Pulitzer Prize–winning Washington Post book critic Dirda (Classics for Pleasure, 2007, etc.) provides a personal voyage around the creator of Sherlock Holmes and a prodigious variety of lesser-known heroes, worlds and volumes.
Most readers know that Arthur Conan Doyle, who never signed his books “Sir Arthur,” thought so little of his most celebrated hero that he tried to kill him off. But most studies of Doyle place Holmes at the center of Doyle’s universe. It’s fair to say that Dirda’s does as well, but the author tries hard to supplement his emphasis on Holmes with due attention to the adventures of Doyle’s own favorite character, Professor Challenger, his horror and fantasy tales, his broadsides and his letters. Rooting his discussion in his memories of his own introduction to Doyle’s writings, Dirda recalls his investiture in the Baker Street Irregulars and reprints an abridged version of his essay “A Case for Langdale Pike,” his own addition to the delightful faux scholarship of Sherlockiana. Dirda is at his best in his sensitive appreciation of Doyle’s style, direct, fluent, and surprisingly flexible as he moves from genre to genre, and in his account of manly civic inspiration as the value Doyle aimed above all to inculcate in his writing (a value in which he found the Holmes stories lamentably deficient). But many of Dirda’s own adventures among Doyle’s works, beguiling as they are, could well have been condensed to make room for a more detailed review of the three kinds of writing Doyle considered his most significant: his historical romances, his multivolume history of the Boer War and especially his writings on spiritualism, which Dirda short-changes because he feels so uncomfortable with them. Despite a few shortcomings, an endearing, well-balanced introduction to a writer the Strand Magazine called “the greatest natural storyteller of his age.”
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-691-15135-9
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Princeton Univ.
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s...
Music journalist and musician Wald (Talking 'Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap, 2014, etc.) focuses on one evening in music history to explain the evolution of contemporary music, especially folk, blues, and rock.
The date of that evening is July 25, 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival, where there was an unbelievably unexpected occurrence: singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, already a living legend in his early 20s, overriding the acoustic music that made him famous in favor of electronically based music, causing reactions ranging from adoration to intense resentment among other musicians, DJs, and record buyers. Dylan has told his own stories (those stories vary because that’s Dylan’s character), and plenty of other music journalists have explored the Dylan phenomenon. What sets Wald's book apart is his laser focus on that one date. The detailed recounting of what did and did not occur on stage and in the audience that night contains contradictory evidence sorted skillfully by the author. He offers a wealth of context; in fact, his account of Dylan's stage appearance does not arrive until 250 pages in. The author cites dozens of sources, well-known and otherwise, but the key storylines, other than Dylan, involve acoustic folk music guru Pete Seeger and the rich history of the Newport festival, a history that had created expectations smashed by Dylan. Furthermore, the appearances on the pages by other musicians—e.g., Joan Baez, the Weaver, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Dave Van Ronk, and Gordon Lightfoot—give the book enough of an expansive feel. Wald's personal knowledge seems encyclopedic, and his endnotes show how he ranged far beyond personal knowledge to produce the book.
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s personal feelings about Dylan's music or persona.Pub Date: July 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236668-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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