The subtitle here is a disappointment, because in fact these gathered examples of Rybczynski's recent architecture journalism aren't historically organized: They show his usual steady hand and watchful intelligence, and yet, lacking the narrative thread of The Most Beautiful House in the World (1989) or Waiting for the Weekend (1991), they can suffer from a recurrent sameness, beginning to feel less like a pleasant ramble than like a journey that won't quite end. Rybczynski (Architecture/McGill Univ.) excels as the architectural chronicler of the personal and domestic, making the evolution of the ``living room'' from the ``parlor,'' for example (``Good Housekeeping''), more than a matter of mere curiosity—as he does also with his recounting of the comfortable sense of place he felt at McGill in his student days (``A Place Map''). Never afraid to be personal (``The building raises my spirits each time I pass it,'' he says of a recently completed structure), he can bring a casual immediacy even to the 16th century by discussing Palladio as an architect whose genius lay largely in inventive cost-cutting (``Low-Cost Classicism''). Rybczynski never raises his voice, but neither does he flinch from the truth (``Never have there been so many celebrated architects; rarely, so few great ones'') or hesitate to name crucial ills for what they are (``Since the reign of modernism...the art of building has been transformed into an art of packaging''). Even so, with its own share of pieces that read as much like architecture reviews as essays, the volume can have a feel of drift—not so much a trip through architecture as a bumping around within it—and one is wistful for the brevity and subtle chronology that helped make The Most Beautiful House so alluring. Rybczynski—estimable critic and valuable observer—in a form best browsed through.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-670-84421-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s...
Music journalist and musician Wald (Talking 'Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap, 2014, etc.) focuses on one evening in music history to explain the evolution of contemporary music, especially folk, blues, and rock.
The date of that evening is July 25, 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival, where there was an unbelievably unexpected occurrence: singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, already a living legend in his early 20s, overriding the acoustic music that made him famous in favor of electronically based music, causing reactions ranging from adoration to intense resentment among other musicians, DJs, and record buyers. Dylan has told his own stories (those stories vary because that’s Dylan’s character), and plenty of other music journalists have explored the Dylan phenomenon. What sets Wald's book apart is his laser focus on that one date. The detailed recounting of what did and did not occur on stage and in the audience that night contains contradictory evidence sorted skillfully by the author. He offers a wealth of context; in fact, his account of Dylan's stage appearance does not arrive until 250 pages in. The author cites dozens of sources, well-known and otherwise, but the key storylines, other than Dylan, involve acoustic folk music guru Pete Seeger and the rich history of the Newport festival, a history that had created expectations smashed by Dylan. Furthermore, the appearances on the pages by other musicians—e.g., Joan Baez, the Weaver, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Dave Van Ronk, and Gordon Lightfoot—give the book enough of an expansive feel. Wald's personal knowledge seems encyclopedic, and his endnotes show how he ranged far beyond personal knowledge to produce the book.
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s personal feelings about Dylan's music or persona.Pub Date: July 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236668-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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