Karen Wilkin, Hans Hofmann: A Retrospective. The extraordinarily fine catalogue of a Wilkin-curated 2003 show at Florida’s Naples Museum of Art, this is a near-ideal introduction to the work of a abstract-expressionist master who was also an immensely accomplished and significant art teacher. Wilkin really ought to give us a full-length Hofmann biography, but until then, this volume will do quite nicely (TT).

Brian Priestley, Chasin’ the Bird: The Life and Legacy of Charlie Parker. By far the best single volume published to date about the life and work of the second most influential jazz musician of the twentieth century. Priestley succeeds in separating fact from gossip, simultaneously shedding much light on Parker’s formidable artistic achievement. Concise, intelligent, and accessible to non-musicians (TT).

Carol Burnett, One More Time. The TV comedienne’s 1986 memoir of her impoverished childhood and youth, a painful story (her parents were alcoholics, her grandmother a bizarre eccentric) told simply and without a trace of self-pity. Page after page of One More Time contains stingingly plain-spoken sentences that leap off the page and embed themselves in the memory: “The war was one giant movie we all were starring in.” “He was sick in a charity hospital.” “Those were the times they didn’t fight.” “The worst was Christmas.” Who knew, or even suspected, that Burnett could write so well? Not me (TT).

Heifetz, Primrose, and Feuermann Play String Duos and Trios (Biddulph). Jascha Heifetz, who needs no introduction, made a fair number of chamber-music recordings in the Forties with Emanuel Feuermann, the greatest cellist who ever lived, and William Primrose, one of the greatest violists. This 1993 collection (out of print but easy to obtain) contains their dazzling 78 versions of Dohnanyi’s C Major Serenade and Mozart’s E Flat Divertimento, plus duos for violin and viola by Handel-Halvorsen and Mozart. No matter how long you live, you’ll never hear finer string playing (TT).

Elmore Leonard, LaBrava. As a longtime fan of the much-admired crime novelist who hit the cable-TV jackpot with Justified, I not infrequently get asked which of Leonard’s books to read first. I suggest this one, a 1983 thriller about a Secret Service agent turned fine-art photographer who relocates to Miami Beach and gets mixedup with a superannuated film-noir star who is clearly meant to remind you of Jane Greer. It’s smart, dryly witty, soundly plotted, and immensely entertaining (TT).

Richard Huggett, The Truth About Pygmalion. Originally published in 1969, this deftly written, admirably concise study of how George Bernard Shaw’s most popular play made it to the stage is forgotten today save by Shaw specialists. It shouldn’t be. Few such books pack more information into a smaller package, and fewer still do so with such engaging wit (TT).

Local Hero. If, like me, you have a weakness for whimsical portraits of small-town life, you’ll love Bill Forsyth’s 1983 comedy about a slightly cracked oil-comedy boss (Burt Lancaster) who dispatches a no-nonsense junior executive (Peter Riegert) to a tiny Scottish seaside village in order to buy it out and send the locals packing. No, the outcome isn’t in any way surprising, but Local Hero is delicately fey and completely charming (TT).

A Sonata Recital by Joseph Szigeti and Béla Bartók. Recorded live at the Library of Congress in 1940, this concert features the most interesting violinist of the twentieth century, accompanied by one of the greatest composers of all time. Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata, Debussy’s G Minor Sonata, and Bartók’s own First Rhapsody and Second Sonata are all played with jaw-dropping spontaneity and individuality. The sound is only fair, but who cares? That this performance was recorded for posterity is a blessing (TT).