The personal and family stories are almost always gripping; the comments about great books, less so.
Deciding to spend a year reading the entire 50-volume set of the Harvard Classics, Harper’s assistant editor Beha discovers things—some touching, some banal—about the best-laid plans of mice and men.
The author interlaces several stories in his debut. The main thread comprises even smaller ones—his reactions to the texts. He also tells about the Classics’ editor, Charles W. Eliot, and the genesis and publication of the volumes, about his family and—most prominently—about his illnesses: Hodgkin’s lymphoma (diagnosed while he was in college), Lyme disease, hives and a torn meniscus. A medical mess much of the time, Beha nonetheless persevered, reading while ill, while visiting relatives and while flying to England with family. (As he read a volume of Elizabethan drama, many of his fellow passengers watched Nicole Kidman in The Invasion.) There are moments of bizarre amusement—such as when the author, with his mother in the waiting room, makes a deposit in a sperm bank—and wrenching loss (the death of a favorite aunt). Beha is most effective when discussing the fragility of life, the certainty and uncertainties of death, and how the various writers he read dealt with it—or didn’t. He is moved by Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey,” struggles through the two volumes by Darwin, ponders the problems of translation (so many of the originals were not in English), finds the grimness in Grimm, lingers overlong with Don Quixote, says very little about some texts, quotes favorite passages from others and finds himself changing as the year advances. He has a number of epiphanies—some rather ordinary: “life was teaching me about these books just as much as the books were teaching me about life.” Finally, he resolves to remain a reader in the nonliterary contemporary American culture he comes close to condemning.
The personal and family stories are almost always gripping; the comments about great books, less so.Pub Date: May 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-8021-1884-4
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2009
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
