A richly anecdotal look at what people choose to cherish and remember.
A compendium of the many ways that people memorialize their own stories and those of their loved ones.
Groft’s (Artichokes & City Chicken, 2015, etc.) latest nonfiction work asks simple questions: Wouldn’t it be nice if one could carry a piece of luggage that contained reminders of the tangible and intangible things that matter most in life? What would that “Joy Chest” look like, and how would one decide what to put in it? To provide answers to these hypotheticals, she assembles dozens of stories of real people at different points in their lives deciding what to put in their own Joy Chests. These items include a congratulatory telegram from a father, saved for half a century; samples of a mother’s forthright signature before she started suffering from dementia; a wooden nickel obtained during a daring cross-country drive; a treasured copy of Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha, and so on. The concept of the Joy Chest extends to larger items saved for sentimental reasons, such as a pair of dining-room chairs and a prized, framed painting. In a series of short, epigrammatic chapters, Groft creates a rounded and highly encouraging inducement for readers to pay attention to truly important things, and she memorializes her various subjects with contagiously happy storytelling. Probably inevitably, a good many of the anecdotes feel a bit sanded-down and simplistic; the book’s more general chapters about the concept of drawing strength from memories may leave the most lasting impressions. Still, she offers clear and warmly optimistic prose throughout, as when she writes: “No matter its form, the beauty of the Joy Chest, like a tender heart, is that which spills out of it—gratitude, memories, inspiration, a precious moment in time, connections to people and places loved and remembered.”
A richly anecdotal look at what people choose to cherish and remember.Pub Date: July 9, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9842306-2-4
Page Count: 140
Publisher: Graham House Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 29, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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