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BOOKLESS IN BAGHDAD

Name: BOOKLESS IN BAGHDAD
Author: Shashi Tharoor
ISBN: 1-55970-757-7

REFLECTIONS ON WRITING AND WRITERS

by Shashi Tharoor ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 2005

Intriguing thoughts by an author of worldly range and depth.

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United Nations senior official Tharoor (Nehru, 2003, etc.) reflects on some important—and neglected—literary influences of his cultural heritage in 40 columns originally written for Indian newspapers.

Who reads Enid Blyton anymore, or Malcolm Muggeridge, or even P.G. Wodehouse? Tharoor, who was raised in middle-class Bombay during late 1950s and ’60s, ponders his colonial literary inheritance in the initial essays here. “Growing Up with Books in India” notes how reading English gave him “access to a broader world,” while, in a curious inversion, he encountered many traditional Indian fables through the European versions in Aesop’s fables. “The Spy Who Stayed Out in the Cold” scolds John le Carré for “buttressing his tawdry fictions with op-ed assaults on the post–Cold War peace between the superpowers.” For Tharoor, the engagé life and politics of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda serve as a heroic humanitarian model, as does the committed stance of Salman Rushdie, subject of “The Ground Beneath His Feet,” which thoughtfully reflects on India’s astonishingly pluralistic national identity. The author doles out sterner treatment to fellow Indian fiction writer R.K. Narayan, faulted for “the narrowness of his vision, the predictability of his prose.” Meanwhile, Tharoor frequently plugs his own novels: “Mining the Mahabharata” acknowledges the role the 2,000-year-old Indian epic poem played in the shaping of his Great Indian Novel, and “How Riot Nearly Caused a Riot” describes the agitation caused by a reading from his work among a group of Indian expatriates in New York. Nervily, he takes the U.S. to task for its illiteracy in one essay, then in the next ridicules the desire of 81 percent of Americans to write their own books. Most relevant of all is “Globalization and the Human Imagination,” a description of Tharoor’s UN mission dedicated to responsible media.

Intriguing thoughts by an author of worldly range and depth.

Pub Date: July 11, 2005

ISBN: 1-55970-757-7

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Arcade

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2005

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
WHY I AM A HINDU
by Shashi Tharoor

- BOOK REVIEW
THE ELEPHANT, THE TIGER, AND THE CELL PHONE
by Shashi Tharoor

- BOOK REVIEW
NEHRU
by Shashi Tharoor

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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.