Sinclair's eccentric style works best when taken in small doses—and with the supplement of a map. (8 pages color...
Walking tour of the neighborhoods and communities that border London's M25 highway: amusing and evocative, but bewildering to those not familiar with the territory.
Also known as the London Orbital, this approximately 120-mile beltway encircles the greater metropolitan area. Hackney resident Sinclair (Downriver, 1993, etc.) sets out on a series of one-day hikes to explore the M25’s perimeters and “celebrate the sprawl of London.” In the company of various friends, he pokes into the histories of villages and developments, factories and estates, writers, artists, and murderers. But don't expect a neatly laid-out chronicle; he skips back and forth in both present and past time so arbitrarily that the head spins. The “walk proper” begins at Waltham Abbey near the grave of King Harold (a pre–Norman Conquest ruler) and continues shadowing the motorway in circular segments back to the abbey. Along the way, Sinclair encounters and eloquently digresses upon author J.G. Ballard, the films produced at Shepperton Studios, and the rather startling number of insane asylums that ringed London. Many of these have been replaced by suburban housing developments, but Sinclair recaptures the earlier atmosphere: “. . . much was cruel, much fantastic.” Winston Churchill and Revolutionary War General James Wolfe are memorialized via facing sculptures in Kent; 19th-century artist Samuel Palmer and rock star Mick Jagger are commemorated along the Darent River as it parallels the M25. “Cool woodland passage” is besieged by the noise of traffic but also beset by robbery and murder. In Surrey, the fictionalized but clearly identifiable site of the extraterrestrial invasion in War of the Worlds, “the Martians of the New Millennium have landed” at the Bluewater shopping mall.
Sinclair's eccentric style works best when taken in small doses—and with the supplement of a map. (8 pages color illustrations, not seen)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2002
ISBN: 1-86207-547-6
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Granta
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2002
PROFILES
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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