Twenty-five hilarious but sage essays (based on Edwards's ``Office Politics'' column in GQ), laying out an ethical ``battle plan'' to both ascend and transcend today's glazed corporate pyramid. In this razor-sharp satire of contemporary American business- -where executives wield cellular phones (``that Excalibur of overweening ambition'') but not one of them is responsible for the savings-and-loan disaster—Edwards offers sound, workable advice for handling meetings, memos, perks, rumors, even the trauma of getting fired (today less a ``brutal shock'' than a ``lethal injection''). He also identifies the familiar cast of irritants— the infighters, the boss's wife, the ``Pol Pot/Executive VP,'' and the ``toadies'' (like Polonius, who, Edwards contends, would today ``have ended up with a corner office and seven figures instead of a rapier through the gullet''). Forget the ``Take No Prisoners Memo'' (``better shred than dead''), and beware expense accounts (Mephistopheles's ``favorite route into the workplace'') as well as ``Sex Officio,'' for which the author offers nine ``cautions.'' Even post-Clarence Thomas hearings, Edwards's humor lets him get away with pride at possessing the ``secretarial equivalent of an Alpha-Romeo'' and other retrogressive lapses. (``I, for one,'' he writes, ``would be deeply disappointed to see unchecked passion at the copy machine, or to stumble upon Farrah D., executive VP, casting a sexually harassing glance at Scott B., her hard-working secretary.'') Finally, what Edwards demands is accountability, ambition, and excellence. ``Unless we can turn jobs back into callings,'' he writes, ``whether or not those jobs entail collecting garbage, running a nuclear power facility, producing television or transplanting kidneys, the next century is going to be a fine mess.'' Read this for solace and strategy—particularly if you've been handed a life sentence in corporate America. Keep it in your desk, consider sending it anonymously to your boss or George Bush. Tell the back-stabbing drones who ask that it's an essential weapon for recouping our losses to the Japanese—because it is.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-517-58065-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1991
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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