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EQUINOX

Name: EQUINOX
Author: Dan O’Brien
ISBN: 1-55821-456-9

LIFE, LOVE, AND FALCONRY IN THE GREAT OUTDOORS

by Dan O’Brien ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 1997

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Facing his own autumnal milestone, a 50-year-old novelist takes time to pursue a lifelong dream: ``to spend three months focused entirely on trying to do falconry right.'' O'Brien (In the Center of the Nation, 1991, etc.) has hunted with falcons since boyhood, when he tamed his first hawk and cobbled together a backyard mews from packing crates. He is now the owner of a ranch near the Black Hills, where he tenuously maintains a life focused on writing and hunting, and where he has better than a thousand acres of South Dakota prairie to work with. In a bid to come to grips with a midlife crisis, and to strengthen his attachment to his life on the land—and to the animals that share it with him—he indulges his falconry passion full-time for a season. Acquiring three fledgling peregrines (one of which develops into the best bird he has ever flown), O'Brien sets about teaching them to hunt sharptailed grouse. The step-by-step account of that delicate process is an eye-opening chronicle of interspecies cooperation and a gripping dramatization of how hard-won is the ideal balance between tameness and wildness that makes falconry possible. Myriad complications ensue—most notably the interference of a renegade Cooper's hawk, which threatens to scare off the falcons until tamed and added to the group. O'Brien counterbalances this narrative by tracing his development as an outdoorsman, eschewing easy sentimentality while forcefully reaffirming his love for nature and for his independent lifestyle. Particularly interesting is the story of how he introduced his wife, Kris (now an avid sportswoman), to hunting. Though O'Brien generally minimizes the Iron John angst, Kris's reasonableness is a welcome foil to his middle-aged craziness, which she reckons, rightly, to be a ``male thing.'' A ``why-do'' book that nevertheless offers plenty of how-to insight for falconry aficionados and newcomers alike—a beautifully wrought, demystifying look at the sport of hunting with hawks.

Pub Date: March 10, 1997

ISBN: 1-55821-456-9

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Lyons Press

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1997

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
WILD IDEA
by Dan O’Brien

- BOOK REVIEW
THE INDIAN AGENT
by Dan O’Brien

- BOOK REVIEW
BUFFALO FOR THE BROKEN HEART
by Dan O’Brien

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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.