"Robert De Niro: Anatomy of an Actor" publication date nears...

In a week and a day, my book for Cahiers du Cinema/Phaidon, Robert De Niro: Anatomy Of An Actor, sees pub­lic­a­tion. It is only right and fit­ting, I am told, to use this blog, which is my own, as a vehicle for its pro­mo­tion. And so. 

Two events cel­eb­rat­ing the book are hap­pen­ing next week. The first is its offi­cial launch party, on Monday, July 28, at my favor­ite loc­al book­store Book Court, on 163 Court Street in Brooklyn. I thought it would make the event more fest­ive if I had along my buddy Dan Callahan, who recently penned a first-rate crit­ic­al bio­graphy of Vanessa Redgrave, a book rightly praised by no less a per­son­age as David Thomson. Dan and I will read from our respect­ive works and kick around a little talk about the icon­o­graphy of screen act­ing and stuff. It should be fun. The link to the event is here. 

Then, on Thursday the 31^st of July, I’ll be doing an event at the Williamsburg ven­ue Videology. This one is me solo, with a mod­er­at­or per­haps, and since it’s at Videology, I’ll be talk­ing about the book and its sub­ject with the accom­pani­ment of per­tin­ent clips from some of the films I dis­cuss in the book. That, too, should be fun. The link is here. 

My pub­lish­er and I are eager to book more events, so if you’re inter­ested, give me a holler via e‑mail (glennkenny@mac.com is my pre­ferred address nowadays). 

The first review of the book is up, over at Slant/The House Next Door, and I have to say I’m pleased with it. If eery notice I get is this thought­ful, I’ll be delighted. I’ll be post­ing links to oth­er reviews as they appear. But as I am a firm believ­er in Fussell’s Law (which I’ve elab­or­ated on before, more than once), I won’t com­ment on the neg­at­ive ones, merely note their exist­ence. It’s a slip­pery slope in the world of the INTERNET, right people?

Such is the book news of the moment. More to come, and thanks for indul­ging me. You can just make the whole thing a lot easi­er by buy­ing a copy your­self, either online or at your loc­al and prefer­ably inde­pend­ent book venue.