A nicely organized work that offers a rare glimpse into a little-understood part of the world.
A lively, frank look into the Mongolian psyche by a young Peace Corps English teacher.
Based in the central mountainous city of Tsetserleg from 2000 to 2002, Davis was just 23 years old and fairly inexperienced in many things when he arrived in Mongolia. However, he was easygoing and not terribly fussy about heat and personal hygiene, preferring to live in a ger, the distinctive felt-covered tent spawned from the Mongolians’ nomadic way of life. His entertaining travelogue/memoir is divided into nine sections, “Nine Nines,” by which Mongolians demarcate the long, dark winter season. Perhaps as a result of their 70-year socialist period—ending with the fall of Soviet Communism in 1991—the mostly young-adult native students were keen to obey the teacher’s authority, though quick to cheat when they could get away with it, often lazy and rarely given to creative expression. After the Soviets had largely obscured Mongolian history deriving from Chinggis Khan—as the name of the founder of the Mongolian Empire is written here—the great warrior has been rediscovered with a vengeance, and Davis provides a serviceable history of Mongolian politics (the country is only now emerging as a democracy). Mostly, there are stories from the lives of the people he encountered: marriages and families complicated by a deeply ingrained drinking culture, promiscuity, domestic violence, low wages and yearning for Western goods and education. While traveling the country, Davis explored the Mongolian hatred for the Chinese, the attempts at regeneration of the Mongolian Buddhist heritage and preservation of the traditional herding ways.
A nicely organized work that offers a rare glimpse into a little-understood part of the world.Pub Date: Feb. 16, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-312-60773-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2009
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
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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