New York Times Style Magazine

When Biréli Lagrène's Routes to Django: Live was issued in 1980, the 13-year-old jazz guitarist was immediately praised by critics as a protégé of Django Reinhardt. He had already won a prize in a festival at Strasbourg in 1978, and his appearance at a Gypsy festival was broadcast on television. For the next five years, Lagrène would mime Reinhardt's style, even recording versions of the master's "Nuages" and "Djangology" on Swing '81. Over time, however, his role as a protégé began to seem limited. "When I was a kid," Lagrène later recalled, "I used to put on the record again and again, until I succeeded in redoing him [Reinhardt]. Afterwards, I understood that respecting the great guitarist was worth much more than imitating him…."

A magnificent history of postwar Europe, East and West, by arguably the subject's most esteemed historian.

Tony Judt's Postwar makes one lament the overuse of the word "groundbreaking." It is an unprecedented accomplishment: the first truly European history of contemporary Europe, from Lisbon to Leningrad, based on research in six languages, covering thirty-four countries across sixty years in a single integrated narrative, using a great deal of material from newly available sources. Tony Judt has drawn on forty years of reading and writing about modern Europe to create a fully rounded, deep account of the continent's recent past. The book integrates international relations, domestic politics, ideas, social change, economic development, and culture–high and low–into a single grand narrative. Every country has its chance to play the lead, and although the big themes are superbly handled–including the cold war, the love/hate relationship with America, cultural and economic malaise and rebirth, and the myth and reality of unification–none of them is allowed to overshadow the rich pageant that is the whole. Vividly and clearly written for the general reader; witty, opinionated, and full of fresh and surprising stories and asides; visually rich and rewarding, with useful and provocative maps, photos, and cartoons throughout, Postwar is a movable feast for lovers of history and lovers of Europe alike.

Johan and Esther have been married for years, and live with their children in a Mennonite community from the north of Mexico. Against the law of God and man, Johan falls in love with another woman.

I was amazed by Silent Light – the setting, the language, the delicacy of the interactions between the people on screen, the drama of redemption. And most of all by Carlos Reygadas's extraordinarily rich sense of cinema, evident in every frame. A surprising picture, and a very moving one as well. — Martin Scorsese