Holder of a Pulitzer for funny commentary, Barry (Dave Barry Slept Here, 1989) follows the footsteps of Baedeker and Marco Polo and offers a travel book that is more current and just as useful. In a time-honored and noble tradition of comical assessments of the world away from home, Barry presents a light text, augmented with the customary cheesy charts, footnotes, and diagrams. (Maybe it's just coincidence, but the handy street-maps of Cairo, London, Berlin or Munich [one map], Vienna, Paris, and downtown Ireland all appear alarmingly similar.) There's advice on planning a trip (the author differs from his wife about packing a waffle iron), foreign languages, air travel, family travel (the best time to visit Disney World: 1962), and camping. There's a guide to all fifty states, Canada, and Mexico. Then there are also foreign countries, located in Europe. (See ``How to Use a Bidet.'') ``Most of these countries,'' Barry astutely points out, ``eventually realized the marketing advantage of not being so foreign.'' Little-known foreign fact: ``England manufactures most of the world's airline food.'' Filled with shameless fabrication (we happen to know, because we checked the road atlas we got from the insurance company, that Alaska is not in Canada, for example), but Barry's lies, like all good comedy, are emblematic of some kind of truth or other. Besides, ``you can trust us,'' he says. ``We're a guidebook.'' The title is accurate. Get this travel guide and you'll never want another. Funny stuff.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-449-90651-5
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1991
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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