A cornucopia of essays sure to lead to conversations with one another that will inform, puzzle, and surprise.
Take one daily and call me every morning. That’s the website header for Essay Daily, the source for this anthology.
Founded by Monson (Creative Writing/Univ. of Arizona; Letter to a Future Lover: Marginalia, Errata, Secrets, Inscriptions, and Other Ephemera Found in Libraries, 2015, etc.) as a sort of rival to a number of popular poetry daily websites, Essay Daily has been publishing an essay per day (almost) since 2010. In his introduction, Monson quotes Edward Hoagland: “Essays are how we speak to one another in print.” Monson and Reinbold, the former Essay Daily managing editor, provide a series of eclectic essays, many of which demonstrate that an essay can be a number of things. Marcia Aldrich, in her discussion of Bernard Cooper’s “The Fine Art of Sighing,” notes its “concise and lyrical prose, its brevity…[and] the constructed undertow of its associative method.” In a terrific and highly informative essay by Robert Atwan, longtime editor of the Best American Essays series, he wonders why the essay suffered “diminished literary status” for much of the 20th century, why it was relegated to a “minor or even subliterary genre.” He points his finger at John Crowe Ransom, noting even E.B. White once called the essayist a “second-class citizen.” No more. This book clearly demonstrates the essay is alive and well, kicking and evolving, grappling with its place in literature. Here one will encounter the “long-lyric essay,” a couple essays about book-long essays, and a piece about a lady who wrote only one piece, an essay. There’s also a piece on Phillip Lopate’s The Art of the Personal Essay and one by Lopate himself on a little-known “gem” by Max Beerbohm, And Even Now. Other contributors include John D’Agata, Albert Goldbarth, Elena Passarello, and V.V. Ganeshananthan.
A cornucopia of essays sure to lead to conversations with one another that will inform, puzzle, and surprise.Pub Date: March 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-56689-457-9
Page Count: 328
Publisher: Coffee House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 25, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2017
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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