101 TWO-LETTER WORDS

Name: 101 TWO-LETTER WORDS
Author: Stephin Merritt
ISBN: 978-0-393-24019-1

by Stephin Merritt ; illustrated by Roz Chast ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 6, 2014

Any reader’s vocabulary is likely to grow after reading Merritt’s quirky wordplay, but edification is not the point; fun is,...

bookshelf

From “aa” to “zz,” a compendium of curious words.

Scrabble enthusiast Merritt, songwriter and singer in the Magnetic Fields, had trouble remembering all the two-letter words so useful for the game. Making up rhymes helped, and before long, he had written poems for the 101 two-letter words allowed in the Scrabble dictionary. Illustrated by longtime New Yorker cartoonist Chast (Can’t We Talk about Something More Pleasant?: A Memoir, 2014, etc.), Merritt’s literary debut is sly, silly and playfully absurd. Even a common word like “is” inspires Merritt to flights of poetic fancy: “ ‘Is You Is or Is You Ain’t / My Baby’; sold a million, / and not by being played at any / debutante’s cotillion.” For the esoteric word “os,” Chast’s rendering of an animated landscape accompanies this ditty: “Os: a spine of gravel dropped / by long-gone giggly glaciers / playing in their sandbox, leaving / scribbles and erasures.” Merritt’s Scrabble dictionary apparently includes cockney (“Oi,” meaning “hey there”), Scottish (“Ae” means one, “Bo” means friend), Egyptian (“ba” represents the soul), archaic spelling variations (“wo” for woe) and slang abbreviations (“bi” for bisexual). Merritt sometimes reaches for the unexpected meaning of a word: The common verb “go” becomes, instead, a noun: “Go: a subtle game of skill, / with stones of black and white. / One game can go on until / the middle of the night.” Chast aptly captures the mood of the rhymes with her characteristic unkempt, harried and often bewildered characters, both human and animal. For “Id: the source of primal drives,” her bug-eyed green monster is appropriately lustful; her rendering of Santa Claus (“ ‘Ho, ho, ho’ says old Saint Nick”) makes him look a bit debauched.

Any reader’s vocabulary is likely to grow after reading Merritt’s quirky wordplay, but edification is not the point; fun is, and Merritt and Chast deliver just that.

Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2014

ISBN: 978-0-393-24019-1

Page Count: 216

Publisher: Norton

Review Posted Online: June 10, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

bookshelf

NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

bookshelf

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

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

bookshelf

TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

bookshelf

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.