And a book I just finished reading: The Feast by Anthony Sher

I think Monsieur Sher is a better actor than writer, but I was pretty compelled by this book all the same. It's about a theatre director, Felix, in a troubled African nation. Felix is an alcoholic, and, the day he decides to go to a drying-out clinic in the US, the dictator, Duma, is deposed. He arrives back dry, and not a little confused. Has everything in his country changed or is it all still frighteningly the same? Re-integrating himself back into his old life isn't so easy. He decides to put on a big show at his theatre, starring...Duma.

I liked the theatrical detail. And some of the writing in the earlier part of the book particularly is poetic as well as dramatic.

Nice quote: "he tried to figure out what the opposite of an artist was, and, unable to decide, started to dance."

Makes me think about other books about being an artist (Pictures of Fidelman, Ulysses. Felix's response to the impossibility of expressing his thoughts in one medium is a creative, artistic one (dance). And, importantly, a non-verbal medium.