An engaged—but not always engaging—travel/adventure memoir.
A British journalist muses on his journey through California Gold Country.
Former Independent chief reporter Boggan (Follow the Money: A Month in the Life of a Ten-Dollar Bill, 2012) first took interest in gold when its value topped $1,000 per ounce in 2008. His work as a journalist led him to interview people who left jobs and families to hunt for gold in California. Most never struck it rich and ended up broke, but Boggan discovered that they “cheerfully…trussed up all sense of reason and kept on digging” anyway. Intrigued by this phenomenon, the author began studying the history of the California Gold Rush and watching the gold market. In 2013, he flew to San Francisco knowing, and fully accepting, that “odds [were] stacked against [him].” Following in the footsteps of a group of forty-niners whose stories he tells alongside his own, Boggan began his adventures at the northern end of California on the Klamath River, marveling at the beauty of the landscape and living in mortal fear of being eaten alive by bears. As historically well-informed as he was about Gold Country, the author had no practical knowledge of how to prospect. He learned as he went along from people like a retired pipe fitter who sold everything to live in an RV and look for gold and a former U.S. Navy Seal who practiced extreme underwater prospecting. Boggan found only a few flakes of gold, which he coveted like “a miser in a mountain cave.” His rewards were far more intangible: experiences with unforgettable people and landscapes and insight into the “malady” that had compelled him to take his journey in the first place. Boggan’s narrative and persona are charming, but they are not quite enough to make up for a story that, in its attempt to cover so much historical and personal ground, is digressive and unevenly paced.
An engaged—but not always engaging—travel/adventure memoir.Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-78074-696-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Oneworld Publications
Review Posted Online: May 12, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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