An engaging and deeply personal journey, for both the writer and her subjects, and an adroit disquisition on the nature of...
Life among the Indiana Joneses of record collectors, who will let nothing come between them and a rare Charley Patton.
This new book by Pitchfork contributing writer Petrusich (It Still Moves: Lost Songs, Lost Highways, and the Search for the Next American Music, 2010) proves once again that it takes a rare person to hunt for rarities, especially when the obscure object of desire is a classic 78rpm blues record. The author investigates both the history of blues and its literally fragile legacy. She joined professional blues travelers as they scoured the Earth for vinyl Stradivariuses, whether it was one of the two known copies of Tommy Johnson’s “Alcohol and Jake Blues” or the only copy anywhere of Solomon Hill’s “My Buddy Blind Lemon.” These people don’t just haunt record stores, yard sales, festivals and eBay; they go where no one else thinks to look, pursuing rare leads, taking out ads, spending sacks of money and weeks of time. Sometimes they strike gold—there are great stories of treasures hauled out of Dumpsters or from under beds—but mostly they just lose sleep over the one that got away. Petrusich caught the virus herself, and she examines the bigger picture. Is it all about the love of music, the thrill of the chase or something more disturbing? Are collectors like Freudian dissidents, seeking the kind of solace that can only be found in the original pressing of “Devil Got My Woman” by Skip James? Or is this all about personality disorder? Collecting old 78s “demands an almost inhuman level of concentration,” writes the author, and there is “a violence to the search, a dysfunctional aggression that vacillates between repellant and endearingly quirky. It’s intimidating to outsiders, and it feeds on sacrifice.”
An engaging and deeply personal journey, for both the writer and her subjects, and an adroit disquisition on the nature of this distinctly American form of insatiable lust.Pub Date: July 8, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4516-6705-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2014
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
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