User-friendly Barry, tour guide to the world and elsewhere (Dave Barry Does Japan, 1992, etc.), takes a crack at cyberspace and comes up with a loony naturalist's guide to computer geekdom. To that add a survey of picturesque roadkill on the information superhighway, and you get the idea. As it happens, Hard Drive Dave knows whereof he downloads. He travels to Las Vegas for Comdex, the great annual gathering of computer nerds and zillionaires. He mentions Bill Gates often and throws several rocks toward Windows95. (Our author has learned to do that little ``'' thing with his word processor.) He has owned a score of computers, each outdated instantly and each tax- deductible. Barry's take is, as expected, pointed and funny. He provides essential history (UNIVAC, he tells us, ``weighed 40 tons; there was also a laptop version weighing 27 tons''), an analysis of just how the infernal devices work (they won't, judging from his presentation), instruction on installation (you can't do it) and word processing (you can do too much of it). There is a catalog of really stupid Web sites and Barry's presentation of emoticons, those cute little faces true computerniks devise to replace words, and they are equal to any currently available on the network. With all that, and disk space still available, Barry completes his manual with a full-blown computer romance worthy of a bridge in Madison County. A natural topic for a prize-winning humorist. And it can be read with zero RAM, too. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-517-59575-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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