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COLD BEER AND CROCODILES

Name: COLD BEER AND CROCODILES
Author: Roff Smith
ISBN: 0-7922-7952-2

A BICYCLE JOURNEY INTO AUSTRALIA

by Roff Smith ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2000

All in all, an enjoyable excursion for armchair travelers.

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Adventure travel at an easy pace, in territory that will be unfamiliar to most readers.

Building on his recent three-part series of articles in National Geographic, journalist Smith recounts his 21-speed pilgrimage along the edges of Australia, a country he has lived in since 1982. “Australia,” he writes, “was pleasant, sunny, and suburban, but I felt no emotional bond to it”—a shortcoming he decided to address at 38, ever so slightly overweight and certainly not in fighting trim, by seeing the country on two wheels (a mode of transport, he slyly admits, that suited his financially straitened circumstances just fine). That stage having been set, adventure finds Smith quickly in these pages—he’s no sooner out the door when a road-rage-afflicted Sydney driver nearly takes him out of the game, and he regrets his decision at the first big hill he has to climb. Still, he presses on with what he calls “Yankee mulishness,” logging thousands of miles and enjoying mostly happy encounters with the survivalists, back-to-the-landers, rabid nationalists, Eurotrash vagabonds, cowboys, truckers, and retirees who clog the outback roads. This portrait of Australia doesn’t necessarily put the lie to the travel brochures—he finds plenty of beauty everywhere, and readers will envy him for that—but there are enough seedy little towns, venomous reptiles, and sundry unpleasantries that, he writes ruefully, “sometimes it was easy to think this was the highway to hell.” The author never stays in any one place long enough to do more than scratch the surface, and he tends not to say much beyond the obvious—standard National Geographic fare. Still, Smith is an unfailingly cheerful narrator, quick to laugh at himself and point out interesting sights along the way.

All in all, an enjoyable excursion for armchair travelers.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2000

ISBN: 0-7922-7952-2

Page Count: 288

Publisher: National Geographic

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2000

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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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

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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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.