A pleasing combination of personal essays and reflections, a love story and a naturalist's view of one of the last unspoiled...
Prolific essayist Hoagland (Sex and the River Styx, 2011, etc.) vividly reflects on a time, 30 years ago, when he repeatedly fled his failing second marriage to follow a younger nurse through Alaska.
The nurse was testing the locals for tuberculosis and treating a wide variety of ailments, from injuries resulting from a jet-ski accident to wounds from a bar fight. “At Seattle the business suits scuttled off officiously, to be supplanted by jitterily jean-clad, provisional souls, Alaska-bound roughnecks who looked like hijackers," Hoagland writes of the flights before his adventures. His trips, paid for by assignments from magazine editors, led him to interview the new millionaires making their claim on the state to natives such as Hubert Koonuk, who single-handedly killed 36 polar bears. Like an anthropological study, Hoagland records the details of Koonuk’s traditional life, such as the craftsmanship of his skin boat, which he used for hunting seals and bowhead whales. With the same verve, the author profiles Bob Uchitel, who brought cable TV to the far reaches of the Alaskan wilds following a successful construction company, sponsorship of a prizefighter in the lower 48 and several other profitable businesses, before dying a recluse with a Maserati and Corvette in his garage. Hoagland inserts historical facts about the towns and cities he visited, and he provides plenty of appealing natural descriptions of a wondrous landscape.
A pleasing combination of personal essays and reflections, a love story and a naturalist's view of one of the last unspoiled lands.Pub Date: April 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-61145-503-8
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Arcade
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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