Linda Levitt

1 week ago | spectrumculture.com | Linda Levitt

Matthew Specktor believes Hollywood is not a safe place for anyone. He arrives at this conclusion by intertwining its history with his own story and those of his parents, stalwart talent agent Fred and mother, Katherine, who was an activist, teacher and screenwriter constricted by the gendered 1960’s expectations for women. The Golden Hour: A Story of Family and Power in Hollywood highlights the versatility of Specktor’s talent as a novelist, memoirist, historian and screenwriter.

4 weeks ago | spectrumculture.com | Linda Levitt

Let’s begin at the end. In the epilogue to Care and Feeding, Laurie Woolever writes that she would not have written this book if Tony Bourdain was still alive, because she would be co-writing something else with him; if Mario Batali’s predatory behavior had not become public knowledge, because she would not have felt safe writing about him; and if her mother was still alive, because she would not have told the stories of her own bad behavior that she tried to hide from her mother.

2 months ago | spectrumculture.com | Linda Levitt

As an object, What Art Does takes on its own premise. About the size of an average smartphone with a simple, bright pink-and-white cover, the book grabs the eye. Part of the message that Brian Eno and Bette A. (Adriaanse) impart is that art helps us figure out what we like and what we feel. The authors also want us to see the art that not only surrounds us, but that we ourselves create art constantly.

Mar 17, 2025 | spectrumculture.com | Linda Levitt

Just as author Sarah Perry really embarks on her curious study of culture through the lens of sweets, surprisingly embarks on a lengthy narrative about the vaginal yeast infection she suffered through after the publication of her first book. It’s an unsettling way to reference Eclipse: A Mother’s Murder, a Daughter’s Search, a serious and visceral work about her mother’s murder, which occurred when Perry was 12.

Feb 19, 2025 | spectrumculture.com | Linda Levitt

In her thoughtful engagement with Henri Bergson’s life and career, Emily Herring sets out to do what she argues Bergson, himself, accomplished: bring philosophy to the people. Bergson, of course, brought his own philosophical perspectives to audiences of hundreds gathered in lecture halls. Herring continues his project, aspiring to show how Bergson’s philosophy was not only accessible and relevant at the turn of the twentieth century but could be a useful remedy today.