After one treacly tribute to the freedom of the press, the author says, “That sounds corny.” It does, and so does most of...
Reading is good for you, especially if you read what the author recommends.
Dirda, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for criticism and a longtime editor of Washington Post Book World, has jettisoned those credentials and roared out onto the road to Dr. Phil-ville in this facile, superficial work. In some ways, it’s an old-fashioned commonplace book, lardy with lists of quotations from literary notables. In others, it’s a self-help book, full of advice about how much TV children should watch (very little), how baking sugar cookies can bring the family together during the holidays and how we should be more assiduous about flossing. Organized loosely around generic topics like education, work and leisure, love and family, the text features too much platitude and not enough attitude. Sometimes even the platitudes are questionable: the author’s reiteration of the tired complaint that publishers today favor memoirs about “bad families” is undercut by the recent publication and fond reception of his own terrific good-family memoir (An Open Book, 2003). And lists—he loves lists: of books every person should read (Robinson Crusoe, Pride and Prejudice), of great novels about education (Lucky Jim, The Centaur) and love (Possession, The Dying Animal), of classical music everyone should listen to (from Wagner to Ella Fitzgerald), of significant works of moral philosophy (from Job to Jung). Like many bibliophagists, Dirda sometimes has an excessively romantic view of the power of the page. “Books,” he writes, “by their very nature and variety, help us grow in empathy for others, in tolerance and awareness.” Of course, only certain books do that—not Mein Kampf, say, and not the suddenly ubiquitous political screeds and not the mounds of literary manure dumped in bookshops by the self-help crowd.
After one treacly tribute to the freedom of the press, the author says, “That sounds corny.” It does, and so does most of this mess.Pub Date: May 5, 2006
ISBN: 0-8050-7877-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2006
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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