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 He has owned a score of computers, each outdated instantly and each tax- deductible.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
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s...
Music journalist and musician Wald (Talking 'Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap, 2014, etc.) focuses on one evening in music history to explain the evolution of contemporary music, especially folk, blues, and rock.
The date of that evening is July 25, 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival, where there was an unbelievably unexpected occurrence: singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, already a living legend in his early 20s, overriding the acoustic music that made him famous in favor of electronically based music, causing reactions ranging from adoration to intense resentment among other musicians, DJs, and record buyers. Dylan has told his own stories (those stories vary because that’s Dylan’s character), and plenty of other music journalists have explored the Dylan phenomenon. What sets Wald's book apart is his laser focus on that one date. The detailed recounting of what did and did not occur on stage and in the audience that night contains contradictory evidence sorted skillfully by the author. He offers a wealth of context; in fact, his account of Dylan's stage appearance does not arrive until 250 pages in. The author cites dozens of sources, well-known and otherwise, but the key storylines, other than Dylan, involve acoustic folk music guru Pete Seeger and the rich history of the Newport festival, a history that had created expectations smashed by Dylan. Furthermore, the appearances on the pages by other musicians—e.g., Joan Baez, the Weaver, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Dave Van Ronk, and Gordon Lightfoot—give the book enough of an expansive feel. Wald's personal knowledge seems encyclopedic, and his endnotes show how he ranged far beyond personal knowledge to produce the book.
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s personal feelings about Dylan's music or persona.Pub Date: July 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236668-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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