McCumber (X-Rated: The Mitchell Brothers, 1992) hits the road with professional pool player Tony Annigoni, determined to make a killing in the sometimes twilight world of pool hustlers. McCumber found himself with a surplus of cash and time, and few responsibilities after completing his last book. A pool devotee, he decided to live out a lifelong dream to go on the road, from pool hall to pool hall. Needless to say, he was smart enough to know that if he played for himself, he would very quickly be broke, so he hooked up with Annigoni, a world-class player and ``Renaissance hustler,'' a man of wit and erudition who also plays a mean game of nine-ball. Starting at the Q Club, of which Annigoni was part owner, the two traveled back and forth across North America looking for action, sometimes joined by Tony's mentor, Richard Court, better known as Bucktooth. The result is a delightful and affectionate look at one of America's seedier subcultures, currently experiencing a new boom and a yuppified image. McCumber is a good explainer, and as a result, you needn't have grown up around a pool hall to follow the action. He is also amusingly self-effacing where his own skills are concerned and mordant in his assessment of a society that could produce the extensive urban detritus that he and Annigoni are confronted with in such garden spots as Akron, Ohio, and Bellflower, Calif. And readers will learn a wide variety of useful lessons, including why pool balls are a better weapon than a cue stick in a brawl. You have to love a book whose characters include Cornbread Red, Filipino Gene, and Nine-Ball Paul. It gets a little long toward the end, but on the whole, this is a refreshing and very funny look at the world of pool, billiards, and snooker. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42374-5
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
On a quest to discover the origins of an exquisite embroidered robe and amulet she found in London, British textile expert Paine chronicles her journeys from Pakistan to Bulgaria through some of the world's wildest outposts of civilization. Determined to track down the source of a tribal dress that protects women against evil spirits, Paine ventures as a lone, vulnerable woman through remote areas of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Kurdistan, Turkey, and Bulgaria she travels armed only with photos of the embroidery, five kilos of luggage, a bottle of vodka, the Afghan amulet around her neck, and cash sewn into her bra and socks. She wends her way by bus, jeep, and hitchhiker's luck through police checks and villages where camels and Kalashinkovs are everyday sights and women's embroidery and crimson sunsets are the only vibrancy in a barren rockscape. A widow in her 60s, Paine stays in homes with bullet-ridden mud walls and in hotels without water, electricity, bedding, phone, or cutlery where she barricades her door to keep out lecherous nocturnal visitors. Babies cry at the sight of her and men either pelt her with rocks or gallantly protect and then assault her. She sneaks into Iran through a Khomeini-crowned gate and is smuggled into Iraq, where Saddam has a bounty on Westerners' heads. Under the protective guises of widowhood, motherhood, and local costume, she enters women's domestic sanctums to view their handiwork. In lyrical prose she describes lands ravaged by extreme seasons and political turmoil, where men discuss nuclear weapons and dowries, and women, hidden by veils, have 18 children while supporting their families. Ultimately, Paine's textile quest, which is solved with a twist, merely provides a pretext for a fascinating and beautifully written account of an odyssey through extreme physical, cultural, and spiritual wildernesses. Paine displays the courage of a frontierswoman and the prose of a poet, making this indispensable for hearty travelers. (3 linecuts and 5 maps)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-312-11236-X
Page Count: 304
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
Pedestrian mini-biographies of three women who are household names among members of the Cuisinart set. Although Reardon (Oysters: A Culinary Celebration, not reviewed) clearly esteems her subjects, all of whom she met while preparing this book, her narratives lack the necessary spark to make them more than the sum of their many — and not always interesting — details. While she records meetings among the women, she does not weave the three biographies into a coherent whole exploring the US culinary scene. Instead, she follows M.F.K. Fisher from youth through three husbands (material about her menage a trois with husband number one and future husband number two made it into The Gastronomical Me), the Depression-era beginnings of her writing career, and friendship with Julia Child, whom she met as a co-contributor to a book on provincial French cooking. Child's career took off while she lived in Paris, where she met Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, who wanted to produce a "big book" introducing American audiences to French cooking. Joining in with the willingness to work and the enthusiasm that later endeared her to television audiences, Child was instrumental in shaping what became the landmark Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The least appealing portrait is that of Alice Waters, who comes across as self-absorbed. Converted to fine dining during a student trip to France, Waters tried, on returning to Berkeley, to persuade fellow activists there to spruce up their menus, arguing that even striking French communists were discriminating eaters. With determination, she and her mostly novice employees made a success of their imaginative restaurant in Berkeley's "gourmet ghetto," and by the time The Chez Panisse Menu Cookbook was published in 1982, Waters was, as Reardon notes, "So In, We Could Die." Strictly for the adoring fans of these culinary celebrities. Others will find it indigestible.
Pub Date: Oct. 12, 1994
ISBN: 0-517-57748-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harmony
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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