Likable memoirs of a newshound and well-known editor, today best-remembered for helming the Atlantic Monthly. Manning jumped into his 50-year newspapering career in 1937 as a copy boy for his hometown Binghamton Press. Binghamton, N.Y., was the home of Swamp Root patent medicine, which had earned its maker sufficient millions to start up the Press as a response to his bad coverage in Binghamton's other paper. Manning left Binghamton to join the AP wire service during WW II, was released from the army for bad vision, then joined UPI in its Washington bureau, where he attended FDR's press conferences. The author then left reporting for a year to get a taste of college at Harvard. Afterward, UPI sent him to Lake Success, N.Y., where he covered the new United Nations and its early, immensely involved problems with the Arabs and Jews. This in turn led to a perch on the National Affairs department of Time magazine when Time was shaping much of the nation's consciousness. Manning's best chapter describes a long visit with Hemingway in Cuba for a Time cover story. Despite the festive visit with its drinks, fishing, and fabulous chat, Manning regrets not having shown in his piece that Hemingway was on the downside of his talent. Eventually, service at Time palled, and Manning set out to make his own mark as a writer. Free-lancing was harder than he'd foreseen, however, and he wound up as a press liaison for JFK and fell hard for the glow of Camelot. Manning was with a large batch of Cabinet members on a plane to Tokyo when the President was assassinated. At the Atlantic, he moved among the literati—Updike, Cheever, Bellow, Malamud, etc.—while shoring up the magazine with ever stronger articles. Witty and readable, if never impertinent. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 2, 1992
ISBN: 0-393-03090-3
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
© Copyright 2026 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.
