bookshelf

A UNIT OF WATER, A UNIT OF TIME

Name: A UNIT OF WATER, A UNIT OF TIME
Author: Douglas Whynott
ISBN: 0-385-48812-2

JOEL WHITE'S LAST BOAT

by Douglas Whynott ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1999

bookshelf

An affectionate, informative, yet lighter-than-air look at the life and work of Joel White, the boat designer and builder who also happened to be E.B.’s son, from Whynott (Giant Bluefin, 1995). Joel White made wooden boats for over 40 years from his Brooklin Boat Yard in Maine, a place that has since become synonymous with the wooden boat revival. Though White felt that his design work was derivative, particularly of the Herreshoff’s, he was being a mite humble: the lineages of boats are always a matter of influence, as Whynott amplifies with a fistful of examples, and White left his mark with lines that are “instinctively pleasing, comfortable to rest the eye upon,” on boats that are traditional above the waterline and modern below. White had designed all manner of boat’skiffs and rowing shells, catboats and the lovely racing yacht of the title—and he fussed and tweaked each one until it was graceful, elegant in sheer line, a boat for light air or for stiff breezes. Whynott spent a lot of time with White in the months preceding the boat maker’s death, and he gathered much good material on life growing up with E.B. and Katharine White (Whynott tries not to make it sound like an idyll, but it comes across as pretty sweet, and it must have been fun to be the test pilot for Stuart Little), as well as an honest taste of a day’s measured rhythms in the boatyard. Whynott lovingly details the work being done, and the characters doing the work, on new boats and boats brought in for repair to the boatyard, now run by White’s son Steve (“it ain’t easy being the son of Saint Joe,” says a friend about flak Steve got for changing a few things). White emerges from Whynott’s delightful pages as an old soul as free-spirited and inspired as any character in his father’s books.

Pub Date: April 1, 1999

ISBN: 0-385-48812-2

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1999

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE SUGAR SEASON
by Douglas Whynott

- BOOK REVIEW
A COUNTRY PRACTICE
by Douglas Whynott

- BOOK REVIEW
GIANT BLUEFIN
by Douglas Whynott

bookshelf

NUTCRACKER

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

bookshelf

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

bookshelf

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

bookshelf

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.