After two decades as a resident of England, Bryson (Made in America, 1995, etc.) bids a very fond farewell to that sceptered isle, to that promontory of clotted cream. Before returning to his native America, Bryson launched himself on a seven-week peregrination through the hills and dells, the High Streets and hedgerows of England, Wales, and Scotland. As always, he found most of the towns and the hummocks very much to his liking, indeed. And who wouldn't smile broadly wandering through the environs of Horton in Ribblesdale or Giggleswick or journeying to Milton Keynes (which is, be assured, a place, not an economist)? The main trick to successful hiking, the author knows, is to take a bus or train or rent a car frequently between the beds and breakfasts—the latter being full English and full cholesterol. Of course, not all he encountered was wonderful. "Bradford's role in life," he notes, "is to make every place else look better in comparison, and it does this very well." "Blackpool's Illuminations," he says, "are nothing if not splendid, and they are not splendid." British Rail and the ubiquitous Marks & Spencer are not favorites, either. Bryson also has an eye, unsurpassed by that of Prince Charles himself, for nasty architecture, especially shopping centers. Despite those dark, satanic malls, England delights him. He asks, "can there anywhere on earth be, in such a modest span, a landscape more packed with centuries of busy, productive attainment?" The spelling is American, the writing is English (fat folk are seen to "Hoover up" their comestibles), and the wit is genuine. A diverting travel journal, for Anglophiles especially. A short glossary (translating such terms as "knickers" and "George Formby") is provided. A map of the journey (not included) would have been nice, luv. But all in all, a tasty crumpet.
Pub Date: May 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-688-14725-9
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1996
Essential for fans and the definitive celebration of a show that made history by knowing the rules and breaking every one of...
Everything you ever wanted to know about America’s favorite Mafia serial—and then some.
New York magazine TV critic Seitz (Mad Men Carousel: The Complete Critical Companion, 2015, etc.) and Rolling Stone TV critic Sepinwall (Breaking Bad 101: The Complete Critical Companion, 2017, etc.) gather a decade’s worth of their smart, lively writing about New Jersey’s most infamous crime family. As they note, The Sopranos was first shot in 1997, helmed by master storyteller David Chase, of Northern Exposure and Rockford Files renown, who unveiled his creation at an odd time in which Robert De Niro had just appeared in a film about a Mafioso in therapy. The pilot was “a hybrid slapstick comedy, domestic sitcom, and crime thriller, with dabs of ’70s American New Wave grit. It is high and low art, vulgar and sophisticated.” It barely hinted at what was to come, a classic of darkness and cynicism starring James Gandolfini, an actor “obscure enough that, coupled with the titanic force of his performance, it was easy to view him as always having been Tony Soprano.” Put Gandolfini together with one of the best ensembles and writing crews ever assembled, and it’s small wonder that the show is still remembered, discussed, and considered a classic. Seitz and Sepinwall occasionally go too Freudian (“Tony is a human turd, shat out by a mother who treats her son like shit”), though sometimes to apposite effect: Readers aren’t likely to look at an egg the same way ever again. The authors’ interviews with Chase are endlessly illuminating, though we still won’t ever know what really happened to the Soprano family on that fateful evening in 2007. “It’s not something you just watch,” they write. “It’s something you grapple with, accept, resist, accept again, resist again, then resolve to live with”—which, they add, is “absolutely in character for this show.”
Essential for fans and the definitive celebration of a show that made history by knowing the rules and breaking every one of them.Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3494-6
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This early reader is an excellent introduction to the March on Washington in 1963 and the important role in the march played by Martin Luther King Jr. Ruffin gives the book a good, dramatic start: “August 28, 1963. It is a hot summer day in Washington, D.C. More than 250,00 people are pouring into the city.” They have come to protest the treatment of African-Americans here in the US. With stirring original artwork mixed with photographs of the events (and the segregationist policies in the South, such as separate drinking fountains and entrances to public buildings), Ruffin writes of how an end to slavery didn’t mark true equality and that these rights had to be fought for—through marches and sit-ins and words, particularly those of Dr. King, and particularly on that fateful day in Washington. Within a year the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had been passed: “It does not change everything. But it is a beginning.” Lots of visual cues will help new readers through the fairly simple text, but it is the power of the story that will keep them turning the pages. (Easy reader. 6-8)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-448-42421-5
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000
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