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
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
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