy what he enjoys (those who read criticism know how rare that is in a critic) or at the very least understand why he so enjoys it….

Read the whole thing here.

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Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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