Anyone contemplating a trip to Naples would do well to keep this very useful, accessible book close at hand.
In her debut travel guide, Zaragoza puts together the ultimate companion for readers planning a trip to Naples.
In this readable, entertaining information guide for tourists, Zaragoza takes readers from the heights of Mount Vesuvius to the ruins of Pompeii and beyond. Part atlas, part history lesson, part epicurean review, this comprehensive handbook to Naples is without peer. The only thing missing is information on lodging, a subject outside the book’s purview. Zaragoza clearly has insider’s knowledge obtained by spending a great deal of time in the regions she describes. She knows that anyone who wishes to see “The Sanctuary of Mithras” in Capua needs to see a custodian off premises, where he or she will grab a key and beckon travelers to follow the route to the actual site. It’s tips like these that make this guide so special. Zaragoza starts off with a background history lesson before providing directions to the places she describes—some off-the-beaten-path destinations would be difficult if not impossible to find otherwise. When it comes to local cuisine, Zaragoza takes time not only to describe the food, but its origins as well. Some of the first pizzas, for instance, were made in Naples; the author informs the reader of the two main types of pizza and the best places to sample them. Coffee drinking in Naples is an altogether different experience than elsewhere. The amount is much less per serving—typically about a shot’s worth—but the sheer variety of formulations boggles the mind. Italians seem to take the idea of a coffee break seriously; it’s common to take pause from a busy workday to grab a quick pick-me-up at one of the city’s abundant cafes. Zaragoza’s explanation of the etiquette of coffee drinking is just another example of her ability to immerse readers in the culture and everyday lives of the people who inhabit the city.
Anyone contemplating a trip to Naples would do well to keep this very useful, accessible book close at hand.Pub Date: March 22, 2012
ISBN: 978-0983509929
Page Count: 310
Publisher: Merchant's Press
Review Posted Online: May 29, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...
Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).
All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."Pub Date: April 8, 1974
ISBN: 0385086954
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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