The descriptions of the various sites on the grounds could only come from a man fortunate enough to have lived on and loved...
Versailles head gardener and TV host Baraton reflects on his three decades tending some of the most beautiful gardens in the world.
Simply but thoroughly, the author narrates the history of Versailles, from the days of Henry IV sneaking off to these woods to hunt to the days of the revolution. The most surprising element is the speed with which an estate of such size was built. The gardens, on the other hand, sprung from the guiding hand of Louis XIV’s gardener, André Le Nôtre, but then took their own sweet time to flourish. Baraton importantly points out how people rush about on the Rue de Rivoli and other parts of Paris but then slow to a snail’s pace when they walk through gardens at Versailles. Gardens reach into your soul, writes the author, whether you plant them, harvest them or simply enjoy them. The author philosophizes about the ability of gardens to provide space for deep reflection, and he writes poetically about the beautiful power of the grounds he tends. He also provides some practical advice—e.g., the best places for a lovers’ tryst. The building and maintenance of the world’s grandest garden took the efforts and perspectives of a wide variety of great royal gardeners, including Claude Mollet and Jacques Boyceau, as well as builders like Louis Le Vau and Charles Le Brun. In addition to paying tribute to the work of these innovators, Baraton also looks at the various films that have been filmed on the grounds, storms that have battered them, and the effects of each season on the flora and fauna.
The descriptions of the various sites on the grounds could only come from a man fortunate enough to have lived on and loved the site for almost 40 years.Pub Date: March 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8478-4268-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Rizzoli Ex Libris
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2014
These five years' worth of Stevenson's letters fill up another two volumes of an intense and concentrated correspondence reflecting a short life. The period from 1879 to 1884 covers Stevenson's (The Collected Letters, Vols. I & II, p. 619) first literary successes (Treasure Island and A Child's Garden of Verses), the early phase of his marriage to American Fanny Osbourne, and the start of his lifelong search for better health. His correspondents during this time include Victorian literary lions Edmund Gosse, W.E. Henley, and J.A. Symonds, not to mention his new wife, his bohemian cousin Bob, and his anxious parents. Less useful for direct biographical or critical information than as a partial reflection of his personal life, Stevenson's letters are carefully modulated to each recipient's mood and character. To his friends, he dispensed jokes about his shaky health and nascent writing career, about which in turn he would have to reassure his parents in calm reports; and while his friends tried to accustom themselves to his new American wife, he and Fanny wrote joint letters to his parents to introduce them to her. His preferred epistolary embellishments in these volumes are doggerel verse (particularly about his parodic man of letters, C.G. Brash), passages in broad Scots, and fantastic handwriting and doodles. His subjects are always more prosaic than what's portrayed in his books (even his rasher ventures in California come across as less interesting than he made them in The Amateur Emigrant, Travels with a Donkey, and Silverado Squatters). By the fourth volume, between his search for essay material and exchanges with Henley over the editorial value of the latter's magazine, Stevenson gradually began to sharpen the aesthetic opinions that would inform his friendship with Henry James and his later work. (For a biography of Stevenson in this issue, see p. 1339.) Consistently entertaining, whether from a transcontinental railway car, a sickbed in France, or an overcrowded writing desk.
Pub Date: Nov. 16, 1994
ISBN: 0-300-06187-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1994
Part political essay, part open love letter to little girls growing up afraid to claim their identities, this fresh memoir...
The founder of Muslimgirl.com writes a searing memoir of her young life as a Muslim-American girl growing up in an era of Islamophobia.
Beginning with a wise warning about the dangers of using a “single story” to define a minority group, Al-Khatahtbeh takes readers on a memorable journey chronicling her development from childhood to womanhood. Al-Khatahtbeh was 9 years old when the twin towers fell. Both the national tragedy and the backlash against Muslims deeply affected her developing sense of identity. Growing up in New Jersey, spending her 13th year in her father’s native Jordan, donning the hijab upon returning to the United States, and post-college work experiences with media outlets culminated in her full-time focus on the necessary work of highlighting Muslim women’s voices. The development of her brainchild, the collaborative blog and media outlet muslimgirl.com, takes center stage in the second half of the book. Her work has inspired many, and now the story of how she arrived at it can inspire as well. The occasional lack of narrative flow barely detracts from the vital message this book brings to the national conversation. Al-Khatahtbeh’s perspective details the impact of our political climate on the identities of our youth and demonstrates the need for outlets like the one she founded.
Part political essay, part open love letter to little girls growing up afraid to claim their identities, this fresh memoir is an important read for Americans of all backgrounds.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5950-3
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 18, 2017
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