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AY, CUBA!

A SOCIO-EROTIC JOURNEY

Codrescu (English/Louisiana State Univ.), prolific author and NPR journalist, treats us to a 12-day idiosyncratic vacation 90 miles and a world apart from the US. The pope’s visit to Cuba early last year was the provocation. Not to be influenced by the papal presence, Codrescu (Hail, Babylon: In Search of the American City at the End of the Millennium, 1998. etc.), with his NPR team, beat His Holiness by several days to the “laboratory of pre-post-communism.” Our man in Havana found the capital to be in physical decay and the population largely intriguing and warm, from the spellbinding, soothsaying Babalaos to the street-smart teenage hustlers. From the cafes in Havana to the mysterious lairs of Santiago de Cuba, he can report that reverence for the Maximum Leader is less than sweeping. The “Querido Commandante Che Guuevara” song, however, is quite prevalent. Afro-Cuban religiosity, rum and dollars are more popular than socialism, and venery apparently tops all the charts. Codrescu, of course, comes by his dubiety of things Marxist quite naturally, having spent his tender ye+ars in the Romania of Ceausescu. Also natural to him is a felicitous style. There’s the distinct aroma of gonzo mixed with dialectics and a pinch of Swiss Family Perelman, but it’s all Codrescu. People take precedence over plot. (A set-up about trouble with a picture album never pays off). The author and his crew meet a variety of folk whom he invests with appeal. The octogenarian comic Al Lewis and the great El Duque Hernandez bracket snapshots of boys selling Cohibas and girls selling pleasant tarriance. The text is punctuated by photos by David Graham and poetry composed collectively by Codrescu’s pilgrims. As with the best of the travel genre, the tour is personal and selective. It’s often engaging and enlightening, too. A natural-born journalist provides an entertaining, under-the-covers tour. (16 pages color photos, 40 b&w photos).

Pub Date: March 1, 1999

ISBN: 0-312-19831-0

Page Count: 224

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999

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THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE

50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...

Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.

Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").

Pub Date: May 15, 1972

ISBN: 0205632645

Page Count: 105

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972

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NUTCRACKER

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

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