Fisher (who died earlier this year) is best known as a food-writer, but, whatever the subject, almost all her writing has been reminiscence. In this collection of bite-sized snippets—some food-centered, most not, and many prefaced by graceful little observations that cast the items as examples of some more general small troths—she recalls scenes and motifs, redolent of other times and attitudes and social conditions, from her Whittier, California, childhood and adolescence. Fisher looks back with quivering fondness on the tiny milestones in her "epicurean education," recalling (under the characteristic title "A Sweet and Timeless Shudder") the "voluptuous stickiness" of Turkish delight enjoyed at Saturday matinees. But she also casts in the same warm glow the spankings administered by a loved and loving father; her contacts with a succession of live-in household helpers; the joy in spring of changing from wool to cotton underwear; and, in an unconsciously patronizing piece, her family's odd behavior toward the local "young dried-up librarian." The longest piece recalls with more conscious rue a sort-of friendship with a classmate—a Mexican child and the "bad girl" of first grade—whom Fisher and others treated insensitively;, the last reproduces 1927 diary entries (when Fisher was 18) of interest only to a smitten Fisher-following. In one sketch, Fisher describes the "small sensual spree" an uncle made of the dining-car intervals on his transcontinental train trips. That phrase as aptly describes Fisher's own approach to life, amply detailed here.
Pub Date: Nov. 30, 1992
ISBN: 0-679-41576-9
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1992
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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