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THE ANCHOR ESSAY ANNUAL

Name: THE ANCHOR ESSAY ANNUAL
Author: Phillip Lopate
ISBN: 0-385-48414-3

THE BEST OF 1998

edited by Phillip Lopate ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1998

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With essays by more than 25 writers from around the world, this collection presents a diverse and usually engaging, arguably comprehensive cross-section of some of today’s best nonfiction. Since their perfection by Montaigne, essays have gone through any number of peaks and sloughs of popularity. Now they are such the rage that creative writing programs are rushing to offer essay MFAs. As surely as any tulip craze, it’s a bubble, one that is responsible for most of the least successful essays here, with their pointless autobiographizing, tedious solipsism, and strained preciousness. Fortunately, given the size and breadth and general quality of this collection, these few clunkers can be quickly and almost harmlessly skipped over. Overall, Lopate (Portrait of My Body, 1996, etc.), in his second stint as editor of this collection, has done a signal job of amassing and arranging a number of challenging, revealing, even startling essays—although, with contributions from such notables as David Foster Wallace, Luc Sante, Edward Said, and Francine Prose, it’s hard to go too far wrong. Topics range across the full spectrum of the comÇdie humaine, from birth to divorce to death and everything in between. Yet there is a charming quirkiness to many of the selections, a necessary unnecessariness that reveals more than a more conventional, straightforward essay might. For example, there is Edward Hoagland on his encounters with wild animals, Margaret Talbot on ’50s pin-up legend Bettie Page, Emily Fox Gordon on being a faculty wife. Lopate has managed to put in something for everybody without most of the dumbing down and leaden compromises such a popularist enterprise usually requires. Like a box of chocolates, full of surprises—and usually good ones: A few more collections of this caliber, and Anchor might just have an institution on its hands.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1998

ISBN: 0-385-48414-3

Page Count: 432

Publisher: Anchor

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1998

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
A YEAR AND A DAY
by Phillip Lopate

- BOOK REVIEW
THE CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN ESSAY
edited by Phillip Lopate

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE AMERICAN ESSAY
by Phillip Lopate

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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.