by Peter Hyman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 17, 2004
Though not without the occasional easy joke or sappy tangent, more thoughtful and artfully written than its sell-by-today...
Winsome, amusing, and intelligent debut collection of essays by a slacker cursed with taste, mildly astounded that a Queer Eye–influenced world has caught up with him.
Journalist and occasional stand-up comic Hyman reflects on how one’s lifestyle choices or aesthetic preferences can result in greater challenges or disappointments—in his case, the incongruity of loving the finer things and yearning for high society while failing to escape the impoverished and lonely life of a New York writer. Of his purported “metrosexual” tendencies, he notes that “a straight man cannot exhibit good taste in design or home furnishings, or the competence to dress himself” without being frequently mistaken for gay. (He shrewdly tags the mainstream fixation upon so-called metrosexuals as a marketing ploy akin to the Gen-X craze of the early 1990s.) Hapless but well appointed, Hyman portrays with the right mix of self-deprecation and acute observation his adventures in incompetence: a failed ménage à trois, a disastrous drug-fueled Oaxacan road trip, Internet liaisons with women prone to first-date vomiting. Other essays utilize fairly ordinary set-ups as a springboard for Hyman’s self-portrait as a confused yet resolute Everyman. “Law School Dropout” depicts his flight from a “mecca for conformity [that] offers vocational training more than it does intellectual challenge.” In “The Seven Habits of Highly Laid-off People,” he takes an archly humorous look at the white-collar chaos fomented by the 2001 recession. Hyman writes with surprising tenderness about the vicissitudes of contemporary dating, as in “The Wedding Swinger” or “The Penultimate Girlfriend,” with whom his moment flamed out too quickly. And he doesn’t neglect topics specific to the true metrosexual experience, such as high-end shirts and Brazilian bikini waxes. His work may appeal to fans of David Sedaris, but Hyman has more in common with such Manhattan chroniclers of the louche life as Jonathan Ames and Thomas Beller.
Though not without the occasional easy joke or sappy tangent, more thoughtful and artfully written than its sell-by-today title implies.Pub Date: Aug. 17, 2004
ISBN: 0-8129-7163-9
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2004
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by William Strunk & E.B. White ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 15, 1972
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
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by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996
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
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