IF YOU CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT ME, WHY AREN'T YOU DEAD YET?

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IF YOU CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT ME, WHY AREN'T YOU DEAD YET?

Name: IF YOU CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT ME, WHY AREN'T YOU DEAD YET?
Author: Cynthia Heimel
ISBN: 0-87113-444-6

by Cynthia Heimel ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 4, 1991

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Village Voice ``Problem Lady'' Heimel (Sex Tips for Girls, 1983) splices together short, fast takes on love, lovelessness, and life in big, bad New York City. In the most interesting of the 45 pieces reprinted here from the Voice, Playboy, and Vogue, Heimel lets it slip that N.Y.C. is beginning to scare her. And it's not merely that bridge-and- tunnel people are ruining the atmosphere at Nell's or that importers from Long Island and Nebraska are dressing in black, the cherished outlaw-artist color of the city. Now that ``nobody but college kids goes to nightclubs,'' Heimel is letting herself feel real fear: ``Every day I'm afraid I'm going to die hideously and be mentioned in the New York Post,'' she writes in a piece that mirrors the kind of surreal and apocalyptic small talk that New Yorkers dish out to each other on particularly bad days. ``I'm convulsed with fear and grief over the children who have been shot accidentally in drug-related gunplay.'' Heimel is also afraid of ``the New Coldness,'' the passionless careerism of the twentysomething generation. She is sick of co-dependency and sick of men who ask women out on dates only to go home with someone else. Despite her near-obsessive fear of not finding a decent man in this hellishly strange city, Heimel is still the cleareyed, let's-be-real ``Problem Lady,'' still tolerant of her impractical and idealistic friends. In short, she's now able to marry her head and her heart, showing us that she's a little sadder and wiser but still-crazy-after-all-these-years. A little wan, a little thin and repetitive in places, but still good downtown-Manhattan wit.

Pub Date: May 4, 1991

ISBN: 0-87113-444-6

Page Count: 240

Publisher: Atlantic Monthly

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1991

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
ADVANCED SEX TIPS FOR GIRLS
by Cynthia Heimel

- BOOK REVIEW
IF YOU LEAVE ME, CAN I COME TOO?
by Cynthia Heimel

- BOOK REVIEW
GET YOUR TONGUE OUT OF MY MOUTH, I'M KISSING YOU GOOD-BYE!
by Cynthia Heimel

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NUTCRACKER

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

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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

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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

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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.