A lighthearted travel book that encourages through example.
Travel blogger Holmes (I’ve Gotta Pack, 2011) encourages travelers to leave their stress behind in this motivational memoir.
Almost everyone wishes that they could travel more, but so few people are able to make it a priority. With the omnipresent stresses of work and family, it can be easy to put off desired travel unless someone gives you a friendly shove, as the author attempts to do here. “I’d love to give you a nudge and tell you a few tales about how travel has changed me,” writes Holmes in her introduction to this emphatically pro-vacation volume. About two years after quitting her ad agency job in 2003 and starting her own marketing company, Holmes embarked with a friend on a whirlwind tour of Paris before joining a hiking group that climbed 4,000 feet up Mont Blanc. Another time, she and three friends took a car on a 10-day odyssey through Spain and the Pyrenees. Holmes encourages Americans to travel within the United States as well, as she did during an adventure across California and Nevada as part of a group that she playfully refers to as “5 Hos and a Bro.” Nearly every page of the book features uncredited, full-color photographs of Holmes and her companions or of some of the sites that she describes. Holmes is an affable, if idiosyncratic, tour guide; for instance, she’s a big fan of cheeky acronyms, such as “BYOB” for “Be Your Own Boss” or “PWDS” for “People Who Don’t Suck.” Her stories are fun, though not outrageous, and involve such things as botched hotel reservations or munching on unusual foods. She mostly visits rather well-known places during her one- or two-week getaways, and by making clear how much fun she had and how much she cherishes her memories, she’ll instill a powerful desire in the hearts of readers to do similar things with their own friends and family members. Indeed, by the end of the first chapter, some readers may start planning excursions of their own.
A lighthearted travel book that encourages through example.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-0-9846481-4-6
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Content Queens LLC
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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