by Max Byrd ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 6, 2004
Terrific adventures. Splendid details.
Intrepid early Victorians trek the American desert to photograph a total eclipse.
Historical novelist Byrd sets the presidential series (Jackson, 1997; Grant, 2000) aside to apply his formidable research skills to an inventive tale, set in 1840, of scientists and capitalists in search of wealth and knowledge in the godforsaken outback of beyond. American-born, French-reared Selena Cott is the pure scientist in an odd party that includes a weasely Harvard mathematician, a greedy insurance magnate, a vegetarian frontiersman, and a charming artist, all of them assembled to cross the continent from Washington to New Mexico in search of, among other things, the eclipsed sun. Selena is a math whiz, a protégé of astronomer Mary Somerville, and a beauty whose sea captain father taught her to tackle anything and fear nothing. Skilled in the art of daguerrotypography, Selena plans to take the first pictures of the rare celestial event, best seen in unfriendly and unmapped territory on the far side of the Texas Republic. In her tool trunk ticks the very latest and best chronometer, absolutely necessary to hit the longitudinal mark in the featureless desert. She is also armed with the portable model of inventor Charles Babbage’s fabulous proto-computer. It is the computer rather than the celestial event that motivates financially strapped insurance man William Henshaw Pryce. Pryce’s grasp of the possibilities of the computer has sent him in search of capital for its development. Successful use of the machine to locate the solar event would attract millions. That is, at any rate, his public story. Frontier guide and early health-nut Webb Pattie joins the scientific expedition in Missouri and steers their train of spanking new Conestoga wagons west on the Santa Fe Trail. There are the expected adventures, deprivations, Indian encounters and conflicts, but there is also unexpected skullduggery having to do with Charles Babbage’s immensely wealthy and reclusive Uncle Richard, who’s in sequestered residence with the Kiowa tribe strangely near the astronometrical destination.
Terrific adventures. Splendid details.Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2004
ISBN: 0-553-80208-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2003
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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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