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ON THE WATER

Name: ON THE WATER
Author: Nathaniel Stone
ISBN: 0-7679-0841-4

DISCOVERING AMERICA IN A ROWBOAT

by Nathaniel Stone ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 9, 2002

Stone rows his boat into a work of art.

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In an impeccable piece of travel-writing, newcomer Stone travels by rowboat on a course that turns the eastern US into a big island that he transportingly circumnavigates.

“I had plain adventure in mind, to be sure,” he declares, “to live by my wits and material minimums.” The adventure is to row up the Hudson, through the Erie Canal, and on to the Allegheny (after the briefest of portages), then down the Ohio and Mississippi to the Gulf, around Florida and back up the coast to Eastport, Maine, at the Canadian border. Though he was raised around water and his father was a crack rower, Stone is no professional: he’d never even pulled the oars of his 17-foot scull until the morning he set off from Brooklyn, and it wasn’t until Pittsburgh that he got important tips on technique and equipment. But once afloat, he gradually settles into a comfortable rhythm that includes the nightly chore of finding a place to sleep, whether that means pitching his tent (to say the trip was done on a shoestring might be an overstatement) or accepting the generosity of people he meets. In recounting his voyage, Stone uses words freely yet with a poem’s compression, a coiled energy deftly released, as when he describes the mechanics of the rowing stroke or the correct pronunciation of Atchalafaya (“one easy breath, ‘Chuff-uh-lye’”). There are enough snafus and mistakes to keep him human, and while his encounters with people are mostly pleasant and frequently revealing about the place, there are a few ugly moments as well, including the time he was invited to join a picnic gathering and then, for no discernible reason, summarily evicted (“GET OFF THIS PROPERTY. NOW!”) by the patriarch of the group. Throughout, he keeps his sense of the journey’s importance in perspective with an engaging combination of innocence and opinion.

Stone rows his boat into a work of art.

Pub Date: July 9, 2002

ISBN: 0-7679-0841-4

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Broadway

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2002

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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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

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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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.