Amusing and smart food-and-travel memoir, set largely in southwestern France. Kenyon contributes regularly to Gourmet and has written over two-dozen crime novels (Kill the Butler!, 1993, etc.). After seeing the province of Lot in southwestern France lauded on TV by novelist Compton McKenzie, Kenyon, his schoolteacher-wife, Catherine, and their three daughters lease their London home and set forth for a year or more in that region. Just what time slot we're reading about is veiled, perhaps to suggest a period more harmonious with those covered by Peter Mayle and others in the current crop of guides to France. The story skims strangely over the marriage's breakup, as if Kenyon keeps his food obsessions foremost to mask the deeper currents of what happens to him (his wife eventually runs off with a Frenchman and later marries someone else, and the author winds up with a green card teaching on Long Island and living with one Victoria, a freelance book designer). But here it's food, family, and French that bond the reader to the page. At school, the girls catch on to French so rapidly that Kenyon himself falls far behind. Since one daughter was born in the US, the family decides to celebrate Thanksgiving—but assembling a typical American holiday feast in this region demands ingenious substitutes. The French love leisurely meals with small quantities, an hour or more for lunch and two for dinner, and thus food-talk takes on infinite complexity in the text. At one point, Catherine drives 40 miles for a loaf of bread too good for the lofty baker to sell to just anyone who drops in: She has to beg for it. Also, the town band draws smiles: ``As part of the French cultural tradition...they are expected to play execrably and usually succeed.'' The wittiest, best-written French guide now on hand.
Pub Date: June 8, 1993
ISBN: 0-312-09295-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1993
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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