Cormac Mccarthy

The Road By Cormac McCarthy Knopf, 241 pp., $24 As our brimstone preacher of the world's natural beauty and the iniquities of man, Cormac McCarthy hasn't so much tempered his Old Testament voice over the years as he has redirected it. There are the telltale signatures: the quoteless dialogue, the weird vocabulary ("isocline," "torsional"), the narrative of outrage occasionally outdone by some small piece of redemptive glory. "It's a mystery," a crazy old prophet tells the boy in his magisterial 1985 novel, "Blood Meridian.

Chris Smither has had the well-sanded, world-weary voice of an old blues man since the New Orleans transplant first landed on Boston's folk scene in the 1960s. This summer he comes out with his 12th studio record, "Hundred Dollar Valentine," which locals can get a preview of at his May 19 show at Arlington's Regent Theatre. BOOKS: What are you reading currently? SMITHER: I just read Donna Leon's last one, "Drawing Conclusions," another one of her mysteries set in Venice.

No Country for Old Men By Cormac McCarthy Knopf, 309 pp., $24.95 Cormac McCarthy's dark and careful novel is sprawled across the southwestern borderlands of Texas, territory nobody much travels and where there's not a lot to write home about anyway. The towns there are Uvalde and Sanderson and even a little place called Blewett, which ought to have made it into this story for sheer irony, but didn't. It's the part of Texas that lies west of San Antonio and east of Big Bend, where summer days can crest a hundred degrees and where the local boys wear boots in spite of all that heat.

Who are Viggo Mortensen's heroes? Ask him, and he doesn't hold back. That's what we learned when, after a recent interview, we sent the actor some follow-up questions via e-mail. Here are his responses. 1) Who were your heroes growing up as a child, and who are they today? Okay, you asked for it... As a child — say, before age eleven — I suppose they were my father, my mother, various horses and dogs, soccer players for San Lorenzo de Almagro (a club founded in Boedo, Argentina, in 1908 by Salesian priest Lorenzo Massa)

Chris Smither has had the well-sanded, world-weary voice of an old blues man since the New Orleans transplant first landed on Boston's folk scene in the 1960s. This summer he comes out with his 12th studio record, "Hundred Dollar Valentine," which locals can get a preview of at his May 19 show at Arlington's Regent Theatre. BOOKS: What are you reading currently? SMITHER: I just read Donna Leon's last one, "Drawing Conclusions," another one of her mysteries set in Venice.

The world is quite ruthless in selecting between the dream and the reality, even where we will not. Cormac McCarthy

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN . . (Comcast Movies: All Movies) A stunningly assured piece of moviemaking from the Coen brothers – perhaps their finest work to date. Based on a Cormac McCarthy novel, it involves a bag of drug money, the small-time hunter (Josh Brolin) who finds it, the hired killer on his trail (Javier Bardem, unforgettable), and the sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones) following them both. At its frequent best, it’s a mystical, nearly biblical eulogy for a vanished American West.

FRIEND OF MINE: The Bill Morrissey Tribute Concert With Patty Larkin, David Johansen, Shawn Colvin, Fred Koller, Cormac McCarthy, and others At: Somerville Theatre, Thursday SOMERVILLE - "There's a lot of love in the room," declared National Public Radio host David Dye at Thursday's Bill Morrissey tribute concert. Also plenty of melancholy, blues-inflected tunes about barrooms, railway stations, empty highways, and mortality. Morrissey's death last summer was a loss for the New England folk community.

This sterling project started with two New Hampshire high school friends finding each other 20 years later on Facebook. Producers Louis Gendron and Mike Cusanelli, who come from Claremont, N.H., learned they both have autistic children and they wanted to do something to help the cause. Hence, this magical benefit CD. Cusanelli is a VP at Seattle’s WorldSound Records and he rounded up some label acts such as the Brooklyn-based Analoque Transit (their shimmering “Breathe’’ is a plea for strength)

MUSIC Haverhill : Singer-songwriter-soloists David Buskin and Robin Batteau mix talent, humor, and showmanship with the element of surprise in their crowd-pleasing performances. Saturday at 8 p.m. New Moon Coffeehouse, 16 Ashland St. $20, $10 for age 18 and under. www.newmooncoffeehouse.org Salisbury: The English Beat performs tonight at 7 at the Blue Ocean Music Hall, 4 Ocean Front North. $25. 978-462-5888, http://tickets.blueoceanhall.com/eventperformances.asp?

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN ★★★★ (Comcast Movie Collections: Oscar Films [Past Winners]) A stunningly assured piece of moviemaking from the Coen brothers. Based on a Cormac McCarthy novel, it involves a bag of drug money, the small-time hunter (Josh Brolin) who finds it, the hired killer on his trail (Javier Bardem, unforgettable), and the sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones) following them both. At its frequent best, it's a mystical, nearly biblical eulogy for a vanished American West.

FRIEND OF MINE: The Bill Morrissey Tribute Concert With Patty Larkin, David Johansen, Shawn Colvin, Fred Koller, Cormac McCarthy, and others At: Somerville Theatre, Thursday SOMERVILLE - "There's a lot of love in the room," declared National Public Radio host David Dye at Thursday's Bill Morrissey tribute concert. Also plenty of melancholy, blues-inflected tunes about barrooms, railway stations, empty highways, and mortality. Morrissey's death last summer was a loss for the New England folk community.

PICK OF THE DAY Water, water everywhere Enormous leatherback turtles, fish swimming inside abandoned soda cans, the slaughter of harp seals, and vibrantly colored pencil-spined urchin cannot even scratch the surface (or below it) of the 10,000 underwater hours spent by Brian Skerry . The New England Aquarium explorer-in-residence, National Geographic photographer, and Uxbridge resident will discuss and sign copies of his new book, ‘‘Ocean Soul. " Nov. 17 at 5 p.m. (book signing)

MUSIC Haverhill : Singer-songwriter-soloists David Buskin and Robin Batteau mix talent, humor, and showmanship with the element of surprise in their crowd-pleasing performances. Saturday at 8 p.m. New Moon Coffeehouse, 16 Ashland St. $20, $10 for age 18 and under. www.newmooncoffeehouse.org Salisbury: The English Beat performs tonight at 7 at the Blue Ocean Music Hall, 4 Ocean Front North. $25. 978-462-5888, http://tickets.blueoceanhall.com/eventperformances.asp?

Mention Bill Morrissey's name to his admirers, and they immediately recite a list of their favorite songs the late singer-songwriter wrote. That's exactly what we did with some of the artists who will perform at "Friend of Mine: The Bill Morrissey Tribute Concert" next week at Somerville Theatre. PATTY LARKIN: "I was listening yesterday to ‘These Cold Fingers,' and you gotta be kidding me, that someone could write that. It's not a happy song, but it's so intensely poignant and real.

The world is quite ruthless in selecting between the dream and the reality, even where we will not. Cormac McCarthy

NEW YORK -- Nothing is predictable about Oprah Winfrey's book picks -- except for their sales. Once associated with inspirational narratives such as Jacquelyn Mitchard's "The Deep End of the Ocean," Winfrey has been increasingly willing to take on the most challenging books and the most challenging writers. Over the past few years, she has recommended novels by Faulkner, Tolstoy, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, even as she advocates diet and self-help books, such as Rhonda Byrne's million-selling "The Secret," when not choosing works for her club.