Veteran anthologist Pearlman (Between Friends, 1994, etc.) comes up with yet another collection of original, lyrical pieces from a stellar group of writers. The theme this time is ``home,'' and for the 20 women writers who share their feelings on the subject, home can mean many things. For Marcie Hershman, it is the two-family house that she bought because her mother wanted her lesbian daughter to have ``something to count on''; for Dani Shapiro, home evokes horrible memories of anti-Semitic incidents directed against her family in the suburban New Jersey neighborhood where she grew up. Meg Pei finds home in a summer house her family owned during her youth; Francine Prose remembers a rented house where she lived for seven months before the birth of her child. For Jill McCorkle, home is the house of her childhood, complete with happy memories of a warm and loving family; for Julie Smith, home is a place that needs to be discovered, while the locale of one's childhood remains forever alien, a part of a receding past. The most compelling aspect of this collection is the writers' attempts to understand the concept of home—as a place, as a memory, as a feeling within oneself. None of them imagines that there is an easy answer to the question of what ``home'' means: The answer may be troubled, or contented, or ambivalent, but it is never obvious, and it can never be taken for granted. One small caution to the reader: Read in one sitting, these pieces tend to blend into an amorphous mass. But each essay is wonderful in its own right and deserves to be read with care and concentration. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Sept. 16, 1996
ISBN: 0-312-12793-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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