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LAKE COUNTRY

Name: LAKE COUNTRY
Author: Kathleen Stocking
ISBN: 0-472-09516-1

by Kathleen Stocking ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1994

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In this sequel to Letters From Leelanau (not reviewed), Stocking sets out from her farmhouse on Michigan's Leelanau Peninsula to explore her home state—``as good a microcosm'' as any, she asserts, for an examination of contemporary American culture. Her series of deliberately haphazard journeys produces a thoughtful collection of essays and sketches about the lasting diversity of the daily round in the small towns and back roads of the country's rugged northern edge. Drawn particularly to the islands of the Great Lakes, Stocking is in search of an ``island of `unchange' in a sea of change'' where life is simpler and people know and trust their neighbors. She finds it on Bois Blanc, an insular community that admits the best modernity has to offer- -computers in its one-room schoolhouse, an ``astonishingly sophisticated'' bookstore—and staves off the worst. On Drummond Island she follows the public battle between a crusading journalist and Tom Monaghan, the Domino's Pizza magnate, over a rustic community's future. On Sugar Island she hopes to show her daughter Gaia, whose father is an Ottawa Indian, ``people who look like her just living their lives.'' For Stocking, island life is a welcome anachronism, and she records its rhythms lovingly: the daily arrivals and departures at ferry landings; the seasonal wax and wane of the population; and the distinctions that separate natives from outsiders and the islands themselves from the mainland. A constant is the author's own introspection, an earnest self-examination that only seldom wears thin as she interweaves personal history with more far-reaching questions about society, fate, democracy, morality, and the nature of God and the universe. Stocking's sharp descriptions of the natural world help ground these abstractions, and her enthusiasm for travel and for the lives of strangers enlivens a richly detailed narrative. (Illustrations by Mary Harney, not seen)

Pub Date: May 1, 1994

ISBN: 0-472-09516-1

Page Count: 300

Publisher: Univ. of Michigan

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1994

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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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.