A 30-year treasury of columns, essays, reviews, and reports from Pulitzer Prize-winner Kempton, a New York Newsday columnist and New York Review of Books contributor who richly deserves wide notice. In pieces from the above-mentioned publications as well as Harper's, Esquire, and the pre-Murdoch New York Post, among others, Kempton presents an archive of observed history. His inimitable, almost classical, style, grounded in humanism, is elegantly precise, dispatching subjects in a phrase. He calls Elia Kazan's apologies before McCarthy's witch hunt ``an acceptance of humiliation for the sake of survival in a confiscatory tax bracket.'' On lost 1960s radical Jane Alpert: ``She did not so much rise to the challenge of her time as yield to infection by its vagrant air.'' On El Salvadoran President Alfredo Cristiani's views: ``about as far from the center as a statesman can get without reinvoking the Fugitive Slave Act.'' Kempton knows history, and tragedy, and literature, finding Joseph Conrad his best guide to Central America and Anton Chekhov his cicerone to the Soviets. He brings us Paul Robeson, Martin Luther King Jr., and Huey Newton; Machiavelli, the Mafia, and Michael Milken; Roy Cohn, Ronald Reagan, and Richard Nixon. His columns from New York present Gotham's indignities and ironies: public indifference to gay- bashing; the demise of a junkie ``incautious with gossip''; an auction of Marilyn Monroe's memorabilia. For anyone interested in journalism, politics, and history, or in the observations of a clear and skeptical eye, nearly every piece has its delights.
Pub Date: April 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-8129-2294-8
Page Count: 736
Publisher: Times/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1994
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
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
