Fans of Amory's delightful cat books (The Cat and the Curmudgeon, 1990; The Cat Who Came for Christmas, 1987) may find this third and final volume in the series disappointing: It's really more a memoir of Amory's college days and writing career than an account of his famed relationship with his much beloved feline, Polar Bear. This isn't to say, however, that Amory's life hasn't been interesting. As he travels with Polar Bear to reunions at Milton Academy and Harvard, we find out much about his prep school and university days. With the help of Katharine Hepburn and her family, he landed a plum editorial job right out of college with the Saturday Evening Post and soon was spending a summer in France hobnobbing with celebrities as a guest of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. (He was supposed to ghostwrite an autobiography of the Duchess, but the project never got off the ground.) Later, Amory achieved his own fame, spending 14 years as a critic for TV Guide. (The hilarious excerpts from his 1963-76 column—write-ups on Queen for a Day, Let's Make a Deal, etc.—are one of the highlights here.) The two concluding chapters, about the declining health of both Amory and his cat—they both become arthritic; Amory gets hit by a truck; Polar Bear develops incurable kidney problems—are the most compelling, and Amory's moving account of his decision to put his dear companion of 15 years to sleep is heartrending. Happily, his eventual adoption of a new waif, Tiger Bear, ends matters on an uplifting note. Not the best cat book ever—but R.I.P., Polar Bear. (B&W line drawings throughout)
Pub Date: Oct. 26, 1993
ISBN: 0-316-03744-3
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1993
BOOK REVIEW
Peter Mayle fans who haven’t yet had enough of Provence knockoffs will enjoy Drinkwater’s genteel tale, as well as James...
The memoirs of actress and author Drinkwater (Molly on the Run, 1996), best known for her role as Helen Herriot in the 1980s TV series All Creatures Great and Small.
Although the author plays down the importance of her life as an actress, it was through acting that she met her husband, Michel, a film producer. Leaving behind the tinsel of Cannes, the two wandered the back roads of southern France and found an abandoned villa attached to ten acres of old olive trees. The bucolic setting and the vision of themselves as custodians of the land led them to purchase the villa in one fell swoop, but real day-to-day life on the farm proved resistant to their romantic visions. The house hadn’t been lived in for years; simply establishing water and electricity service turned out to be a major job. Refurbishing an old swimming pool was an even more expensive (some might say prodigal) effort. In spite of her successful acting career, and her husband’s ongoing film projects, financial woes soon presented themselves—at least until money flowed in from one of the author’s residuals checks or Michel signed a new contract. Eventually the problems were solved and the grove was producing the finest olive oil in the region, mainly because of the Drinkwaters’ hard work, but even more because of their ability to hire the right people to help out—such as René (who knew just about everything there was to know about olives) and Quashia (an itinerant Algerian with a tragic past). In the end, not surprisingly, the story seems rather like a movie.
Peter Mayle fans who haven’t yet had enough of Provence knockoffs will enjoy Drinkwater’s genteel tale, as well as James Herriot groupies.Pub Date: June 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-58567-106-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Overlook
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
Van der Meer and Berkeley (The Art Pack, not reviewed) present a pop-up book for grown-ups, with a cavalcade of inventive pull- tabs, flaps, and paper-engineering gewgaws. Brass, woodwinds, strings, and voice: The principles behind these diverse ways of making noise are explained. Particularly fun is the rattle used to explain the principle of percussion. It has a handle and a thin membrane from which two orange beads, attached by strings, hang. If you don't learn much about drumming from it, you'll at least have a good game of paddleball. In between gadgets, there's a tolerable history of Western music capped by a time line; a small musical dictionary; and a 75-minute CD with ``Twenty Masterpieces,'' covering, chronologically, Josquin des Prez to Berlioz. (First printing of 100,000; Book-of-the-Month Club alternate selection)
Pub Date: Nov. 22, 1994
ISBN: 0-679-43098-9
Page Count: -
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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