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SUBWAYLAND

Name: SUBWAYLAND
Author: Randy Kennedy
ISBN: 0-312-32434-0

ADVENTURES IN THE WORLD BENEATH NEW YORK

by Randy Kennedy ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2004

Engaging and nattily written. (7 b&w photos)

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New York Times reporter Kennedy collects his “Tunnel Vision” columns to reveal the city’s subway system as “a society unto itself, with its own citizenry, government, flora and fauna, customs, myths, taboos.”

Intrepidly exploring underground NYC, the author writes with both openness—a relief in a book on subways—and compression, which keeps things moving even when the trains aren’t. Kennedy knows how to keep himself out of the picture and let his subjects take the limelight. Unlike some columnists, he’s not here to pontificate; he’s here to report on the people's limousine. Kennedy doesn’t pretend that the subways are heaven, but he does show them providing a “kinship of the slightly oppressed,” a bit of glue in the urban matrix that creates a live-and-let-live attitude few other cities can boast. The entertainment, he suggests, can be found in the sideshows: the performers, the bluesmen, and the magicians, certainly, but also the woman who sells her short stories for $2 a pop, or the pigeons that grab a train at Far Rockaway and ride a few stops to feast on available tidbits. To Kennedy’s credit, he never gets cute. Watch the sheriff of Grand Central keep order: “Get your arm outta that door!” says the cop. “That wasn't that man's train. He's got reservations on the next one.” Token-sucking, once “considered the single most disgusting nonviolent crime ever to visit the subway,” is history, bur fear not: you can still catch the fragrance at Union Square, where “the door of the women's room was wide open, allowing a fermented aroma to roll out like harbor fog.”

Engaging and nattily written. (7 b&w photos)

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2004

ISBN: 0-312-32434-0

Page Count: 240

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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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.