Precise reveries about the essential, overlooked domestic elements that shape our perception of a home. Thorne, who usually writes about food (Serious Pig, 1996; Outlaw Cook, 1992), brings the eye for specifics of a culinary writer to meditations on beds, closets (``A house lives in the space where we do not. . . . The cellar is its base, the attic the apex, and every closet a column: a temple of invisible, unlived-in space''), chests of drawers, stairs (``A stairway isn't merely a means of getting up and down. It's also a kind of doorway between floors, which is to say, between two competing realms of space''), windows, bathtubs, chairs, and stoves. Such celebrations of the everyday can quickly become precious. Thorne's don't because he displays a deft wit and a talent for basing his musings on autobiographical incidents. A modest charmer. (20 drawings)
Pub Date: Aug. 14, 1997
ISBN: 0-88001-514-4
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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