Of much interest to anyone with a stake in the developing Google settlement, as well as for fans of books about books.
Harvard University Library director Darnton (George Washington’s False Teeth: An Unconventional Guide to the Eighteenth Century, 2003, etc.) offers measured essays on books, libraries and publishing.
In pieces published in the New York Review of Books and elsewhere, Darnton focuses on the status of scholarly publishing and librarianship. Quoting a colleague who says that the latter is, perhaps surprisingly, tightly bound up in the world of money and power, the author notes that, for all the recent woes of the economy, a million new books are published each year around the world—books that have somehow to be put into the hands of readers. In that connection, Darnton, an eminent student of the Enlightenment and a good citizen of what that era called the Republic of Letters, considers the role of Google and its plan to scan the contents of the world’s great libraries into digital form. On the face, he writes, making such a wealth of knowledge available to readers would appear to be a public good, and there are many reasons why a bibliophile and scholar should applaud such an enterprise. Yet, he adds, after evenhanded consideration of those pluses, “The more I learned about Google, the more it appeared to be a monopoly intent on conquering markets rather than a natural ally of libraries, whose sole purpose is to preserve and diffuse knowledge.” The competing demands of public welfare and private profit occupy Darnton in several pieces, while others consider the still foggy realm of electronic publishing and the addition of value to the culture that people who work with books provide. The author also includes a few scholarly pieces on various aspects of the history of publishing (“Little is known about the way books reached bookstores from printing shops”), connected to the earlier pieces only incidentally but pleasing all the same.
Of much interest to anyone with a stake in the developing Google settlement, as well as for fans of books about books.Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-58648-826-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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