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JERICHO: DREAMS, RUINS, PHANTOMS

Name: JERICHO: DREAMS, RUINS, PHANTOMS
Author: Robert Ruby
ISBN: 0-8050-2799-8

by Robert Ruby ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 10, 1995

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A highly agreeable history of the ancient city of Jericho and its surrounding countryside, from the earliest recorded times to the present. Ruby, former Jerusalem bureau chief of the Baltimore Sun, organizes his book loosely, sometimes idiosyncratically, around the 19th-century activities of the Palestine Exploration Fund, a group in London interested mainly in the links between archaeology and biblical revelation. But he wanders back and forth across the centuries, from the Early Bronze Age to the present, with easy nonchalance to tell the story of a small city that, despite its location on a barren patch of near-desert land, has played an important role in history from the time when Joshua made the walls come tumbling down to the current negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis. (As to the veracity of the biblical account of Joshua, Ruby goes no further than to say that evidence does ``seem to appear'' in the archeological record.) Through these pages parade luminaries like Captain Richard Burton, who spoke 29 languages and translated the Arabian Nights, and who described the area as ``a luxuriance of ruin''; Herbert Kitchener, later ruler of Egypt and secretary of state for war, who was brought in as a youthful assistant and assumed command with some insouciance; Thomas Cook, who offered the first tour of the Middle East in 1869, reporting that Jericho was ``filthy and uninteresting''; and contemporaries like Awad Njum, with two wives and 15 children, loudly bemoaning his inability to provide a dowry for a third wife. Ruby covers his material with great humor and flair, as in his description of the successors of the prophet Muhammad, who established sumptuous quarters north of Jericho in the style of ``High Boudoir. To wander now among the fallen masonry is to have the sense of intruding into a disheveled bedroom.'' All in all, as cheerful, well written, and diverting a personal excavation of Jericho as one could expect to find. (12 b&w illustrations, 2 maps)

Pub Date: April 10, 1995

ISBN: 0-8050-2799-8

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Henry Holt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1995

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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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.