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A GATHERING OF WONDERS

Name: A GATHERING OF WONDERS
Author: Joseph Wallace
ISBN: 0-312-25221-8

BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

by Joseph Wallace ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2000

Wallace’s telling tends to glorify them all—no warts at all in this display. Despite that, this is a fascinating portrait of...

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A catalogue and chronology of the curators of the great (dinosaurs) and small (insects) who have graced the halls of the Museum since its inception in 1869.

Wallace (The American Museum of Natural History’s Book of Dinosaurs and Other Ancient Creatures, 1994) goes the whole nine yards in this paean to the scholars and artists who amassed and mounted the collections on view (or more likely in storage) on New York’s Central Park West. For starters, he celebrates Carl Akeley as both collector and taxidermist: an early voice for biodiversity; Akeley lived to see a sanctuary for the mountain gorilla established in the Belgian Congo in 1925. Also celebrated in the how-to-display-it category is the ceiling suspension of a model of the great blue whale, the largest mammal ever (earlier, fairly preposterous ideas were happily scotched when a canny curator suggested that decaying whale flesh odors wafting across a proposed model of a beached whale would create just the right atmosphere). Best are these longish pieces that create a sense of time, place, and character of the museum and its stars (from Roy Chapman Andrews to Margaret Mead). Otherwise, one tends to get lost in the archives of ichthyology, herpetology, gems, entomology, paleontology (big and little beasts), ornithology, and finally anthropology/ethnography. Yes, they are all here—the painstaking dissectors who sort out species of juncos, spiders, and mammals, fossil fishes and turtles and flies in amber. Some, like Libbie Hyman, spent over 30 years producing volumes of information on all known invertebrates. Others have developed or promoted cladistics (a system of classifying species) or proposed still-controversial ideas about evolution (like the punctuated equilibrium theory of Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldridge).

Wallace’s telling tends to glorify them all—no warts at all in this display. Despite that, this is a fascinating portrait of one of the world’s great museums—and one of New York’s crown jewels.

Pub Date: June 1, 2000

ISBN: 0-312-25221-8

Page Count: 288

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2000

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE LIGHTBULB
by Joseph Wallace

- BOOK REVIEW
THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY'S BOOK OF DINOSAURS AND OTHER ANCIENT CREATURES
by Joseph Wallace

- BOOK REVIEW
THE BASEBALL ANTHOLOGY
edited by Joseph Wallace

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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.