A wise and affecting memoir, remarkable for its honesty and lack of self-pity, of a life lived in interesting times by Czech- born feminist historian Bell. The daughter of Jewish parents who converted to Lutheranism in their youth, Bell describes her idyllic prewar childhood in Tropau, a provincial town in Czechoslovakia. The only child of a prominent local lawyer and his much younger, beautiful, and talented wife, Bell enjoyed a childhood rich in friendship, family associations, and love. But when Germany marched into the Sudetenland, and the rest of the world stood by, the idyll ended. Regarded as Jewish by the Nazis and penalized by the newly enacted racial laws, the family decided to emigrate. Taking advantage of the only visa available—for domestic work—Susan and her mother left for England in 1939, hoping once there to arrange a visa for her father; but the Holocaust took him away forever. In England, while her mother worked as a maid in a succession of households until the visa rules changed, Susan attended local schools, experiencing all the hardships of wartime England as well as the more usual ups and downs of adolescence. After a brief and disillusioning visit to a newly liberated Communist Czechoslovakia, Susan returned to England, where she spent two years in a hospital and on crutches recovering from TB brought on by the poor diet and living conditions of the postwar period. Marriage finally brought her to California, where, a late bloomer and nearly 40, she began a distinguished academic career as a historian. Friends, family, and associates are vividly evoked, as are the difficult times Bell lived through, but it is she herself, modest and self-deprecating, who is the real heroine of this poignant story of great loss and some gain.
Pub Date: July 29, 1991
ISBN: 0-525-93314-X
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1991
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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