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THE CROSSING

Name: THE CROSSING
Author: Martin Delaney
ISBN: 978-1425956158

by Martin Delaney ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 19, 2007

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In this debut travel memoir, a Scottish bicyclist rides across the United States, overcoming natural and man-made hazards along the way.
While navigating his bike along a nearly 4-mile stretch of highway over the swamp plain of Louisiana’s Atchafalaya River, Delaney came face-to-face with his mortality. A 40-ton logging truck approached him rapidly from behind, its air brakes hissing and coughing, and it passed “so close, [he] could smell the pinesap.” This close encounter was one of many hair-raising adventures on the author’s cross-country bike trip, which he chronicles exhaustively in this memoir. As he rode from San Diego, California, to St. Augustine, Florida—a bruising journey of 3,112 miles—he dealt with weather conditions ranging from searing heat in the deserts of the Southwest to 4 inches of snow in the Davis Mountains of Texas. The road threw all manner of hazards at him; when dogs attacked him in Arizona, for example, he fended off one “mangy brute” by bringing his aluminum bicycle pump down on its “slobbery snout.” In an incident eerily redolent of the finale of the 1969 film Easy Rider, a female motorist in Cajun country who looked like “ ‘Barbie’ on crack,” yelled at him to “Geroff da road.” Delaney stood there “like a Buddha as she exploded in a long stream of abuse.” There’s enough detail here about the art of long-distance bicycling, surviving roach-ridden motel rooms and finding off-road campsites (the author spent one night in a drainage culvert) to satisfy most aficionados of adventure travel books. However, Delaney reveals little about himself, apart from confessing that he left behind “a very serious mid-life crisis heralded by imminent redundancy, recent separation and impending divorce.” At one point, after calling Scotland from Texas to deal with fallout from his 22-year marriage, he rode on “with a crushing sense of sorrow and loss,” as the “bad karma of my recent past” came rushing back. However, such thoughts are never developed, and pass by as quickly as a logging truck.
This adventure travel book has plenty of detail, but its lack of insight into the author’s life may limit its appeal.

Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2007

ISBN: 978-1425956158

Page Count: 304

Publisher: AuthorHouseUK

Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2014

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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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.