Bouchier’s (A Few Well Chosen Words, 2008, etc.) fourth collection of his public radio commentaries reads like a top-of-mind brainstorm.
Covering topics from prejudice to politics, Bouchier pontificates in manageable, bite-sized meanderings on everything from the mundane—such as remembering computer passwords—to end-of-the-world prophesies. For Bouchier, no topic is too big or too small to take a position. In “Global Absolutely Everything,” he addresses the sad reality that just about everything we buy in America is made somewhere else. “They Know Where You Are” is his defense of the need for road maps even in the age of GPS. He takes on a few serious subjects—“The Voice of Authority” highlights the negative messages being broadcast to viewers through reality television, and “No Place to Hide” laments the loss of personal privacy—and also chimes in with a personal pet peeve or two, as in “A Glass of Penguin and Thou,” in which he discusses his irritation with modern winemakers who are taking the culture and mystique out of being a wine enthusiast with their silly labels and often crass names. (He drives his point home by using an example from James Bond’s Goldfinger in which an assassin posing as a wine waiter gives himself away by claiming that claret is not a Bordeaux, noting: “Bond killed him of course, which was only right.”) Bouchier peppers many of the short vignettes with deadpan wit but also freely displays his humorous side in essays like “Never Again” in which he regales the reader with his thoughts on the annual avalanche of seasonal catalogs—especially those that promise to permanently solve just about every issue from shower mold to cushions sliding off the chair, noting that he has neither a problem with shower mold, nor sliding chair cushions, as his are held firmly in place by his cats. Filled with humorous, wry, often spot-on observations of real life in today’s world, Bouchier’s insightful musings are not to be missed.
Pub Date: July 6, 2011
ISBN: 978-0615458922
Page Count: 462
Publisher: Mid Atlantic Productions
Review Posted Online: Jan. 30, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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