Here's Erma, to human beings what Jane Goodall is to chimpanzeesan ardent student and a whole lot funnier. In fact, as Bombeck (A Marriage Made in Heaven . . . Or Too Tired for an Affair, 1993, etc.) puts it, ``The breakthrough hit me like a bolt. Jane and I were studying the same species.'' A pungent fact heading each chapter on the curious way in which animals eat, mate, play, travel, or cope with boredom launches Bombeck on her favorite subject, the even more curious behavior of men, women, and children. African elephants may be able to breed until they're 90 years old, but baby boomers are pushing to catch up, with a 59-year-old woman giving birth to twins. Not a good idea to go much further, Bombeck muses: ``It's too risky for a woman to put a baby down and not remember where she left it.'' Lost dolphins lead her to men who can't ask for directions, injured deer to alternative medicine, the speed of cheetahs to the IRS, Gus the bored bear to the bizarre guests on talk shows, a bird who walks on water to the men's movement, and dinosaurs to Milwaukee's Mall of America. Some of the connections are a stretch, like ``putting a pair of size A panty-hose . . . over [a] size C torso''; and some of the acerbic anecdotes will be repetitious to Bombeck fans. However, even refurbished material gleams in the light of her good-humored affection for her fellow humans and her gift for summing up their foibles in pithy one- liners. Not the best of Bombeck, but as always, a welcome poke at the misguided dieters, shoppers, spouses, TV hosts, and others in the animal kingdom who prize propriety over a belly laugh. ($400,000 ad/promo; Literary Guild selection; first serial to Good Housekeeping)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-06-017788-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1995
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
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
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