Like an enthralled biologist, the author observes the evolution of Nice as a social ecosystem. His portrait is as...
Kanigel (The One Best Way, 1997, etc.) knits together, from dozens of intriguing sources, an urbane history of Nice.
Nice has been around since the Greeks made camp there in the 6th century b.c., and it has felt the tread of Roman Legionnaires as well as Fodor-toting travelers. Queen Victoria liked it and so did Lenin; European Jews sought refuge there during WWII, and so did GIs once the conflict ended. But while Kanigel notes the extremes at play, he is more interested in the city’s transformation, particularly from exclusive to popular. So he tracks the perceptions of the city as seen by travelers and recorded in diaries, letters, postcards, and a host of other accounts, starting back in the 16th century, working up through the influence Smollett’s travels had on bringing Nice to the attention of his countrymen and especially the generation of English “hivernants,” who wintered in the city. Indeed, it is English travelers who make up the majority of Kanigel’s sources in the years before the railroad—an upper-crust bunch who enjoyed the simplicity of the town while it was still a part of the Kingdom of Sardinia—as opposed to the more international (and more lowly “tourist”) crowd that flocked to the port when the difficulty of getting there—once a question of “sheer precipices, the sea washing up on the rocks below, pirates and storms and moonlit mountain passes”—was overcome. Kanigel follows the rise of Nice during the Belle Époque, its sad slide during the 1930s, its attractiveness to the hoi polloi, and its associations with Bardot, Chaplin, and Picasso.
Like an enthralled biologist, the author observes the evolution of Nice as a social ecosystem. His portrait is as spellbinding as its subject. (Photographs)Pub Date: June 3, 2002
ISBN: 0-670-89988-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2002
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
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