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ALL STRANGERS ARE KIN

Name: ALL STRANGERS ARE KIN
Author: Zora O'Neill
ISBN: 978-0-547-85318-5

ADVENTURES IN ARABIC AND THE ARAB WORLD

by Zora O'Neill ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 14, 2016

A valiant chronicle of the author’s “Year of Speaking Arabic Badly.”

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Returning to study Arabic less formally than as a college student led the author to travel through the Arab world.

The saying goes that it takes seven years to learn Arabic and a lifetime to master it. In her engaging, colloquial account, freelance and travel writer O’Neill recounts how, at the age of 39, just after the events of the Arab Spring, she decided to return to Egypt and take up a more vernacular approach to studying Arabic rather than approaching it “as if it were a dead language.” Instead of studying the eloquent Arabic of medieval poetry known as Fusha, the author sought to immerse herself in the way people really speak, the Ammiya, devoid of the “crushing” grammar rules and full of humor and an ingenious root system. Now she wanted to use Arabic “as a social connector.” In addition to several weeks of language classes in Cairo and a stint of study in the Gulf states, Lebanon, and Morocco, she was determined to be open to meeting and conversing with anyone who seemed interested, to mostly comic effect. The problem was that each country used a different dialect, and the Arabic she learned in Egypt was considered somewhat pedestrian elsewhere. Traveling alone in Dubai, a rarity in itself, she had hoped to encounter a more “pure” form of Arabic in the Gulf, yet she found so few people who would actually speak to her since the United Arab Emirates is made up of enormous numbers of guest workers. After a literary festival in Dubai, she took language classes in Beirut, impressed by the elegant transformation of the once war-torn city. In Fes, Morocco, where she stayed with a host family, she understood very little of the swift-moving dialect Darija, peppered with much French. In the end, O’Neill, frequently overwhelmed by the “culture’s little codes, the clues and symbols that exposed sect and allegiance,” needed much more time to master this language.

A valiant chronicle of the author’s “Year of Speaking Arabic Badly.”

Pub Date: June 14, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-547-85318-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Review Posted Online: March 30, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016

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.