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DISAPPEARANCE: A MAP

Name: DISAPPEARANCE: A MAP
Author: Sheila Nickerson
ISBN: 0-385-48170-5

A MEDITATION ON DEATH AND LOSS IN THE HIGH LATITUDES

by Sheila Nickerson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 1996

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All manner of things get lost in Alaska, and they are the subject of this grave contemplation, vulnerable and delicate as a baby's breath, from Nickerson, the state's onetime poet laureate (197781). ``I live in a place where people disappear. Alaska. Too large to comprehend.'' So Nickerson starts her study of the disappeared, and she goes on to chart the long, sorry history of those who seem to have fallen into a black hole, never to emerge, while within the strange force field thrown by the 49th state. Some are well known: Sir John Franklin, questing for the Northwest Passage, and US House majority leader Hale Boggs, who vanished while on a campaign tour. Then there are the legions remembered only by their nearest and dearest. The author also touches upon the ghosts and echoes of the Tlingits and the eradication of their culture; the rapid wasting of the state's primary economic resource, oil, up at Prudhoe Bay; the near-choking sadness of a family's youngest child being packed off to college—all disappearances of one kind or another. When all is said and done, Nickerson is a poet, and everywhere she finds a subcurrent of terror and grinding confusion conjured by loss. On writing: ``Words are not only markers along the way. Monuments of fear, they can be obstacles to acceptance of ourselves as larger beings. As beacons of truth, they oscillate and cannot be trusted.'' Or the portent of a chanced-upon bird: ``It is part of the map of disappearance. It has to do with concentrating on the small things, celebrating beauty: the oracle of the hollow bones.'' Each episode gives Nickerson pause to plot her own earthly coordinates, and they are as wobbly—and as inscrutable—as the peregrinations of the magnetic north. For those who are fascinated by disappearances—unexplained, unexplainable—forget the Bermuda Triangle. Try Alaska, and let Nickerson be your guide. (6 maps) (Author tour)

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1996

ISBN: 0-385-48170-5

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1995

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.