No strolls in Provence or Walter Mitty reveries; these intense pieces are for the aspiring Lawrence of Arabia. All are...
The latest entry in the successful Best American series offers a tough-minded collection of 26 extreme voyages testing endurance and granting revelation.
Noting that the world has now been “visited and revisited,” editor Theroux chooses works that reflect the writers’ “independence and self sufficiency to make discoveries . . . [and] look for places that have changed, or places to visit in a new way.” The articles, he notes, also encompass current elements of travel-writing (a term that makes him uneasy), including the drift into autobiography, the experience of travel as adversity, and greater “penetration” of writers at their sites. So Gretel Ehrlich travels to Greenland to accompany the Inuit on a spring trip to hunt seal and walrus; Philip Caputo rides and walks Kenya seeking Tsavo lions; Bob Shacochis moves amidst Texas and the Turks and Caicos Islands to recall the life of a once-fearless adventurer and his spirited, now-deceased wife. These and other selections by Russell Banks, Scott Anderson et al. blend captivating stories with questions about the call away from the world; in essence, they ask what gives some people, as Shacochis says in “Something Wild in the Blood,” “the fortitude and faith to step away from convention and orthodoxy and invent [their] own life.” Another kind of response comes with Susan Minot’s piece on Ugandan child-kidnapping: a call for political action. On the whole, the essays are captivating; only occasionally is the spell broken long enough for readers to wonder why they’re climbing that mountain, and why they’re so far from home.
No strolls in Provence or Walter Mitty reveries; these intense pieces are for the aspiring Lawrence of Arabia. All are tinged with the madness of seeking danger; the best also reveal an unquenchable longing and a fervent humanity.Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2001
ISBN: 0-618-11877-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2001
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
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