Squirts a measure of original thinking onto what has become a vast serving of the topic.
The travails and deep, soul-satisfying pleasures of buying a grand fixer-upper in the old neighborhood.
The house was proof positive of the Second Law of Thermodynamics: all systems tend toward entropy, and continuous energy is required to maintain order. Both qualities were firmly in evidence in the sprawling brick-and-shingle Victorian that Ruhlman (Walk on Water, 2003, etc.) and his wife bought in Cleveland Heights. The previous owners had given in to entropy and let the house run to ruin; the Ruhlmans, along with an army of wallet-busting builders, supplied the continuous energy—along with the angst and frustration inevitable when contending with the dozens of snafus attendant on home construction. Ruhlman has an easy voice, despite all the torments and his wife’s decidedly ambivalent feelings about moving to his hometown. Cleveland was not her ideal locale, and she was not entirely thrilled about abandoning her photographic work to become the principal in raising their kids while Ruhlman went about his writing life. The author burrows into notions of home, examining nostalgia for the place where one grew up, the evolution of suburbia, and the history of Cleveland. He offers his thoughts on domestic well-being, scale and harmony, and the problem with contractors (“they keep asking for money”). He quotes Witold Rybczynski on how a home sets the stage for an emergent interior life and in general makes frequent, apposite use of scholars in the field of domestic architectural history and theory. Ruhlman occasionally wanders into strange digressions (“people who are unjustly imprisoned almost invariably lived lives that make them vulnerable to unjust convictions”), yet mostly he speaks commonsense as he frames a picture of what a home means. He’s thought hard about the subject and mixed his reflections well with his personal experience.
Squirts a measure of original thinking onto what has become a vast serving of the topic.Pub Date: March 21, 2005
ISBN: 0-670-03383-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2005
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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