From Canadian publisher de Villiers (Down the Volga, 1992, etc.): a fruity, complex story of a California winemaker—a tale much like crushed raspberries on a summer's day, with a heartbreaking, underlying silkiness and a faint hint of fresh farm butter. De Villiers tracked down master vintner Josh Jensen at the Calera winery in California after he had unexpectedly been served an incredible domestic but Burgundian pinot noir—``like rubies under fire''—at a small dinner party. De Villiers dipped his nose into the glass, inhaled slowly, and took a small sip: ``It was rich and complex, with a maddening hint of chocolate and violets. I groped for descriptives, as wine people do, without much luck.'' Hooked, utterly! Not much later, de Villiers was interviewing Jensen, the maverick winemaker who produced this pinot noir under conditions that the California wine establishment declared entirely inhospitable to his project. De Villiers tells of the winery and its workers; of the place in Burgundy where the vines of ``the heartbreak grape'' came from (it's called heartbreak ``because of its fickle nature and of its tendency to veer wildly from thin plonk to vins de garde); about the hilltop wilderness that Jensen turned into vineyards; planting the first vines; how the vines are managed with tender loving care; the importance of limestone; Jensen's stubborn desire to make the best pinot noir in America; the fight for water against the draught; the crucial, anxiety- ridden decision about the best time to pick the grapes; the business risks, fermentation; and bottling, racking, hyping, and pricing. Great wit about the poetics of sensation: not to be gulped but sipped, and for the full body let it breathe by your bed as the bouquet rises ``to the vaults in the brain where nostalgic memories are stored.''
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-06-258523-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1993
A ho-hum digest of 100 Bill of Rights cases decided by justices Brennan and Rehnquist along predictable ideological lines. ``This is not an insider's account,'' warns Irons (Political Science/Univ. of California, San Diego; The Courage of Their Convictions, 1988, etc.) in his preface. ``I did not interview either justice for this book. Neither have I talked with former clerks or looked at private papers.'' Bad move. Had Irons provided some behind-the-robes analysis, this book might have had drama. (Irons himself acknowledges Brennan's legendary ability to use his charm to win votes in controversial cases.) And had he focused on far fewer cases—say, ten—his analysis might have had some depth. Instead, this numbing case-by-case-by-case summary provides little insight into the jurisprudence of the men who, for 18 years, were the Court's leading voices on the left and right—and even less insight into their personalities. After a perfunctory stab at characterizing each justice in a chapter-long biography, Irons proceeds to march through the Bill of Rights, offering an overly dense historical context for each amendment and then quoting from Brennan's opinion, on the one hand, and Rehnquist's on the other. Most of the big constitutional issues of the post-Warren Court are here—abortion, affirmative action, the death penalty, the right to die, school prayer. But all Irons offers is the revelation that Brennan consistently votes for individual litigants against the government, and uses the word ``dignity'' in his opinions a lot, while Rehnquist sides with state legislatures and the police, and relies on the word ``deference.'' (Fans of Rehnquist will chafe at the frequent snide comments about his proclivities for ignoring precedent and distorting evidence—but it's unlikely that this tedious book will generate much heat on the subject.) Plodding he-said/he-said treatment that makes for strenuous cover-to-cover reading.
Pub Date: Oct. 5, 1994
ISBN: 0-679-42436-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1994
A prominent neurophysiologist explains his theories about the brain's chemistry and how it affects our conscious (and unconscious) activities. Hobson (Psychiatry/Harvard) espouses a kind of yin-yang view of the brain in which waking states are dominated by ``amines'' (neurotransmitters like norepinephrine that are associated with attention and arousal) and sleeping and vegetative states by acetylcholine. In this hydrodynamic theory amines are depleted as the day wears on and the cholinergic levels rise, precipitating sleep and dreaming—a time when acetylcholine is at its peak. During sleep the system is building up its supply of amines, eventually waking us up. Not altogether a surprising theory, considering that Hobson's first book, The Dreaming Brain and Sleep (not reviewed), reflected similarly his lifelong research into sleep, collection of dream journals, and experiments with lucid (i.e., self-conscious) dreaming. While the notion that we are ruled by our neurochemistry will hardly shock enlightened readers, the tendency in approaches like Hobson's is to overinterpret: Thus the schizophrenic's hallucinations, the fits of expletive-slinging common in Tourette's patients, and the suggestibility of hypnotizable people are all given as examples of involuntary loss of control occurring in waking states (whereas dream sleep creates controls that prevent violent acting out). Curiously, with all the explanatory weight Hobson puts on the importance of sleep and dreaming, he is the first to admit that no one can explain the necessity of dreams; he even suggests that newer drugs that promote production of amines may obviate the need for dreaming. There is obviously more to brain-mind states, more to the bag of neurochemicals and byways of neural circuitry, than Hobson can account for. All the same, his case studies, autobiographical anecdotes, and guidance on how to deal with sleep problems without drugs will intrigue many readers and possibly provide relief to others.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-316-36754-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1994
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
