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The Other Bennet Sister
The Other Bennet Sister (BBC, 2026). Left to right: Maddie Close (Jane Bennet Bingley), Poppy Gilbert (Elizabeth Bennet Darcy), Elizabeth Bruccoleri (Mary Bennet), Molly Wright (Kitty Bennet Buncock),...
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Behind the arras: Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris
DVD cover (from Sweden) of Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris, Focus Features, 2022. Image source: KvarnvideoBusiness as usualWith the ever-growing attention paid to the Met Gala, and the Met's current "Costume...
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In memoriam: Robert Cole
Robert Cole in Zellerbach Hall, with the set from Mark Morris's The Hard Nut onstage. Set designed by Adrianne Lobel after Charles Burns. Image source: Cal PerformancesOn 16 July I learned of the death...
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"Farewell to hope": Baldassare Galuppi's L'Olimpiade
DVD cover for Baldassare Galuppi's L'Olimpiade (The Olympiad, 1747), with Romina Basso as Megacle (left) and Ruth Rosique as Aristea (right). Image source: Internet ArchiveThe 18th-century Italian...
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"What have we done?": The Paying Guests
Sarah Waters in the Divinity School at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, in 2014. Image source: The IndependentAs regular readers are aware, the novelist Sarah Waters is an E&I favorite. I've written...
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Delightful French films, part 2: The Crime Is Mine
Pauline (Rebecca Marder) and Madeleine (Nadia Tereszkiewicz) in François Ozon's The Crime is Mine. Image source: RMITV.orgWhat if pleading guilty to a murder solved all your problems?In The Crime is...
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Delightful French films, part 1: Jane Austen Wrecked My Life
Agathe (Camille Rutherford) failing to make progress on her novel in Jane Austen Wrecked My Life. Image source: Film ObsessiveThe French seem to do certain things better than almost anyone else: food,...
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Ella Fitzgerald: Like Someone in Love
Cover of Ella Fitzgerald's Like Someone in Love, Verve Records, 1957. Photo credit: Phil Stern. Image source: GoatlessTechnology can revolutionize not only artistic form, but content. The advent of the...
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The 100 best novels of all time
Cover of the first edition of Middlemarch, Book 1 — Miss Brooke (1872), by George Eliot. Middlemarch is ranked first on the 2026 Guardian list of "The 100 best novels of all time." Image source: New...
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Nymphs, shepherdesses, muses and lovers: Virginie Thomas
Virginie Thomas. Image credit: Studio Ledroit-Perrin. Image source: Les Heures Musicales de l’Abbaye de LessayAlthough my shelves (and coffee table, and stereo cabinet) are groaning with CDs, I...
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In memoriam: Asha Bhosle
Asha Bhosle. Image source: MumbaiMirrorThe great playback singer Asha Bhosle (née Mangeshkar) died last Sunday at age 92. Born into a musical family, she recorded 12,000 songs (according to the...
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Tristan und Isolde at the Met
Michael Spyres as Tristan and Lise Davidsen as Isolde in Tristan und Isolde at the Metropolitan Opera. Image credit: Karen Almond/Met Opera. Image source: Playbill.On Saturday 21 March, The Met Live in...
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Anne Lister's first love: Learned by Heart
Cover of Emma Donoghue's Learned by Heart. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2023. Image source: BookPageAnne Lister, a member of a landowning family in Yorkshire, was born in 1791 and died in 1840....
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In memoriam: Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare
Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare, 1980s. Image credit: David Corio. Image source: The GuardianOn Tuesday The Guardian carried an obituary for the drummer Sly Dunbar, who together with his bassist...
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The Strange Love of Martha Ivers
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers. Starring Barbara Stanwyck (Martha Ivers), Van Heflin (Sam Masterson), Lizabeth Scott (Toni Marachek), and Kirk Douglas (Walter O'Neil). Screenplay by Robert Rossen,...
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Favorites of 2025: Movies and television
TelevisionFor us this was an especially rich year for television series, beginning in May with PBS's Miss Austen, which also rounded out the Austen 250th anniversary year with its rebroadcast in...
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Favorites of 2025: Recordings
As with the other posts in this series, the recordings listed below are my favorites of those first experienced in 2025. I've listed them below by musical category in chronological order by...
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16 December 1775–2025
What the well-dressed lapel is wearing this year. With profound thanks to AG.
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Favorites of 2025: Live and streamed performances
As always, we experienced many wonderful musical performances this year, both live and streaming. From more than two dozen choices, I've listed the eight most memorable, plus one honorable mention.Two...
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Favorites of 2025: Books
It's time for my annual survey of favorite books that were first read in the previous 12 months. They are listed below by category in the order in which they were read:Favorite Fiction of 2025Emma...
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