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SPORTSWRITER

Name: SPORTSWRITER
Author: Charles Fountain
ISBN: 0-19-506176-4

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF GRANTLAND RICE

by Charles Fountain ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1993

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As Fountain (Journalism/Northeastern) admits in this fine biography, Grantland Rice's ``florid style'' and ``saccharin rhyme...would doom him to deserved obscurity'' today. But in the 1920's and 30's, Rice was the most important and widely read sportswriter in America. Following the 1924 Army-Notre Dame game at the Polo Grounds, Rice penned what Fountain calls ``the most famous lead in sports journalism history''—``Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again''—and immortalized the Irish backfield of Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley, and Layden. Rice's knack for the golden phrase went back to his early days in Nashville: ``The One Great Scorer...marks/not that you won or lost/but how you played the Game.'' Verse headed almost every column and story from Rice's first job at his hometown Nashville Daily News, where he made $5 a week, to his heyday with the New York Tribune, where, in 1925, he earned an unheard-of $1,000 a week. With his syndicated column, his association with Collier's magazine, his Sportlight Films productions, and his radio work, the ``dean'' of sports journalism became as much a celebrity as the men he immortalized. Finding ``nobility and gentility'' in his subject, Fountain notes that Rice embodied the ``gee whiz'' school of sportswriting as opposed to the ``aw nuts'' school of Damon Runyon and Ring Lardner. Fountain owns up to Rice's ``glib insensitivity and ignorance'' on matters of race, however, admitting that Rice was as derogatory of Jess Willard and Joe Louis as any other sportswriter, and that he only grudgingly gave Jesse Owens his due. But Rice's 67 million words of ``purple prose'' over a 53-year career played no small part, he emphasizes, in casting the aura of legend around the likes of Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey, Bobby Jones, and Red Grange. A solid effort that uses ample quotes and examples from Rice's work, providing insight into the man and his times. (Eighteen halftones—not seen)

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1993

ISBN: 0-19-506176-4

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Oxford Univ.

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1993

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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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

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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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.