FanFare

• Post-'Seinfeld' syndrome

  On May 14, 1998: There were riots in Indonesia. Cannes was under way. The Dow had made up for some losses. Continental slashed airfares. And later that night, Frank Sinatra died at 82.

• Free downloads pay off for musicians

  Forget "pay what you want." The new model for the music industry may be "pay it forward."

• 'Narnia: Prince Caspian' delivers a darker sequel

  It was the crowning battle in "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian," but as the scene played out in a London dubbing theater, it wasn't yet crowning enough. Huddling with half a dozen editors in mid-March, director Andrew Adamson was racing to complete the film's sound mix, looking for any opportunity to make "Prince Caspian's" final battle just a bit more powerful.

• Fast chat: Peter Gallagher

  Peter Gallagher loves the old alley behind the Broadway theater where he's co-starring with Morgan Freeman and Frances McDormand in Clifford Odets' "The Country Girl." Some 30 years ago he was just starting out, appearing on this very stage in his first lead role, Danny Zuko, in "Grease." Several theaters open into the alley, and he recalls meeting legends such as Henry Fonda back there. Or Maureen Stapleton, performing then in "The Gin Game," with whom he'd kick back a few after their shows let out.

• Good show, Charlie Brown!

  Countless city schoolkids have been introduced to musical theater through the quarter-century-old arts education group Inside Broadway. This week, the touring theater troupe makes its first stop on Long Island in nearly a decade, offering two performances of "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" on Tuesday morning at Centereach High School.

• Grim tale takes wing

  THE PLAGUE OF DOVES, by Louise Erdrich. HarperCollins, 314 pp., $25.95.

• BOOKENDS: CHILDREN'S BOOKS

  LITTLE RABBIT'S NEW BABY, by Harry Horse. Peachtree, $15.95. Ages 4-8.

• Crime with no boundaries

  McMAFIA: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld, by Misha Glenny. Knopf, 375 pp., $27.95.

• Cooing for a strange genius

  An enchanting new novel, "The Invention of Everything Else" by Samantha Hunt (Houghton Mifflin, $24), imagines the last weeks of the Serbian engineer and dreamer Nikola Tesla as he feeds his beloved pigeons and befriends an oddball chambermaid at the Hotel New Yorker in Manhattan.

• HOT STUFF

  MOVIES

• SINGLE FILE

  DEAR SUSAN: I've lived with a special lady for two years. We recently separated because she wants to get married and I don't, having been married twice and not wanting to repeat that kind of commitment. Now she's saying she'd be willing to let things stand as they were, if I just move back in with her. What should I do?

• Sonidos Latinos: Bebo Valdés's Incredible Comeback

  Sometimes, the end of a documentary reveals itself to the director long before he is finished. That's how it was for Carlos Carcas, who had been filming 89-year-old Cuban pianist Bebo Valdés as he played a moving rendition of "Old Man River."

• Mother's memoirs

  Motherhood is the subject of these recent memoirs, some of them breezy and lighthearted (moms who passed on their love of shopping - or writing) and others in a more tragic vein (mothers grieving the loss of a child).

• BESTSELLERS

  A list of national bestsellers compiled by Publishers Weekly

• PAGING LI BOOKSELLERS

  We asked Patti Vunk, owner of the Dolphin Bookshop in Port Washington, what titles she's been recommending lately. Here are a few of her favorites:

• THIS WEEK

  Tuesday

• TAKE 5: Mom's the word

  In honor of Mother's Day, here are five little-known facts about some of our favorite TV moms and the women who played them:

• NEW ON DVD

  MOVIES: "Charlton Heston Collection"; "The Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly Collection"; "The Great Debaters"; "Mad Money"