In case the title fails to warn you, this is a somewhat unfocused inspirational corporate history by the entrepreneurial cult heroine who founded the wildly remunerative ``environmentally conscious'' cosmetics company called The Body Shop. What the book doesn't tell you: anything about the financial or marketing nuts and bolts of how Roddick turned one little provincial English store into a worldwide chain and manufacturer of ``natural'' remedies worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Still, the story has interest—as the chronicle of a hippie woman from Littlehampton, England, tossed willy-nilly into the last decade's economic boom and making the most of it, and as a manifesto for environmentally pure and socially responsible business practices. In respect to the latter, Roddick advocates a ban on animal testing; increased corporate campaigns for saving the whales, preserving the rain forests, and disarming the world; a soft retail sell; recyclable products; and placing factories in undeveloped regions, such as Easterhouse, Scotland—where, Roddick writes, ``we employed the unemployable,'' who ``fell in like lambs.'' (Unions are necessary only when the managers are ``bastards.'') She attributes The Body Shop's success to ``passion'': ``I have never been able to separate Body Shop values from my own personal values,'' she boasts, and delineates them fully. How did Roddick force all 600-odd Body Shop operators to adopt her green-and-white color scheme while maintaining a corporate ``democracy''? What is the exact financial structure of this profitable ``social experiment''? We don't find out here, but we may be inspired to expand our own little business in homage.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-517-58542-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1991
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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