by Bridget Fonti ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 21, 2015
A gripping, affecting account of a woman’s travels in hidden worlds.
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Australian author Fonti (Adventures in Travel Photography, 2015) explores the plight of a group of Muslim women at the end of the 20th century in this travel memoir.
As a backpacker, the author arrived in Peshawar, Pakistan, on a whim, interested to see what was known then, in 1998, as the “wild west of Asia.” An obscure group called the Taliban had recently taken control of neighboring Afghanistan. The Taliban were Pathans—the same tribal ethnicity as Peshawar’s inhabitants. Fonti quickly realized she had made a mistake coming to the city: as a young woman, traveling alone, she attracted hostile stares from men with long beards and unconcealed automatic weapons. Yet, during this trip, Fonti decided to go deeper, launching an investigation into the lives of Muslim women that eventually stretched from Pakistan to Sweden and Iran. All the women she encountered were attempting to make good lives for themselves despite their second-class status. Her guide to this world was an Iranian named Shaheen: “We were both liberals, but from two different worlds,” she writes. “While India had left me with a bad case of white persons guilt, Shaheen felt ashamed of what being Muslim had come to mean in western eyes.” But although he seemed to share her values, she writes that there was something more hiding behind his bright eyes. Fonti is an able prose stylist and a compelling narrator, her voice equal parts wonder, curiosity, and trepidation. She’s able to embrace the naïveté and narcissism of a First World interloper without allowing it to invalidate her opinions or experiences. It’s not her status as an educated Westerner that makes her a valuable witness, but as an empathetic yet apprehensive outsider. The 1998 setting—pre-9/11, pre-invasion, pre-everything the world now knows about militant fundamentalism in certain corners of the Muslim world—adds a terrible thrill to her narrative. From the weary vantage point of 2015, readers will proceed with the nagging fear that Fonti had no idea what she was getting herself into, and the persistent worry that no one would have known where to look for her if she didn’t come back.
A gripping, affecting account of a woman’s travels in hidden worlds.Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9943132-3-2
Page Count: 186
Publisher: Charcoal Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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 Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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