If men truly are from Mars and women are from Venus, this field guide provides a simple way to demystify the cosmic differences between the sexes.
Written and illustrated by friends of over 30 years, this funny guide portrays the many types of men, affectionately referred to as Nimroddes, whom young women may encounter. The authors claim that Nimrodde is the “all-encompassing category for what is currently referred to as the human male,” and they provide a tongue-in-cheek evolutionary perspective on the development of man. DeBraak takes a scientific approach to classifying and categorizing the men, lending this book an air of authority. The author provides a witty chapter entitled “How to Use This Guide” that identifies the qualities of each Nimrodde that she discusses: ecology and behavior, similar types, habitat, range, breeding peculiarities and learning opportunities. DeBraak offers intriguing profiles, but there are a few highlights. One, for instance, is the Pinhead. While Pearson’s drawing depicts a typical businessman on a cellphone, smiling cockily, DeBraak explains that this type is called a Pinhead because of its “pin-striped suits or ties” and because it considers itself a “head honcho.” DeBraak says of its breeding peculiarities that “because this type thinks so much of itself, females are considered conquests.” She says that Pinheads are “obsessed with causing others to sweat.” The authors’ comical depiction and classification of the Pinhead reveals the type of self-absorbed businessman commonly found in television and other media. Another type is the Jock. Pearson’s drawing for the Jock is dead-on: a large-jawed man wearing a baseball cap. DeBraak describes the Jock as “carrying around various types of balls” to “display physical superiority and convince females of its desirability.” She notes that one can learn from the Jock that “getting hit in the head or dropped on the head causes brain damage.” Guys reading this book may be slightly surprised by the harsh characterizations and sometimes clichéd descriptions of their gender. When examining Pearson’s appealing illustrations, however, readers will recognize that although the book contains some truth, it also satirizes society’s expectations for men.
A quick and funny companion to He’s Just Not That into You.Pub Date: Nov. 23, 2012
ISBN: 978-1478267409
Page Count: 112
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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A New York Times columnist and editorial board member delivers a slim book for aspiring writers, offering saws and sense, wisdom and waggery, biases and biting sarcasm.
Klinkenborg (Timothy; or, Notes of an Abject Reptile, 2006), who’s taught for decades, endeavors to keep things simple in his prose, and he urges other writers to do the same. (Note: He despises abuses of the word as, as he continually reminds readers.) In the early sections, the author ignores traditional paragraphing so that the text resembles a long free-verse poem. He urges readers to use short, clear sentences and to make sure each one is healthy before moving on; notes that it’s acceptable to start sentences with and and but; sees benefits in diagramming sentences; stresses that all writing is revision; periodically blasts the formulaic writing that many (most?) students learn in school; argues that knowing where you’re headed before you begin might be good for a vacation, but not for a piece of writing; and believes that writers must trust readers more, and trust themselves. Most of Klinkenborg’s advice is neither radical nor especially profound (“Turn to the poets. / Learn from them”), and the text suffers from a corrosive fallacy: that if his strategies work for him they will work for all. The final fifth of the text includes some passages from writers he admires (McPhee, Oates, Cheever) and some of his students’ awkward sentences, which he treats analytically but sometimes with a surprising sarcasm that veers near meanness. He includes examples of students’ dangling modifiers, malapropisms, errors of pronoun agreement, wordiness and other mistakes.
Analyzing his craft, a careful craftsman urges with Thoreauvian conviction that writers should simplify, simplify, simplify.Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-307-26634-7
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2012
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
With this detailed, versatile cookbook, readers can finally make Momofuku Milk Bar’s inventive, decadent desserts at home, or see what they’ve been missing.
In this successor to the Momofuku cookbook, Momofuku Milk Bar’s pastry chef hands over the keys to the restaurant group’s snack-food–based treats, which have had people lining up outside the door of the Manhattan bakery since it opened. The James Beard Award–nominated Tosi spares no detail, providing origin stories for her popular cookies, pies and ice-cream flavors. The recipes are meticulously outlined, with added tips on how to experiment with their format. After “understanding how we laid out this cookbook…you will be one of us,” writes the author. Still, it’s a bit more sophisticated than the typical Betty Crocker fare. In addition to a healthy stock of pretzels, cornflakes and, of course, milk powder, some recipes require readers to have feuilletine and citric acid handy, to perfect the art of quenelling. Acolytes should invest in a scale, thanks to Tosi’s preference of grams (“freedom measurements,” as the friendlier cups and spoons are called, are provided, but heavily frowned upon)—though it’s hard to be too pretentious when one of your main ingredients is Fruity Pebbles. A refreshing, youthful cookbook that will have readers happily indulging in a rising pastry-chef star’s widely appealing treats.
Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-307-72049-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Clarkson Potter
Review Posted Online: Jan. 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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