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THE SWAMP ROOT CHRONICLE

Name: THE SWAMP ROOT CHRONICLE
Author: Robert Manning
ISBN: 0-393-03090-3

ADVENTURES IN THE WORD TRADE

by Robert Manning ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 2, 1992

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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

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
MARS ROVER CURIOSITY
by Robert Manning ; William L. Simon

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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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:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.