From Kurzman (Fatal Voyage, A Killing Wind, etc.), a telling rundown on a WW II disaster that seldom rates more than a footnote in standard chronicles. On the night of November 12, 1942, a small American flotilla engaged in a furious battle with Japanese warships off Guadalcanal. The next morning, while the surviving US vessels were limping toward safe harbor, a torpedo from an undetected submarine slammed into the already crippled Juneau. The missile touched off below- deck explosions that sent the light cruiser to the bottom in seconds. Convinced that all hands had been lost, the task force commander maintained radio silence and cleared the area. As it happened, however, over 140 of the doomed ship's 700-man crew lived through the blast and were plunged into the shark-infested sea: when a belated rescue effort was launched almost a week later, there were only ten barely sane castaways left to save. Drawing on interviews with survivors and on archival sources, Kurzman offers harrowing tales of the ordeals experienced by the quick and the dead; among the latter were all five brothers from the Waterloo, Iowa, Sullivan family, who (against naval policy) had served together on a single craft. Addressed as well are the oversights and blunders that, despite repeated aerial sightings, delayed a systematic recovery operation that probably could have saved a hundred or more sailors. While punishments were quietly meted out to culpable officers, the author notes that the home front (diverted by sympathetic coverage of the Sullivans' loss) never received a full accounting of a calamity that ranks among the most agonizing in the annals of the US military. Kurzman's evenhanded and absorbing report not only bridges a long-standing gap in the history books but pays fitting tribute to those lost. (Photos—16 pages—not seen)
Pub Date: March 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-671-74873-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1994
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
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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