Another subtitle might have been Healthful Snacks, for these bite-size pieces are both enjoyable to ingest and good for you.
A master of the essay form returns with a collection of brief pieces spanning nearly 20 years, 1996 to 2015.
Most of the offerings are indeed quite short, a few pages at most. Former American Scholar editor Epstein (A Literary Education and Other Essays, 2014, etc.) sticks to straight chronology with only a few deviations for, one infers, circumstance’s sake. A few themes emerge. One is language: there are locutions he hates (“multitask,” “focus,” “branding”), and he believes in the significance of the sentence for writers. Another is technology: Epstein is the proud owner of a flip phone, which he rarely uses, and in several essays, he snarls about the ubiquity and abuse of the smartphone. Books (of course): he writes about his smallish library (for a bibliophile) and admits he’s pruned his collection a couple of times. He also writes about books he loves (In Search of Lost Time) and admits to some famous ones he hasn’t read (The Brothers Karamazov and the Bible, though he began reading it all in 2012). Politics: his conservative views emerge most often in context, but he does have one amusing essay imagining that two children of Alexander Portnoy are Eliot Spitzer and Anthony Weiner. Writers he likes: Henry James and Proust pop up frequently, as does—a bit of a surprise—John O’Hara. Epstein tells us about his routines as a writer, his pride in being an author, and his anxiety about who should receive one of his author’s copies (he has two essays about this). Annoyances: he cancelled his New York Times subscription after 50 years, and he hates the custom of restaurant servers declaring their names. Personal improvement: he announces that he’s trying to quit swearing and to drop the word “yeah” from his conversation. He rarely mentions his family.
Another subtitle might have been Healthful Snacks, for these bite-size pieces are both enjoyable to ingest and good for you.Pub Date: April 7, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-60419-100-4
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Axios Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
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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