Wistful and witty personal essays; best enjoyed in nibbles.
In this sequel, a writer shares a collection of random memories spanning several decades—simple yet special moments that still tickle his brain and send his fingers to the keyboard.
Lubow (Time Pieces, 2016, etc.) grew up in Chicago in the 1940s and ’50s. For most of his professional life, he worked in advertising, eventually opening his own successful agency in the Windy City. And it is with an adman’s skill that he distills the small events of his life to their sensory core. In this collection of essays ranging in length from one paragraph to no more than three or four pages, he shares his joys, gripes, and occasional bits of wisdom through reflections on things as poignant as his grandfather dying suddenly in front of him when he was 5 years old, and as ordinary as a bowl of “Cheerios with real milk and sugar. Yeah...” A piece entitled “1957” is a nostalgic riff on what was for the author a perfect time and place, before cellphones, passwords, and internet slang. “I don’t need air conditioning, don’t like seatbelts or the underpowered cars of today,” he tells readers. “I was fine with life as I personally knew it in 1957. Would I go back? In a flash.” There’s plenty of soft-edged humor, but Lubow’s clever essays also reveal a sense of melancholy: “I wondered recently about the certain low-level of insecurity many of us live with, and this seems to be more pronounced as we get older, especially if we’re loners….Maybe it’s time to take something for the chronic itch of insecurity that seems here to stay.” Most of the pieces are lighthearted—wonderful stories from the author’s days as an adman and essays that explore his love of words in all their varied contexts, including an overly long description of his passion for crossword puzzles. And in “The anti-gourmet of today.,” he admits, with self-deprecating humor, to a wide range of quirky food preferences, unusual culinary combinations that indeed sound rather unsavory.
Wistful and witty personal essays; best enjoyed in nibbles.Pub Date: Nov. 19, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-70163-988-1
Page Count: 141
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Jan. 13, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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