A vicariously entertaining whirlwind of scrapbook memories from an author who can’t sit still.
A travelogue from a restless journalistic globe-trotter who has freelanced his way across the world.
For much of his adult life, BonAppetit.com editor Gross has been roaming around more than 50 countries on a budget and recording his meals and meanderings in the New York Times “Frugal Traveler” column from 2006 to 2010. In these previously unpublished essays, Gross chronicles his far-flung travels, beginning with a postgraduate sojourn to Vietnam in 1996, a reference point for many more spontaneous and memorable trips to follow. Disillusioned by robotic copy editing jobs that dampened his hopes of ever becoming “a real writer, whose words might outlive him,” Gross became a fearless travel author striving to be “the ultimate blank slate on which the world would leave its mark.” Jetting to Istanbul, Rome, Jamaica, Barcelona, Hong Kong and everywhere in between became simpler with Internet tip sites. Along the way, he met a wide swath of diverse strangers, including a Cambodian prostitute, resilient refugees and a barefoot French millionaire. The downsides included inconvenient parasitic infections in India and Kenya and the moments when Gross found himself unprepared for third-world poverty and the loneliness of solitary waywardness. His writings roll out in a disorderly, nonlinear fashion, and each piece contains further jerky time jumps. While fascinating, the rapid-fire references to movie reviewing for the Viet Nam News and the hundreds of Times assignments, combined with stories of his youth and vacations with wife and family, can be disorienting. A tamer version of Anthony Bourdain, Gross enthusiastically juggles food, wanderlust and a passion for foreign culture.
A vicariously entertaining whirlwind of scrapbook memories from an author who can’t sit still.Pub Date: May 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-306-82115-8
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Da Capo
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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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