Sex Pistols fans will appreciate this one, but those looking for a comprehensive history of the era and its sounds should...
Music journalist Strongman (Metal Box: Stories from John Lydon’s Public Image Limited, 2007, etc.) recasts the history of British punk as the story of two bands and a bunch of also-rans.
Actually, the Clash don’t get that much ink either; Strongman spends the majority of his time making the case that the Sex Pistols and their marketing Svengali Malcolm McLaren were punk’s be-all and end-all, and therein lies the rub. Had the book been subtitled something along the lines of The Sex Pistols and UK Punk, it would have been far more legit. Granted, John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten), Sid Vicious and the rest of the Pistols kicked it all off in 1976 at London’s legendary 100 Club…or did they? Maybe it was the Clash who started things reeling on the other side of town that very same year. Maybe it was the Ramones or Television or the New York Dolls at CBGB in New York City. Or maybe it was…well, according to Strongman, it was all Pistols, all the time. But music historians tend to disagree, which means his book has a major, insurmountable credibility problem. If Strongman had been more inclusive, and if he’d used Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain’s classic Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk as a template, he might have had something. As it is, this feels like a 300-plus-page magazine article.
Sex Pistols fans will appreciate this one, but those looking for a comprehensive history of the era and its sounds should look elsewhere.Pub Date: April 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-55652-752-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2008
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
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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