by Frances X. Paulo Huber Frank Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 28, 2013
A well-laid sense of humor brings this golfing journey alive.
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Huber’s account, in collaboration with PGA pro Frank Lee, of her comical attempts to master a sport that “epitomized absurdity.”
Huber came late to golf. Her new husband assured her: “It’s a great sport for a married couple. Time together outdoors. Just the two of us.” This often hilarious account of her “journey into golf” takes her from bumbling ineptitude beyond proficiency. Initially, she has a jaundiced view of the sport—“a heart-breaking exercise in which the rules and equipment and playing field are stacked against you, making a decent performance difficult and perfection impossible”—and struggles to even make contact with a ball. She has amusingly disastrous sessions with her coaches: “Think about turning around to shake hands with the person behind you,” Vinnie “King of the Swing” Russo says in instructing her how to swing a golf club. “What person?” she asks. A female coach introduces herself by announcing, “It takes someone with boobs to teach other people with boobs how to play golf.” But it’s only with the imperturbable Lee, a Korean-American, as her coach that Huber starts to make progress. “Golf like life,” he tells her. “Nothing always works.” As she proceeds on her journey, Huber has imaginary conversations with various fictitious companions, including Lawrence of Arabia. “Sand shots are simple,” he advises after she plunks a shot into a bunker. “Just take your normal swing.” Elsewhere, a father-and-son coaching team are “golfing Mozarts,” she writes. Huber’s wit and distinctive sense of the absurd—her husband describes her brainwork as a “cross between thoroughly literal and thoroughly imaginative”—bring her golfing journey alive. Huber also provides revealing glimpses of the “ghosts from my past,” taking readers back to an adolescence during which she suffered from depression, and she savors the beauty of a golf course’s “shorn lawns, raked traps, pruned trees and bedded-out flowers.” Still, she tells her husband, “If life were like golf, the human race would have died out centuries ago through mass suicide. Who could tolerate an existence so unfair? Life isn’t like golf in the least.”
A well-laid sense of humor brings this golfing journey alive.Pub Date: Dec. 28, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4827-1606-2
Page Count: 214
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996
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
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by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955
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.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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