About Jim Monthly Archives

Jim Curtis

Contributor, The Morton Report

Covering Books

Jim Curtis
Jim Curtis was a professor of Russian for a long time at the University of Missouri, but eventually realized that he was interested in so many different things that he didn't want to limit himself to one country. So he's now an independent art educator and writer. Jim has been reading books and listening to rock and roll since the fifties. He's the author of "Rock Eras: Interpretations of Music and Society, 1954-1984," as well as a forthcoming book on Dylan.


Articles From Jim Curtis
Thursday Apr 19, 2012 00:00 PM ET

Lee Child's Imaginary Landscapes

Lee Child's hero Jack Reacher enjoys exceptional freedom to fight for justice because he operates in imaginary landscapes.
Tuesday Apr 3, 2012 35:00 PM ET

What is Sarah Silverman Doing in The Muppets?

There’s a reason why this movie did such good business on its opening weekend, and will continue to bring in big bucks for Disney.
Monday Mar 12, 2012 10:00 PM ET

HBO's Game Change: A Small Worlder on the World Stage

Sarah Palin feels betrayed when she realizes that life in small-town America didn't prepare her for life in the global village.
Saturday Jan 21, 2012 20:00 AM ET

Review: The Concert Sinatra

If Sinatra’s genius was broad enough to include both the lonely introvert of “Angel Eyes” as well as the boisterous party-goer of “Chicago,” who is “the concert Sinatra”?
Saturday Dec 10, 2011 45:00 PM ET

A Chat with Author Lisa Chaney, Chanel Biographer

Coco Chanel did more than make little black dresses — although she did that too.
Tuesday Nov 15, 2011 15:00 PM ET

Is Beth McMullen's Heroine a Spy Who's a Mother...or a Mother Who's a Spy?

A Q&A with Beth McMullen, author of "Original Sin," a delightful book about a stay-at-home mom whose exciting past keeps intruding into her mundane present.
Monday Nov 14, 2011 20:00 PM ET

Davis Sasson Helps Us Find the Next Great Artist

The co-founder and president of overstockArt talks about art and opportunity on Bravo's reality competition to find the next great artist.
Sunday Nov 13, 2011 00:00 AM ET

Susan Lacy's 120 Phone Calls: Q&A With the Producer of PBS's American Masters

Since the 1980s, Susan lacy has been the prime mover behind the "American Masters" series, responsible for two of most notable episodes in the history of this distinguished treasure trove of American culture,
Tuesday Oct 25, 2011 00:00 PM ET

Where Are the British Rock Divas?

How come there aren’t any British rock divas—great stars with careers that have lasted over decades?
Thursday Oct 13, 2011 10:00 PM ET

So You Wanna Be a Writer? Try Elizabeth Berg's Escaping into the Open

Elizabeth Berg's warmth and generosity come across in her terrific book for wannabe writers, "Escaping into the Open."
Friday Oct 7, 2011 10:00 AM ET

The New Hawaii Five-O is a Great Remake!

The new "Hawaii Five-O" has better production values, a better cast, and better writing than the original.
Thursday Oct 6, 2011 30:00 PM ET

Steve Jobs Was the Henry Ford of Our Time

The differences between Henry Ford and Steve Jobs were the differences between prewar America and postwar America.
Thursday Oct 6, 2011 15:00 PM ET

What Is Owen Wilson Doing in Paris, and in a Woody Allen Movie at That?

Owen Wilson is miscast as Woody Allen's alter ego in Midnight in Paris.
Tuesday Aug 30, 2011 30:00 PM ET

Michael Brandman Continuing Robert B. Parker's Jesse Stone Franchise

Michael Brandman is a major Hollywood hyphenate—a writer/director/producer—with a long list of credits going back to the seventies. In 2005, he produced and wrote the script for Stone Cold, the first TV movie based on a novel about Jesse...
Friday Aug 19, 2011 00:00 PM ET

George Thorogood Explains Why He Plays So Fast

George Thorogood and the Destroyers are best known for the 1982 hit “Bad to the Bone,” but they have toured and recorded constantly throughout their long career. They have played with blues legends Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, and...
Wednesday Aug 17, 2011 30:00 PM ET

Debra Duneier Tells You Where to Put Stuff - and Why

Debra Duneier is an entrepreneur who has gone through several careers, like so many people today. Unlike a lot of people, she’s grown and prospered from the experience. Based in New York, she applies the principle of the Chinese...
Friday Aug 12, 2011 55:00 PM ET

Walter Mosley Gives New Meaning to the Term "Noir Fiction"

When a detective novel lingers in the mind as this book does, you know that you’re in the hands of a master.
Wednesday Aug 10, 2011 25:00 PM ET

Alan Furst Writes Books Where Everybody Knows the Ending

Alan Furst, whom the New York Times rightly called “America’s preeminent spy novelist,” once commented at a public reading that he writes books “where everybody knows the ending.” He is drawn to the dark places in Eastern Europe between...
Tuesday Aug 9, 2011 10:00 PM ET

The Elegant Yet Socially Relevant Mystery Novels of Donna Leon

Donna Leon could paraphrase Raymond Chandler and say of Guido Brunetti, the hero of her wonderful series of detective novels set in Venice, “Down these mean canals must glide a man of honor.” In fact, the canals of Venice are...
Monday Aug 8, 2011 00:00 PM ET

Women Writers Divide Italy into Sun and Shadow

What is it about women writers and Italy? Although John Ruskin and Henry James loved Italy and wrote about it evocatively, nowadays women have taken up where they left off. The interesting thing is the difference between nonfiction and fiction....
Sunday Aug 7, 2011 20:00 PM ET

Streisand at the Village Vanguard: Now There are Three (And a Ghost)

The point here is that for both Sinatra and Streisand acting the song is as important as singing the song. They turn each song into a three- or four-minute mini-drama.
Thursday Aug 4, 2011 30:00 PM ET

Toni Bernhard Teaches Us How to be Well

Writer Toni Bernhard shares her thoughts on living a productive and satisfying life in the face of a debilitating chronic illness.
Monday Aug 1, 2011 45:00 PM ET

The Long Reach of Mickey Spillane's I, the Jury

Mickey Spillane’s I, the Jury, his famous hard-boiled detective novel featuring Mike Hammer, enjoyed instant success in 1947, and Spillane realized that he was onto something.  He wrote so many popular action-packed novels that by 1980 he was responsible for...
Thursday Jul 28, 2011 40:00 PM ET

Gregg Hurwitz's The Crime Writer - An Experimental Detective Story Set in LA

L.A. is the perfect setting for mysteries. Since there’s no there in LA, people can hide out anywhere.  After all, Raymond Chandler set The Big Sleep in LA, and detective stories don’t get any better than that. Still, Raymond...
Wednesday Jul 27, 2011 35:00 PM ET

Philip Kerr’s Field Gray - You Can't Tell the Good Guys From the Bad Guys

Who would think to look for insights into our troubled times in a spy thriller? And in a historical spy thriller? And in a historical spy thriller that features a Nazi soldier as a detective?  Well, it’s Philip Kerr’s Field...
Monday Jul 25, 2011 40:00 PM ET

The Unclassifiable Viktor Pelevin

Imagine a writer who is like Oscar Wilde without the frivolousness, like Franz Kafka without the grimness, and like Vladimir Nabokov without the snobbishness—and you have Viktor Pelevin, Russia’s most important living writer.More than anything, it’s the dizzying diversity of...
Saturday Jul 23, 2011 55:00 AM ET

What's a Kid to Do When Dad Is a Superstar?

Lots of kids idolize their dads - at least when they’re young. But what are kids to do when they idolize their dads, and then as they grow up, they gradually realize that everybody else does, too? That’s the problem...
Wednesday Jul 20, 2011 40:00 AM ET

J. K. Rowling's Star-Making Power

Sure, you know that the Harry Potter franchise is the most profitable movie franchise in history. You know that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part II set a four-day record by taking in an astonishing $187.2 M. Do...
Saturday Jul 16, 2011 05:00 PM ET

Beijing is the New New York: Jonathan Tel's The Beijing of Possibilities

As Jack Nicholson said in quite a different context, it’s Chinatown.
Thursday Jul 14, 2011 15:00 PM ET

Barbra Streisand is the Ultimate Hyphenate

You could say that it started with Hank Williams. The patron saint of country music was writing his own songs, singing them and accompanying himself on the guitar at a time when Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and other pop stars...
Sunday Jul 10, 2011 20:00 AM ET

Two Roberts, One Detective Story

Critics, fans of detective stories, and just ordinary folks have a lot of trouble talking about the relationships between artists.
Saturday Jul 9, 2011 40:00 AM ET

Keith Richards is Rock 'n' Roll Royalty In More Ways Than One

It was a road trip that had catastrophe written all over it. Keith Richards begins his autobiography Life with a story about how he, Ronnie Woods, and two members of the Rolling Stones entourage decided to drive from Memphis to...
Wednesday Jul 6, 2011 35:00 PM ET

Where Do the Great Movie Franchises Come From?

Although not every great movie franchise has a literary source, most of them do. But there’s a very indicative difference between British movie franchises and American movie franchises. The Brits have the greatest, richest uninterrupted literary tradition in the...
Tuesday Jul 5, 2011 05:00 PM ET

Stephen Hunter, a Populist William Faulkner

Although Stephen Hunter has written a variety of novels, he is best known for his franchise hero, a Marine sniper from Blue Eye, Arkansas, Bob Lee Swagger.
Saturday Jul 2, 2011 10:00 PM ET

Where Are the Women Who Can Write Bestselling Nonfiction?

You wouldn’t think that Publishers Weekly’s list of The Week’s Hottest Reads would itself make for interesting reading, but insights about gender roles in America turn up in odd places these days. This list of bestsellers for June 23...
Friday Jul 1, 2011 10:00 PM ET

For Books This Summer It's the Beach and/or the Multiplex

Imagine this: You’ve settled in on the beach and are ready for a good read while you work on your tan. But lightning strikes, and it starts to rain.
Friday Jul 1, 2011 35:00 PM ET

Will Harry Potter Defeat the Nazis?

The Nazis have been movie bad guys for a long time - at least since Casablanca. They’ve provided readily identifiable villains in the ever-popular theme of the struggle between good and evil. Still, there wasn’t much left for filmmakers to...
Wednesday Jun 29, 2011 40:00 PM ET

The Book I Don't Want to Finish

When I was twelve, I read The Complete Sherlock Holmes in one summer. I was a bookish kid living in a town where people didn't care much for books, so I loved the idea that a smart guy like...
Tuesday Jun 28, 2011 55:00 PM ET

A Team of Rivals Goes from Concord to the White House - And Now to Hollywood

Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin lives in Concord, Massachusetts, but her reach extends far beyond that, and has for a long time. These days she's best known for her book A Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. It...
Monday Jun 27, 2011 30:00 AM ET

Can Tom Cruise Fill Jack Reacher's Shoes?

Hollywood is buzzing about the news that Tom Cruise is 'in talks" with Paramount to play Jack Reacher, the hero of Lee Child's thriller franchise that has sold over 40 million books.

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