It's SHOWTIME

Books on performance, from en pointe to onscreen

Vanities /Books

ALL THE WORLD'S a stage or film set in this troupe of books. First, two tales of the movies. Michael Schulman's Oscar Wars, from Harper, examines the history of America's most watched—and perhaps most divisiveawards show, from the birth of the Academy to the 2017 Moonlight versus La La Land best picture debacle. In Helene Stapinski and Bonnie Siegler's The American Way, from Simon & Schuster, Siegler looks into a piece of family lore: Her grandfather, who escaped the Holocaust with the help of the future publisher of DC Comics, supposedly captured Marilyn Monroe's subway grate moment on film. In Permission to Speak, from Crown, Samara Bay—the speech coach who's helped Ruth Negga, Gal Gadot, and others perfect dialects on film—offers an empowering take on public speaking. Alice Robb presents a beautiful, difficult, and compelling memoir of her adolescent ballet training—and her decision to leave it behind—in Don't Think, Dear, from Mariner. And following two critically acclaimed runs in London, Zadie Smith's bawdy, contemporary Chaucer reworking, The Wife ofWillesden, has just hit bookshelves courtesy of Penguin Books and, leaping right off the page, debuts off Broadway at BAM Strong in April.

KEZIAH WEIR