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SHE’S A BAD MOTORCYCLE

Name: SHE’S A BAD MOTORCYCLE
Author: Geno Zanetti
ISBN: 1-56025-317-7

WRITERS ON RIDING

edited by Geno Zanetti ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

For all its ugly truths, a well-mulled compilation. Only born outlaws will be drawn to the motorcycle life by these...

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Journalist and motorcycle aficionado Zanetti has assembled a heady collection that strikes every imaginable pose in its celebration of the motorcycle, that transport to lawlessness and freewheeling.

Once the exhaust fumes of this collection have cleared, the motorcycle’s bad-boy reputation will remain intact. Some of the 29 contributors are bike fans pure and simple, like Fred Haefele and his Indians. A couple of others—Tom McGuane and his Matchless 500, Rachel Kushner and her maniac stem-to-stern Baha race—have brief flings. Robert Pirsig indulges in pre-Socratic ruminations over his beefy machine. But it is the outlaw—from Hell’s Angels, Satan’s Slaves, Coffin Cheaters, Pagans (“Hairy, bearded, swastika toting sixties style outlaws . . . hicksters and Southrons”)—who holds the spotlight here. He might be one of the boys himself, like Sonny Barger, Hell’s Angels’ leader, who notes that his first machine was a Cushman scooter—a disturbing image, though he probably wasn’t wearing a sawed-off denim jacket at 13—or the truly scary Frank Reynolds, who blithely goes on about raping women. Or he could be one of a number of writers, from Tom Wolfe, who describes a crazywild collision between the Merry Pranksters and the Hell’s Angels, to Hunter S. Thompson, who comes across in an excerpt from Life Styles (much of this material is culled from elsewhere) as badder than the bad guys, hungry for something sick and violent: “I wasn’t particularly opposed to the idea of a riot, but I didn’t want it to happen right then, and with my car in the middle.”

For all its ugly truths, a well-mulled compilation. Only born outlaws will be drawn to the motorcycle life by these writings; a brief sojourn among the bikers, and then only a careful selection of them, will be enough for most.

Pub Date: March 1, 2001

ISBN: 1-56025-317-7

Page Count: 326

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
PLAYERS
edited by Stephen Hyde & Geno Zanetti

- BOOK REVIEW
WHITE LINES
edited by Stephen Hyde & Geno Zanetti

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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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

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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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.