A must-own for fans of magic, Steele’s book is a fun peek into the history of magic’s golden age.
Steele assembles the long-lost memoirs of the “Queen of Magic,” a once-famous, nearly forgotten female magician.
Aside from Harry Houdini, few magicians from the golden age of magic have any contemporary name recognition—and any that do are men. Yet around the turn of the 20th century, Adelaide Herrmann held her own as a popular female magician. But because magic’s allure waned as the century wore on, few remember her. Enter Steele, a magician and Herrmann fan, who also performed tributes to the late magician. After acquiring Herrmann’s missing memoir in 2010 after it was discovered in a descendant’s closet, Steele edited it for this publication, a compilation of the memoirs along with an impressive selection of photographs, magazine articles and other ephemera. The memoir itself is compelling—it tells of her early life as a dancer and her falling in love with renowned magician Alexander Herrmann—although Steele notes that Herrmann “wasn’t above occasionally re-casting herself into anecdotes that had originally starred her husband. As much as I adore her, I don’t always trust her.” Alexander received all the attention during his life, and when he died, his nephew Leon briefly took over the act but proved ill-suited for the role. Herrmann next stepped up and made the show her own. She traveled across the United States and Europe, encountering floods and fires and often performing the “bullet catch” trick. It’s a fun story improved by Steele’s peppering the text with photographs to illustrate Herrmann’s text, giving the book the feeling of a well-loved scrapbook. The additional ephemera at the back of the book features writing about Herrmann’s costumes, articles Herrmann wrote for magazines about her job and numerous mentions of her in the press.
A must-own for fans of magic, Steele’s book is a fun peek into the history of magic’s golden age.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1883647216
Page Count: 364
Publisher: Bramble Books
Review Posted Online: June 14, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Witty and engaging, this short novel will provide readers a dose of hilarity and a quick cure for the workaday blues.
The laugh-out-loud tale of how a hapless accountant endures a three-day coma in the company of another soul in limbo, observing the gritty, often bizarre goings-on of an inner-city emergency room.
It’s just after Christmas, and Alan Fries is confused: Why are nurses wearing antlers hovering over him, and why, instead of watching the Bears–Vikings game, is he hanging out in the ER with an 87-year-old crank named Jerry? Apparently in limbo while awaiting resuscitation or a signed death certificate, the oddball pair become dead flies on the walls in St. Augustine’s—aka Holy Tino’s—an aging Chicago hospital with grave financial issues and a staff of embattled but good-hearted nurses and doctors. This cast of characters could top the Nielsen ratings in a TV sitcom: the doctor who leaves his sperm sample in the fridge, the veteran nurse putting the kibosh on an intern’s crush and the ever-plentiful nutcases who file through the ER’s sliding doors. The flirtations, the combative patients and the increasing suspicions about the hospital CEO all come peppered with Jerry’s curmudgeon commentary and Alan’s naïve curiosity regarding such ephemera as why he can’t activate the paper towel dispenser and whether he should have a bucket or an “unbucket” list. Author Knauss, who practices emergency medicine when not penning novels, structures the narrative on a framework of expertise that gives the story both legitimacy and depth. He also wisely weaves in strands of seriocomic contemplation as Alan regularly ponders his life choices and his treatment of his wife, Laura. He misses her, although strangely, he doesn’t spend time in Room 4, where she waits anxiously with his best friend. Nor does he seem interested in the progress of his tube-ridden, comatose body. But such questions aside, Alan's and Jerry’s repartee and observations are a gas to read, and the subplot that arises about halfway through adds to the sense of purpose that Alan felt was previously lacking in his life. He even plans for the future—provided he recovers.
Witty and engaging, this short novel will provide readers a dose of hilarity and a quick cure for the workaday blues.Pub Date: April 5, 2012
ISBN: 9781477572436
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A fine philosophical text to aid in considering the big ideas.
Brutus’ first book of philosophy offers a glimpse into the minds of some of history’s greatest thinkers.
Starting with the ancient Greeks and jumping through cultures and epochs, Brutus leads his readers through various musings on the titular question: Is philosophy merely important nonsense? After focusing by turn on suffering, peace, hope and other philosophical dilemmas, his essays ultimately conclude that philosophy is, indeed, a worthwhile—though occasionally nonsensical—pursuit. Of course, a philosopher would say that; still, while Brutus posits (along with Buddha and others) that life is all about the problem of suffering and how to best deal with it, he nonetheless leans toward the Nietzschean attitude of striving ever forward as the best way to surmount life’s difficulties, rather than developing any new theories on the subject. In fact, Brutus identifies Nietzsche’s philosophy as the cure for the disease of modern life. Brutus also contemplates Wittgenstein’s idea that “doing philosophy” is actually the product of a diseased mind, where one must eventually be cured of this funny habit of pondering existence if one is to “get well.” Therefore, can or should one stop doing philosophy? Wittgenstein, the notoriously dour Austrian, certainly believed so, but here the question is left unanswered for the reader to decide, depending on his or her preferred school of thought. Rather than bringing any new ideas to the table, this book reads more like a primer on philosophical thought throughout the ages, in which Brutus demonstrates considerable command over the looming philosophical questions that continue to plague contemplative modern man.
A fine philosophical text to aid in considering the big ideas.Pub Date: April 12, 2012
ISBN: 978-0615608808
Page Count: 252
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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