bookshelf

THE PUSHCART PRIZE 2007

Name: THE PUSHCART PRIZE 2007
Author: Bill Henderson
ISBN: 1-888889-43-8

BEST OF THE SMALL PRESS

edited by Bill Henderson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 18, 2006

There’s lots of good writing here, as always. A stalwart, and a staple, of American letters.

bookshelf

Pushcart pushes on, entering its fourth decade of anthologizing the year’s crop of small- and literary- press stories, poems and essays.

As usual, these overstuffed pages, always with a surprise or two, contain a mix of the well known and not—though, this year, the number of workshop celebrities seems lower than normal. There is the familiar blend of the exalted with the humdrum, for even after all these years the ghost of Ray Carver looms over the land, chronicling how tedious we have all become. (“Wait, Sheryl. I call the police and there’s no stopping it, like a roller coaster it’ll just go down, down into tragedy.” “The nice thing about a digital camera was it allowed him to see the results immediately.” “Thank God I’m only as fucked up as I am and not as fucked up as those other people.”) One neorealist development of note is the emergence of Iraq as setting and backdrop, notably in Benjamin Percy’s volume-opening “Refresh, Refresh,” with its Deer Hunter vision of how war affects small towns that will always supply fresh troops, no matter how its people have suffered. But then there are the evocations of shooting dogs, of accordions in malls, of neuralgia galore; and contemporary writers, it would seem, give pizza an altogether too-central place in the great chain of being, perhaps because they are all former grad students. A mixed bag, then, though editor Bill Henderson and his able assistants have turned up some gems, with some transcendental moments: Brian Doyle cataloguing the things in life worth living for (“You either take a flying leap at nonsensical illogical unreasonable ideas like marriage and marathons and democracy and divinity, or you huddle behind the wall”), Wendell Berry gentling chiding the blockhead culture and Maureen Stanton pondering the meaning of laundry and life.

There’s lots of good writing here, as always. A stalwart, and a staple, of American letters.

Pub Date: Dec. 18, 2006

ISBN: 1-888889-43-8

Page Count: 555

Publisher: Pushcart

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2006

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE PUSHCART PRIZE XLIX
edited by Bill Henderson with Pushcart Prize editors

- BOOK REVIEW
THE PUSHCART PRIZE XLVIII
edited by Bill Henderson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE PUSHCART PRIZE XLVII
edited by Bill Henderson

bookshelf

NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

bookshelf

This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

bookshelf

TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

bookshelf

An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.