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NURSING AMERICA

Name: NURSING AMERICA
Author: Sandy Balfour
ISBN: 1-58542-281-9

ONE YEAR BEHIND THE NURSING STATIONS OF AN INNER-CITY HOSPITAL

by Sandy Balfour ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2005

A thin piece that too often reads like a press release.

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Television journalist Balfour (Pretty Girl in Crimson Rose (8), 2003) paints a laudatory portrait of the nursing profession, briefly sketches a public hospital in perpetual financial crisis, and looks grimly at the society it serves.

The author garnered his material through observations, casual conversations and interviews with staff at the Regional Medical Center in Memphis, Tennessee. (Their words were evidently tape-recorded, for quoted conversations make up a large portion of the text.) Balfour focuses on the life, careers and, most of all, the daily work of nurses in an assortment of areas: AIDS, neonatal, and burn units; anesthesia; trauma; OR; and obstetrics. He covers nurses who fly with emergency helicopters, the hospital’s chief nursing officer, and the vice president of patient services. All his featured nurses are female, but he makes it clear that the profession is attracting men in increasing numbers. Salaries for those with advanced training, such as nurse practitioners and nurse anesthetists, are quite good, in some instances around $100,000 a year, and even for those without special expertise, money does not seem to be an issue. Balfour’s nurses appear more concerned about being spread too thin and not having the resources to do their jobs well. Conversations with administrators reveal that every year there is a budget crisis, and every year brings threats of closure for the hospital, whose patients are mostly uninsured, unemployed and uneducated. “Self-pay,” he learns, generally means “no-pay,” raising the question of whose responsibility it is to pay for those who cannot. During Balfour’s year at the hospital, he became a familiar figure to the nurses, who openly shared with him their feelings about patients under their care. Expressing genuine concern for their charges’ physical well-being combined with impatience over their behaviors and dismay at their attitudes, nurses’ comments trace a dreary landscape of the inner city served by the hospital. By contrast, the author’s depiction of the nurses is unfailingly glowing.

A thin piece that too often reads like a press release.

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2005

ISBN: 1-58542-281-9

Page Count: 224

Publisher: TarcherPerigee

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2004

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.