Neither plaything nor conceit, Monninger’s rural idyll is very much a lived experience: genuine, well-earned, and downright...
Monninger (Mather, 1995, etc.) moves upcountry to transform, on a shoestring, a big barn into a home, with the intent of setting down roots—no precious venture this.
It’s a simple, evocative chronicle of the months following Monninger, his girlfriend Wendy, and her son’s purchase of a 6,000-square-foot barn in Warren, New Hampshire. Parts of the structure likely dated back some 200 years; it needed plenty of work, but not so absurdly much that they couldn’t tackle the job on a scant budget, particularly with the help of a local graybeard who helps them get their rural New Hampshire bearings. Monninger is an affable guide to his new home and property and speaks in an unpretentious voice about shaping the landscape, mind’s-eyeing its future configuration and disposition, seeing a wild garden here, and a cultivated one there, and a grass maze in the meadow. The three learn to lay fence and plant a hedge of winterberry, crab, and hawthorn, but are easily distracted by trying to identify the local flora. Everywhere there are mysteries waiting to be unraveled: puzzling whether the saw marks in the beams were pit cut or milled, discovering a swastika hex mark on a basement wall that gives them the willies until they learn of its long history. Keeping the beast of a structure warm proves to be an experience in itself, and they soon learn more than they want to about insulation (and covering all that beautiful interior wood) and stoves. But Monninger is a cheerful soul, and the prospect of umpteen cords of firewood doesn’t depress him; rather, he takes it as an opportunity to learn about the art of woodpiling. It also gives him an abrupt reality check: “Barns are wood, plain and simple, and usually dry wood at that. I’ve read they make a beautiful fire.”
Neither plaything nor conceit, Monninger’s rural idyll is very much a lived experience: genuine, well-earned, and downright enviable.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-8118-2974-X
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2001
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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