by Bob Mee ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 5, 2001
Too often this reads like a telephone directory—but even as a reference it lacks an orderly design. (50 b&w...
Although boxing historian Mee (Boxing, not reviewed) is evidently captivated by the brutal sport of bare-knuckled fighting, his 300-year history is too lackluster (and his laundry lists of contestants too benumbing) to make any converts with this effort.
Starting at the turn of the 18th century, the author charts the course of bare-fisted boxing from the earliest recorded brawls to the underground gloveless venues of today. He concentrates his research on English boxers (American bare-fisters are considered much later in the book), providing vest-pocket biographies of such boxers as James Figg, Tom Cribb, John Gully, William Perry, and Elizabeth Wilkinson (the “European Championess”), along with reformers like Gentleman John Jackson. Mee has a tendency to be wildly inclusive, especially in the early years, and he squeezes every last bit of recorded information into meaningless paragraphs composed almost entirely of names and dates. But what wafts off his pages is primarily the god-awful battering the contestants inflict on one another—all the vomiting of blood, the blue and lumpy foreheads, and the interminable battles (like the 140-minute fight between John Camel Heenan and Tom Sayers). The author’s prose, it must be said, does not elevate pugilism to art (although a report excerpted here from the magazine Bell’s Life on the Heenan vs. Sayers fight displays how exciting top-notch writing on the sweet science can be), and it comes with a great sigh of relief when Mee concludes that “pugilism is dead—and the signs are that we will not see its like again.”
Too often this reads like a telephone directory—but even as a reference it lacks an orderly design. (50 b&w illustrations)Pub Date: June 5, 2001
ISBN: 1-58567-141-X
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Overlook
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2001
Share your opinion of this book
by John Gierach illustrated by Glenn Wolff ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 2, 2020
In these insightfully droll essays, Gierach shows us how fishing offers plenty of time to think things over.
The latest collection of interrelated essays by the veteran fishing writer.
As in his previous books—from The View From Rat Lake through All Fishermen Are Liars—Gierach hones in on the ups and downs of fishing, and those looking for how-to tips will find plenty here on rods, flies, guides, streams, and pretty much everything else that informs the fishing life. It is the everything else that has earned Gierach the following of fellow writers and legions of readers who may not even fish but are drawn to his musings on community, culture, the natural world, and the seasons of life. In one representatively poetic passage, he writes, “it was a chilly fall afternoon with the leaves changing, the current whispering, and a pale moon in a daytime sky. The river seemed inscrutable, but alive with possibility.” Gierach writes about both patience and process, and he describes the long spells between catches as the fisherman’s equivalent of writer’s block. Even when catching fish is the point, it almost seems beside the point (anglers will understand that sentiment): At the end of one essay, he writes, “I was cold, bored, hungry, and fishless, but there was still nowhere else I’d have rather been—something anyone who fishes will understand.” Most readers will be profoundly moved by the meditation on mortality within the blandly titled “Up in Michigan,” a character study of a man dying of cancer. Though the author had known and been fishing with him for three decades, his reticence kept anyone from knowing him too well. Still, writes Gierach, “I came to think of [his] glancing pronouncements as Michigan haiku: brief, no more than obliquely revealing, and oddly beautiful.” Ultimately, the man was focused on settling accounts, getting in one last fishing trip, and then planning to “sit in the sun and think things over until it’s time for hospice.”
In these insightfully droll essays, Gierach shows us how fishing offers plenty of time to think things over.Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6858-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 21, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
Share your opinion of this book
More by John Gierach
BOOK REVIEW
by John Gierach
BOOK REVIEW
by John Gierach
BOOK REVIEW
by John Gierach
by Dave Lowry ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 7, 2005
A broad and deep look at Japan’s medieval referents, and a capable illustration of a martial art form steeped in rich...
A reflective and entertaining journey through Japan, as the author seeks to reconnect with his martial arts sensei.
Lowry is a student of koryu (not to be confused with kendo), a style of Japanese classical swordsmanship. Koryu is a medieval art, like Noh and the tea ceremony, a style of combat born on the battlefield–but more importantly, it’s a way to address the world (though an esoteric one: Lowry may well be the only American practicing the art in the United States). Indeed, present-day practitioners refrain from exercising its fatal possibilities. Lowry’s sensei left the U.S. to return to Japan, urging Lowry to follow. Though his life headed in a different direction, he never forgot his training–when the time was ripe, he journeyed to Japan to join his sensei. The narrative revolves around this pivotal decision, and it provides a warm center from which the author expounds on such topics as the glories of a Japanese bath; the evolution of the Samurai caste; the peculiarities of Japanese landscape architecture; the elements of proper sandal-tying; the custom of the premarital shenanigans called yobai; and the teachings of mikkyo Buddhism. He also includes the vital story of the sword–what it reveals about Japanese life and technology, social structure and aesthetic values, etiquette, apprenticeship and the process of education. Lowry’s seriousness lends an earnest cast to the proceedings, but he’s not without a sense of humor–commenting upon his accomplished slurping of noodles, a friend’s wife notes, “He really sucks!”
A broad and deep look at Japan’s medieval referents, and a capable illustration of a martial art form steeped in rich tradition.Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2005
ISBN: 1-890536-10-5
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Share your opinion of this book
More by Dave Lowry
BOOK REVIEW
by Dave Lowry
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.