White and Sorin's Paris isn't exactly like yours or mine: High-fashion designer Azzedine Alaãa lives next door, Julian Schnabel is their host for dinner, and White has the enviable opportunity to introduce another Julian (Barnes) to Tina Turner. ``I haven't read Flaubert's Parrot yet, but I have it on my bedside table,'' she assures the author. This delightful little book is full of such snippets of harmless gossip, often about the not-so- famous people who are indispensable to Parisian life: the concierge, the fruit-and-vegetable man, the cafÇ waiters who serve croissants to Fred, the authors' basset hound. White is, of course, the author of novels (A Boy's Own Story, 1982, etc.) and an award- winning biography of Jean Genet (1993). Sorin was his lover, an architect turned illustrator who died last year of AIDS. They embarked on this joint project during Sorin's illness. It is remarkable, then, how full of life his witty drawings are, and White's text is written in the same spirit, acknowledging but never succumbing to Sorin's impending death. ``Despite the sometimes catty sound of this book, . . . its subtext is love,'' he writes.
Pub Date: Nov. 6, 1995
ISBN: 0-679-44166-2
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1995
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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