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My Cousin & Me

Name: My Cousin & Me
Author: Gordon Harrison
ISBN: 978-0-9879596-6-9

AND OTHER ANIMALS

by Gordon Harrison ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 15, 2016

A flawed but often engaging account of one man’s deeply personal relationship with Canadian wildlife.

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This “natural history memoir” uses anecdotes, philosophy, and evolutionary theory to describe the flora and fauna of rural Ontario.

In this book, Canadian author Harrison (Immortal Ideas: Shared by Art, Science, and Nature, 2014, etc.) describes childhood encounters with animals, plants, and insects of his native region, interspersing his remembrances with more recent tales of his cabin near his old family home. In one passage, for example, he shares observations of his bear “neighbors,” to whom he’s given names and personalities; he supplements his memories with scientific and philosophical insights into the bears’ life cycles. This sequence is engaging, funny, and moving and represents the author’s writing at its best. The rest of the book similarly mixes memory, fact, and philosophy. It devotes many chapters to particular animals (owls, deer, and wolves, among others, all get moments in the spotlight), and Harrison seems particularly fascinated by how his subjects have adapted in order to survive the evolutionary arms race. The book offers appealing, candid nature photographs throughout and also describes the people who shaped the author’s childhood, including intriguing glimpses of his mother and father. However, Harrison is a better naturalist than he is a memoirist; his family and friends feel only lightly sketched in comparison to the book’s nonhuman characters. The titular cousin, for example, rarely transcends his characterization as a Huckleberry Finn archetype. There also seems to be no organizing principle as to how the author orders his chapters as he does. The prose often slips into repetitive rhapsodizing, occasionally indulges in truisms (“Without death, there would be no life”), and sometimes makes confusing leaps; at one point, for example, Harrison claims to have seen the rarely observed saw-whet owl and then begins an anecdote about a totally different bird. There’s also a disconcerting lack of citations given the large amount of scientific content here.

A flawed but often engaging account of one man’s deeply personal relationship with Canadian wildlife.

Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-9879596-6-9

Page Count: 302

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2016

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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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.