Mostly Modern Notes

The Globe has an interactive guide to Boston's Museum of Fine Arts'"New Wing of the MFA." It features the museum's massive collections of Art of the Americas, North and South, from the Pre-Columbian period through the 20th Century. The $500 million wing opens to the public on 20 November. See also: Holland Cotter,"Seating All the Americas at the Same Table," NYT, 18 November.

Katherine Knorr,"Starchitect of the Second Empire," NYT, 17 November, reviews"Charles Garnier: un architecte pour un empire," an exhibit at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

Neil Gussman with Sarah Reisert,"The Model Scientist," Books & Culture, Nov/Dec, reviews Patrick Coffey's Cathedrals of Science: The Personalities and Rivalries That Made Modern Chemistry.

Janet Maslin,"Final Scenes From a Life of Bully Adventure," NYT, 17 November, reviews Edmund Morris's Colonel Roosevelt.

Adam Kirsch,"Divided Soul," Tablet, 16 November, reviews Gabriella Safran's Wandering Soul: The Dybbuk's Creator, S. An-sky, the biography of last century's Russian playwright.

David Gilmour,"Lampedusa in London," TLS, 17 November, reviews Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's Letters from London and Europe, 1925-1930, Gioacchino Lanza Tomasi, ed., J. G. Nichols, trans., and a foreword by Francesco da Mosto.

Laura Marsh,"Tongues Twisted," The Book, 17 November, reviews Nicholas Ostler's The Last Lingua Franca: English Until the Return of Babel.

Finally, congratulations to Patti Smith, whose Just Kids is the National Book Award winner for Nonfiction, 2010.