Readers may not embrace Florida the way the author has, but they will understand why a humorist loves it.
A breezy travelogue through swampland, strip clubs, and a retirement community reported to be rife with swingers.
As a humorist who has long found plenty of material in his adopted state, Barry (Live Right and Find Happiness (Although Beer Is Much Faster): Life Lessons and Other Ravings from Dave Barry, 2015, etc.) has come this time to celebrate Florida, though in the process, he recounts plenty of the sorts of anecdotes that have made the state such a national laughingstock. The author believes that the tide turned toward ridicule in 2000, when Florida’s pivotal role in the presidential election made the state seem particularly inept—and introduced “hanging chads” into the national parlance. Yet the more significant before-and-after where this book is concerned dates to three decades earlier, when Disney World transformed the state’s tourism in 1971. The Mouse remains the elephant in the room as Barry focuses his attention on Florida’s distinct identity as a tourist destination pre-Disney and what the behemoth has done to those attractions since. Typical is his visit to Weeki Wachee Springs, “which, of all the classic Florida roadside tourist attractions, is one of the Florida-est.” Its underwater theater and mermaid choreography may pale in comparison with the high-tech, heavily marketed Disneyfication of the state, but for those who love bargains and hate crowds, this is the Florida that Barry celebrates. “I concede that, by modern theme-park standards, it is dated, hokey and unsophisticated,” he writes. “In other words, it’s great. I mean that sincerely. Weeki Wachee is a time machine that takes you back to a different era.” The tour also encompasses the Everglades, Gatorland, and a ghost town with a haunted hotel. It ends with the back-to-back bacchanalia of an upscale Miami night club and Key West, “Florida’s Florida—the place way down at the bottom where the weirdest of the weird end up; the place where the abnormal is normal.”
Readers may not embrace Florida the way the author has, but they will understand why a humorist loves it.Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-98260-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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