by Brian Keenan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 12, 2006
Keenan’s self-deprecating humor and eagerness to learn set this apart from many travelogues.
Where does an Irishman go after reading The Call of the Wild? To the Arctic Circle, of course.
In 2003, Keenan (An Evil Cradling, 1993) traveled to Alaska armed with a Jack London epigraph (“There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise”) and a head full of dreams. He planned to make a five-month journey with his wife and two sons; in Fairbanks, the family picked up an RV, which the author grandly named the Pequod, while his young son prosaically dubbed it “the car-house.” Keenan learned to manage a dog team—“Every time I took a spill my team barked and yelped as if they were a team of hyenas and my comic performance was to their liking”—and during a practice sleigh run was beguiled by the colors of an aurora borealis. But when the Pequod headed south toward the far reaches of Denali National Park, the land and its inhabitants got stranger. White proprietors refused to sell gas to the Keenans, and evangelical injunctions were plastered everywhere. After reaching Valdez, the author was warned about various religious and right-wing cults populating the area. Returning to Fairbanks, Keenan subsequently traveled the Alaskan Highway with a long-distance trucker and flew to attend a traditional Gwich’in gathering in Arctic Village, where he inadvertently set up camp in a graveyard. He eventually decided to abandon his pursuit of London’s Yukon footsteps, and the family lingered in Sitka, where “the summer was ending with glorious haste, and under the green canopy of the evergreen forest autumn colors were setting the hillsides ablaze.”
Keenan’s self-deprecating humor and eagerness to learn set this apart from many travelogues.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2006
ISBN: 0-7679-2325-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Broadway
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2006
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by Brian Keenan
by William Strunk & E.B. White ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 15, 1972
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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by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996
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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by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson
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by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis
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