Next book

A PLACE IN NORMANDY

Quaint, quirky, leisurely, and often confiningly parochial, this is a paean to the rambling farmhouse in Normandy that's been in his family since 1920 and that Kilmer can't resist trying to restore to habitability. Kilmer, author of the Fred Taylor mystery series that debuted last year (Harmony in Flesh and Black, 1995), is also a painter, as was his grandfather, Frederick Frieseke, the American impressionist who first found the property near the isolated town of Mesnil. Kilmer's wife, Julia, smitten herself, pretends to pragmatism in the face of his love for the place where they've roughed it intermittently en famille since 1968. Her resistance to his idea to finally commit real money to it makes for such dramatic tension as there is here. Nick solos in Mesnil for a week to assess the situation seriously. The bathroom floor caves in, an owl takes up residence in the chimney, the sheets seem to have vanished just when old friends from home come to stay. One of those friends gets it absolutely right when, talking to Julia about the place, she says, ``Why don't you just think of it as his mistress?'' Any task, from preparing a Calvados-marinated rabbit to arranging for the rehabilitation of the family cemetery plot, easily engages Kilmer, a born adherent to the do-it-yourself ethos (which, he observes, is so inimical to the French that they don't even have their own word for it), but when not thwarted by custom or inexpediency, his ambitions are subject to sidetracking by all manner of social and commercial transactions. He does take time out to appreciate local color, patiently recording details of private and provincial genealogy and collecting and sharing natural and civic arcana. Kilmer's gentrified-hippy sensibility, at first rather engaging, grows thin long before the narrative winds down. (b&w photos, not seen)

Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1997

ISBN: 0-8050-3930-9

Page Count: 208

Publisher: Henry Holt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1996

Categories:
Next book

THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE

50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

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

Categories:
Next book

NUTCRACKER

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:
Close Quickview