(Applause Books). This provocative collection and major publishing event brings together the critical highlights of the well-known New York cultural critic John Simon. Covering a span of more than three decades, it includes previously published work from New York, the Hudson Review, National Review, Opera News, the New Leader, and other notable publications. The theatre volume contains selected reviews that are as eloquent as they are famously provocative-reviews that can enrage but always entertain. Simon covers a wide range of New York productions, from the East Village to Broadway, examining all with the same rigor and high expectations. A SAMPLE: Simon on Vanessa Redgrave in Long Day's Journey into Night: "The highly accomplished Redgrave gets some details right, but the overarching mental unstableness she exudes is so excessive as to make one wonder whether she is playing or being unhinged."