TRAVELS WITH HERODOTUS

Name: TRAVELS WITH HERODOTUS
Author: Ryszard Kapuscinski
ISBN: 978-1-4000-4338-5

by Ryszard Kapuscinski & translated by Klara Glowczewska ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 11, 2007

Author and subject, student and mentor, are perfectly matched. Illuminating reading for any aspiring journalist or travel...

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Famed Polish writer and traveler Kapuscinski (The Shadow of the Sun, 2001, etc.), who died in January 2007, pays honor to antiquity’s “Father of History.”

Herodotus, the 5th-century chronicler, scarcely figured in the curriculum when Kapuscinski was going to university just after WWII. Though a Polish translation had been completed, he recalls in opening, it went unpublished throughout Josef Stalin’s remaining years, its pages full of subtle warnings that imperial overreach and the cruelty of rulers would always be avenged one day. When a Polish Herodotus finally did appear, it went into Kapuscinski’s suitcase courtesy of the newspaper editor who sent the young man, bad suit and all, off to India and China as a correspondent. As he recounts, he quickly realized that he knew nothing, that “the more words I knew, the richer, fuller, and more variegated would be the world that opened before me, and which I could capture.” Inspired by the commonsensical Herodotus, who tried to explain the world beyond their gates to his fellow Greeks, Kapuscinski embarked on a series of travels that he details in his many other books and describes, sometimes allusively, here. One episode finds him wandering through Nasserite, prohibitionist Cairo looking for a discreet place in which to pitch an empty beer bottle; another sees him alternately spied on and chanted to in China (“With each passing day I thought of the Great Wall more and more as the Great Metaphor”); still another confronts him with the curious sight of an animated Louis Armstrong playing before a stony-faced audience of Sudanese, “unable to communicate much less partake of an emotional oneness.” Throughout, Kapuscinski tests and emulates Herodotus’s methods: “he wanders, looks, talks, listens, in order that he can later note down what he learned and saw, or simply to remember better.”

Author and subject, student and mentor, are perfectly matched. Illuminating reading for any aspiring journalist or travel writer, for any traveler, for any citizen of the world.

Pub Date: June 11, 2007

ISBN: 978-1-4000-4338-5

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2007

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE SHADOW OF THE SUN
by Ryszard Kapuscinski & translated by Klara Glowczewska

- BOOK REVIEW
IMPERIUM
by Ryszard Kapuscinski

- BOOK REVIEW
THE SOCCER WAR
by Ryszard Kapuscinski

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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.