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UNDERGROUND LONDON

Name: UNDERGROUND LONDON
Author: Stephen Smith
ISBN: 0-316-86134-0

TRAVELS BENEATH THE CITY STREETS

by Stephen Smith ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 2005

A treat for rabid Anglophiles with a taste for the offbeat and off-the-beaten-path.

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Highly entertaining tour of British civilization, viewed from below ground level.

Smith (The Land of Miracles, 1998) traces British history via London’s subterranean passages, tunnels, sewers, wartime bunkers and, of course, the celebrated Underground. His erudite and eccentric odyssey mixes well-documented history with rather fanciful lore. Admittedly, the lore is more fun, such as the notion that Queen Boudicca is entombed beneath Platform 10 at the King’s Cross tube station. But much of the history is remarkably engaging because it is all too human: Henry VIII farcically shuttling lovers through his underground passages at Hampton Court; soggy gunpowder foiling poor Guy Fawkes’s disastrous attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament; grumpy Samuel Pepys clomping into his cellar to discover it’s flooded once again; underground air-raid shelters being turned into post-WWII housing for Jamaican immigrants, etc. Smith has a knack for finding the most interesting and entertaining people below street level, ranging from a legendary sewer worker who killed rats with a swat of his hardhat to a group of naive Lancashire teenagers unable to disguise their giddiness while riding the Underground for the first time. Occasionally, the below-ground treasures have a bizarre way of unexpectedly surfacing; the Nazi strikes of 1941, for example, unearthed the ruins of a Roman temple dedicated to Mithras. Sometimes Smith is a bit too generous in sharing information, as with his in-depth descriptions of the woefully fetid conditions that forced Henry III to install a drainage system at Westminster Palace in the 1380s. The future of London is also very much below street level, with long-planned rail tunnels finally getting off the drawing board as a means of attracting the 2012 Olympic Games. Not unlike the city above it, underground London remains in constant flux.

A treat for rabid Anglophiles with a taste for the offbeat and off-the-beaten-path.

Pub Date: June 15, 2005

ISBN: 0-316-86134-0

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Little, Brown UK/Trafalgar

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2005

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.