THE EIGHT O’CLOCK FERRY TO THE WINDWARD SIDE

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THE EIGHT O’CLOCK FERRY TO THE WINDWARD SIDE

Name: THE EIGHT O’CLOCK FERRY TO THE WINDWARD SIDE
Author: Clive Stafford Smith
ISBN: 978-1-56858-374-7

SEEKING JUSTICE IN GUANTÁNAMO BAY

by Clive Stafford Smith ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2007

A well-wrought, timely work of personal and political commitment that should garner a great deal of deserved attention.

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A British human-rights lawyer offers a chilling, evenhanded eyewitness account of his penetration inside one of America’s most notorious military bases.

Guantánamo Bay has been an American naval base since the Spanish-American War and became America’s offshore gulag for prisoners from Afghanistan in January of 2002. Smith is one of 500 lawyers now working on behalf of several thousand prisoners, many held into their fifth year at the base. Only since the author—who has worked with Death Row inmates in New Orleans—and others challenged the prisoners’s basic human rights in a court case brought before the Supreme Court in June 2004 were lawyers even allowed to see the prisoners. The author takes the reader inside the facility, reached by special military plane and divided into two unequal parts, windward and leeward. The main base and prison are situated on the windward side (hence the title). As a lawyer for the “bad men,” Smith is deemed “the enemy” by the military, and has to gain the trust of the men he represents, such as Binyam Mohamed, indicted in the wake of José Padilla’s “dirty bomb plot” of 2002, and Sami al-Haj, a cameraman for the Arab TV station al-Jazeera, which has been systematically targeted by the Bush administration for its terrorist coverage. Most interesting is Smith’s exploration of the camp’s chronic use of deception, from censorship to Orwellian semantics. He exposes the continued holding of minors and the military’s inability to assess the guilt of the inmates, offering a pertinent look into the current “politics of hatred” and the ineffectual response of this dreaded garrison.

A well-wrought, timely work of personal and political commitment that should garner a great deal of deserved attention.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2007

ISBN: 978-1-56858-374-7

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Nation Books

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2007

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.