Image via DC Moore Gallery

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This week: Mary Frank's haunting sculpture, Shakespeare's dictionary, and a new poem from Christian Wiman.

Fiction: Terms & Conditions by Robert Glancy (Bloomsbury): Glancy’s debut novel tells the humorous story of Frank Shaw, a London-based lawyer struggling to recover his life after a serious car accident has left him with amnesia. As his memory slowly returns, there seems to be something off about the world around him—a secret group has popped up within his firm, his wife’s bestselling business book makes him inexplicably angry, a severed finger in a jar fills him with pride. People try to persuade him that his life was fine before the crash, but the more Frank remembers, the more he realizes this wasn’t the case. Confronted by the truth, Frank has to come to terms with the fact that his life was a mess in this quirky story about self-discovery. —BK

Nonfiction: The Language Hoax: Why the World Looks the Same in Any Language by John H. McWhorter (Oxford): Originally advanced in the 1930s, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis holds that the language we speak directly affects our worldview. This new book from Columbia University linguistics professor John H. McWhorter challenges this view, arguing that language reflects the speaker’s culture, not visa versa. An accessible—if one-sided—overview of an intriguing debate that endures in contemporary linguistics. —BK

Poetry: Shakespeare’s dictionary discovered?: Well, it’s not the lost manuscript of Cardenio, but its quite exciting nonetheless. If these rare-book dealers are correct, they have discovered Shakespeare’s dictionary, which he annotated in his own hand. Adam Gopnik weighs in at The New Yorker, and the booksellers make their case here. —DY

Art: “Rackstraw Downes” at Betty Cuningham Gallery (through May 3): This exhibition, presenting major works by Downes created from 1983 to the present, coincides with the publication of the artist’s Nature and Art are Physical: Writings on Art, 1967–2008. On Thursday, both Downes and John Elderfield, who wrote the book’s introduction, will be at the gallery from 6–8pm for a book signing and reception. Downes is himself a contributor to The New Criterion; his writing for the magazine is available here. —JP

Music: Emerson String Quartet at Lincoln Center (Wednesday): As part of the Lincoln Center Great Performers series, the formidable Emerson String Quartet continues an exploration of the late quartets of Shostakovich, the twentieth century's greatest master of the form. Their program at Alice Tully Hall will pair the thirteenth and fourteenth quartets with the capricious third quartet of Benjamin Britten. —ES

Other: Visions of Mary Frank: screening and discussion at Film Forum (Tuesday): Mary Frank is a sculptor who deserves to be better known. During her long career she studied drawing with Max Beckmann and Hans Hoffmann; her sculpture is largely influenced by her time spent as a dancer, when she took lessons from Martha Graham; her work is owned by the Met, the Smithsonian, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Jewish Museum, the Whitney, and the Yale University Art Gallery, just to name a few; she’s won two Guggenheim fellowships, the Lee Krasner Award, the Joan Mitchell Grant Award, and has been elected to both the American Academy of Arts and letters and the National Academy of Design. This documentary explores the Frank’s impressive career and her often-tumultuous personal life. On Tuesday, the filmmaker John Cohen will have a conversation with Mary Frank at the 8:20 screening. —BK

From the archive: The genius of Wodehouse by Roger Kimball, October 2000: A consideration of the author, occasioned the commencement of the publication of the first uniform series of Wodehouse books.

From our latest issue: More like the stars by Christian Wiman: A spectacular new poem from the award-winning Wiman.

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