Fast-flying, if sometimes-simplistic, pieces that celebrate patient observation and the beauty of birds.
Short pieces capture a Chicago-area bird watcher’s thoughts as he looks for glimpses of life on the wing.
The one-page reflections here first appeared in the online magazine Two-Fisted Birdwatcher in its “Daily Sightings” category. The magazine was founded by Lubow (Paper and Ink: Stories, 2015), a former creative director at one advertising agency and founder of another. He’s not an ornithologist, however—he’s a “regular guy” jotting down his sightings as he looks at birds or takes short wilderness walks. He’s knowledgeable about birds’ names, habits, colors, and so on, but wears it lightly, saying, for example, of the many varieties of warbler, “screw their picky little names.” Many pieces speak of Lubow’s longing for the wilderness that underlies his big-city life. He grabs moments on weekends, while on his way from a presentation, or while driving home from work. Yet, he says, “When you leave the woods, all settled and free of words, what craziness makes you go to the keyboard and type these?” Many readers will find the tension of this contradiction to be relatable. Lubow’s advertising background gives him a good instinct for pared-down prose and punchy lines that approach the directness of poetry, as in “Place names”: “I’m not in the business of naming things. Still, that doesn’t stop me from remembering them. And, in a way, that’s the same thing.” That said, the pieces’ stripped-down style (and especially their endings) sometimes feel forced, rushed, or oversimplified. Wondering why bee populations are down and cormorants are plentiful, Lubow just shrugs: “What’s going on? That’s up to science to figure out, if it can,” concluding that “change happens—get used to it.” Another essay observes a drastic decline in eastern meadowlarks, ending with the question, “was that meadowlark the last one you’re going to see around here?” That would be a shame, and much more than a personal one, but it’s something that Lubow doesn’t really confront. Nevertheless, he succeeds in conveying his love for avians and the excitement of spotting them in the wild.
Fast-flying, if sometimes-simplistic, pieces that celebrate patient observation and the beauty of birds.Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4996-2446-5
Page Count: 166
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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