By PJ Grisar January 29, 2026The World of Leonard CohenEdited by David R. ShumwayCambridge University Press, 398pp, $35The Torah has 70 faces — how many did Leonard Cohen have? Entering the mix is The World of Leonard Cohen, a 24-essay collection breaking down the multitudes the man contained. A Flamenco guitarist, who taught Cohen his limited repertoire of chords (what Cohen called his “chop”) gets an early mention. Sylvie Simmons, author of I’m Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen, discovered the discrepancy in a letter Cohen sent to his lover Marianne Ihlen, putting Simmons at odds with other biographers. The final chapter, on the Cohen archive, quotes that letter and gives a fuller picture of what, exactly, went wrong.