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
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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