Buffalo & Erie County Public Library Staff Review by Carol Ann Strahl:
This book is an inside look at the music scene in the 1960's and early 1970's.
The average listener had no idea that the musicians who recorded the most popular songs of the time were, in many cases, not members of the bands listed on the labels but a group of talented studio musicians (aka "Session Players") known in the industry as "the Wrecking Crew."
Great stories featuring such luminaries as Sonny Bono, Roger McGuinn from

Buffalo & Erie County Public Library Staff Review by Angela Pierpaoli:
"Sometimes you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together again unless and until all living humans read the book." - The Fault in Our Stars
Clinically depressed and terminally ill, sixteen-year-old Hazel is almost equally obsessed with "America's Next Top Model" and An Imperial Affliction, a book about a young girl with cancer that ends

What do you get when you team up the dynamic LehrerDance Company with mezzo-soprano Julia Bentley and collaborative pianist Kuang-Hao Huang? Combined with SUNY Distinguished Professor Ann C. Colley as literary advisor and art directing by retired Concert Master of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Charles Haupt? You get a cutting edge artistic performance set to "A Musical Feast" of course! The performance pays tribute to the bicentennial of the birth of the English author, illustrator

Buffalo & Erie County Public Library Staff Review by Dawn Stanton:
I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak is an enjoyable read with a hint of a "treasure hunt" feeling. To recap any part of the plot would be a spoiler to enjoying the journey of the main character, Ed. Ed's literal journey becomes something more personal, as the cards are dealt and the story unfolds. 
Zusak's writing style is simple (yet intelligent) and clean - he is able to portray the essence of a scene or a character with just the few right adjectives.

By Jay Smith
If you have ever visited the city of Detroit but haven't been back there in the last few years, you may be in for a pleasant surprise.  The city has endured enormously difficult times, especially recently, but if there is one bright spot in Detroit, it would be the city's heart, downtown. Much has changed since I first visited Detroit in 2002.  Businesses, retailers and restaurants have opened downtown, which is amazing considering it was written-off for dead.  Quicken Loans, General Motors, Compuware and others large

By Elexa Kopty:
Move over Buffalo bigwigs, there's a new musical coming to town. 
In one week, American Repertory Theatre of WNY in collaboration with Theatre Jugend and Steven Sitzman will unveil the world premiere of "The Dead English". 
Based on Bram Stoker's Dracula, the original musical adaptation is written, composed and directed by three young men from Buffalo. I sat in on a rehearsal and got a sneak peak of the project, and now I'm counting down the days until I can see the show

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has announced that, for the first time in the United States, less than half of us identify as Protestants.  The "mainline" has been in decline for some time, but they are not alone;  Evangelicals, Fundamentalists, and Pentecostals all have had their numbers decline sharply.

Roman Catholics have held steady.  A decrease in American-born Catholics has been offset by immigrant Catholics.  The third

By S. Alexander Smith:
The Brazen Faced Varlets live up to their name in this daring take on wicked women. Following last season's Artie nominated "Ladykillers," an exploration of women who kill, the Varlets took on a theme, wrote and mounted the play in two months.  Director Lara Haberberger notes she wanted to do more risky work and "Way Wicked Women" meets this goal in every aspect. The staging of the Varlet's show in the back of Rust Belt Books pushes the limits of the small space and gives an intimacy with the audience that is inescapable and

Buffalo & Erie County Public Library Staff Review by Meg Cheman:
At turns tragic and gentle, epic and humble, The Orchardist gets under your skin and stays with you long after you've turned the last page. In the late 19th century, William Talmadge grows and lovingly tends his orchards of apples and apricots. Talmadge has settled into a single life, with his long-time friends, horse catcher Clee of the Nez Perce and herbalist/midwife Caroline Middey. His solitary life is disrupted when two ragged, wild, and pregnant girls steal his apples at

The first week of October will be a busy one at Lafayette Church.

On, October 2, the church will screen, along with organizations, across the nation, in the premier of "The Line" a documentary about life below the poverty line, followed by a simulcast round table discussion with leading scholars, policy advisers, and religious experts.

On Friday, October 5, we continue our new /lifestyle/index.html

Mercedes-Benz of Buffalo Fashion Week will wrap up tonight at Statler City at the main runway event. Four fashion designers from NYC have flown in to show their Spring 2013 collections; Prajje1983; Dowry Designs; Gwen Beloti Collection; and Elena V. Designs; who have been featured in publications such as Elle Magazine and Italian Vogue. These designers will show their collections in the VIP Golden Ballroom runway show.  Tickets are $100 and may be reserved by calling 716-222-0239.

Local designers Vania & David will also be showing

THE BASICS: This pop-rock musical by Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey hit Broadway in 2009, won three Tony Awards, and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama the following year Intimate and downbeat, NORMAL shows the devastation wreaked by mental illness upon a small, "regular" nuclear family. The Buffalo premiere, at the Irish Classical Theater Company ICTC, has been directed by Fortunato Pezzimenti, with musical direction by Jason Bravo. It plays weekends at the Andrews Theatre through October 7th. The show runs nearly 2 1⁄2 hours with its ten minute

This weekend, Franklin Graham will come to Coca-cola field with a roster of musicians to "Rock the Lakes."  Many of my friends and colleagues are promoting the event and attending.  I wish them well, but I will not be there.  
The first reason I will not attend is the things Mr. Graham has said away from events like this.  At the event, Graham will tell people about Jesus, and invite people to consider

THE BASICS: The New Phoenix Theatre has opened its 2012-13 season with playwright Keith Waterhouse's adaptation of, and elaboration upon, a minor classic of late Victorian literature, DIARY OF A NOBODY. The play, which was directed by Robert Waterhouse (son of the late playwright), plays weekends at the New Phoenix through October 13th. The show runs approximately two hours with its single intermission. Thursday nights are pay-what-you-can.
THUMBNAIL SKETCH: England, 1890's. A year (or so) in the lives

The lines between love, music, and art have always been blurred.  Whenever two musicians are dating, friends and family continually ask, "...so do you two perform together?"  
An answer came quickly to Buffalo performing artists Christopher Wietig and Leah Schneider.  Within months of meeting each other, the two were creating and launching New Buffalo Productions, a theatre production company and arts education advocacy organization.  There was no question that they wanted to produce professional musical theatre in Buffalo.  Their first project,

If you're not familiar with Slyboots School of Music and Art, you can catch up here. If you are familiar with the school, then you are aware of just how important the resource is to Buffalo. Coming up in September, Slyboots is hosting a music festival called Slyboots, and while the festival is not in the city, there is a great fundraiser in support of the festival that is being hosted at Merge on Friday, August 31 @ 10pm. 
It would be most wise to attend both the

By Amanda McLaughlin:
Fifty:  the very word is one of the most charged in our humble language, and today, in our somewhat saccharine and saturated society, often calls up images of fine scotch and silver fox--the George Clooney kind, I mean--or dreary office birthday parties and ill-fitting pants.  And yet fifty--so provocative in its trochaic simplicity, so powerful in its associations--can take on a remarkably different, generative, and golden--to borrow from that impervious metal--attitude:  one of commemoration, profound celebration, and

THE BASICS: This gutsy little one-act opera by Leonard Bernstein is this year's Lunchtime Theatre offering at the Shaw. It plays in repertory at the Court House Theatre through October 7th. The show runs about 45 minutes; there is no intermission.
THUMBNAIL SKETCH: It's 1952, and Americans have fled to the suburbs to live the Great American Dream. Dinah and Sam are a typical suburban couple. He is climbing up the corporate ladder while she stays home, dresses prettily and tends the nest. They seem to have everything, including a fine young son, but

Frankie Scinta and his family act originally broke out in Buffalo, rose to fame internationally, and these days continue to headline in Las Vegas. But Frankie has been coming back every year for the Buffalo Italian Heritage Festival. Frankie told me that he thinks he may have raised the most funds ever for the festival this year, and wanted to make this the best festival ever. Scinta, the musical director of the festival, thinks that this year we had a better main stage (now called the Frankie Scinta stage at its new location Hertel and Tennyson), a better band lineup, two jumbotrons and better

Buffalo & Erie County Public Library Staff Review by Jack Edson:
Some people look for a "light summer read" for the months of July and August, but others of us look for a thick, serious novel that will intensely occupy us for a couple of weeks and will take us on an emotional roller coaster ride which, even though it is about "other people," will come much too close to our own lives for comfort.  I thoroughly loved Jonathan Franzen's previous novel, The Corrections and when I bought a copy of Freedom at a library used book sale