Cahill (Pecked to Death by Ducks, 1993, etc.) delivers all the goods—vibrancy, wit, intelligence—anyone could hope for from adventure travel writing in this, his fourth, collection. There is not a turkey among these tales (which have appeared in magazines, mostly in Outside). A few of them are snappy little deskside essays—concerning malaria, how to keep Congolese bees from entering your nostrils, a testament to the family values of New Guinea's Dani people. But most concern Cahill's forte, ``remote travel oddly rendered.'' There he sits, curled in the bow of a boat drifting through the unspeakably rotten weather of a Montana spring: ``It was beautiful in a savage and entirely unsettling manner''; or he may detail how sea-kayakers climb the front of monster waves, punch through the crest, and ride a rainbow of spray back to the sea's surface; he concocts a thralling fantasy of landing a small airplane after the pilot's gone and died on you (``when Geraldo Rivera calls to ask you to be on his show, you get to turn him down flat''). And there is a long piece set in Honduras, on a prospecting mission for an eco-tour group, that's all rough edges, a dispatch direct from the field, appealingly jagged, utterly memorable. Cahill's writing gets better all the time, his storytelling style evolving into an art form, his cracking-wiseass humor bevelled by every manner of nuance; waggish he may be, but he's also got a lot of brains. And what more could one ask? He's willing to die for his art. In the end, many of these adventures come down to ``one of those intangible things I'll own forever because I've paid for it, paid for it in equally intangible dues.'' Cold comfort for Cahill, high entertainment for his readers.
Pub Date: March 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-679-45625-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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