Chatty, enthusiastic and at times rambling, Rose is a welcoming guide on her latest journey of literary discovery.
A year of reading randomly.
In another literary memoir, Rose (The Year of Reading Proust, 1997, etc.) chronicles the year she spent reading 23 works of fiction on a shelf designated LEQ to LES at the New York Society Library in Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Although she had no expectations about the quality of the books on this particular shelf, the project excited her: “[N]no one in the history of the world had read exactly this series of novels,” she writes. It seemed like an adventure in “Extreme Reading. To go where no one had gone before.” She chose the shelf on the basis of a few self-imposed rules: Several authors needed to appear, and only one could have more than five books, of which she would read three; there would be both contemporary and older works; one book needed to be a classic that she had always wanted to read. Describing her project as “organic…like a travel journal,” Rose uses each book to take her down unexpected paths: Reading Nabokov’s translation of Mikhail Lermontov’s A Hero of Our Time (the classic she meant to read) sent her to read several other translations in an effort to connect with a story she found, at first, stilted. Rhoda Lerman’s Call Me Ishtar and several other novels inspired Rose to herself contact Lerman, with whom she felt such an “instant rapport” that the two became friends. Noting that her shelf contained works of only three women, Rose pauses in one chapter to ask about the challenges and preoccupations of women writers. Lisa Lerner’s unsettling science fiction, Just Like Beauty, led Rose to track down the author, who, like Lerman, is now a friend. Using websites and Facebook, Rose experienced “the fun of participating in a virtual conversation about literature at any moment of the day or night.”
Chatty, enthusiastic and at times rambling, Rose is a welcoming guide on her latest journey of literary discovery.Pub Date: May 13, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-374-26120-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
