The author has cut a smart niche for herself in garden writing: unceremonious, except when ceremony is in order.
Browning (Around the House and in the Garden, 2002) may be the editor-in-chief of House & Garden, but her half-acre patch north of New York City is anything but precious.
And she’s too gruff and cultured to think of it as a dark secret. Surrounding her home is a typical suburban garden, Browning writes: “squeezed, stuffed, parched . . . full of the hobbling steps we take—and the big mistakes we make—when learning to do something.” Browning might occasionally dream of reproducing “something I clipped from a story about an English garden: a double row of lavender flanking a long, thick bed of crimson peonies,” but there is the question of space and light and temperament. So be it if pachysandra is her answer: “I find plant snobberies to be misguided and useless.” This is neither denial nor hot air, for Browning is just as happy to talk about the condition of her driveway as her flowerbeds. She’s not shy about confessing the hatred she harbors for the neighbors’ Norway maple either. (“I should have known that asking them to cut down the tree was not the right way to begin the conversation.”) Her gardening approach may be haphazard, but it is also full of possibilities for romance; a stirring, complex connection is the garden’s gift to her and the gentleman in her life. The garden is a vexatious sanctuary full of unforced parables and revealing of Browning’s “defiant slavishness” for Helpful Men, the guys who do the heavy lifting at ground level, leaving her to explore the metaphors. Still, she’s willing to delve into more mundane subjects, such as the value of lightweight lawn furniture, before floating upward to invoke “the chance to breathe in the fragrance of lilies glowing in moonlight and wrap your arms around someone you love.”
The author has cut a smart niche for herself in garden writing: unceremonious, except when ceremony is in order.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-7432-4665-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
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
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.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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