“In chasing the beliefs I had as a child, I’d somehow managed to grow up”—into a person easily as captivating as her quarry.
A search for faeries—and magic in general—allows former book editor Pike to reclaim a happier, more engaged life.
While working for two different publishers in New York City, a fog of disgruntlement had settled over the author. She was weary of the hustle and bustle, as well as reading piles of manuscripts, but there was also a greater malaise involved. The whole world seemed to be going to hell in a hand basket, and somewhere along the line she had lost her sense of wonder and the joy of surprise. She hungered for a little magic and a belief in something to restore the pleasurable ache of innocence and reinvigorate her daily life. So, Pike decided to go looking for faeries. One of the most appealing aspects of her book is that she does it all with ringing earnestness—even when she’s a witty smart-aleck—and without a hint of frou-frou spirituality. “I wanted to travel the world, find the people who are still awake in that old dreamtime, hear their stories,” she writes. “I was going to find the goddamned fairies.” As the author discovered, there are plenty of them out there, and numerous people for whom faeries are a fact of life to be reckoned with. Through these people, Pike re-engaged with the world in a way that was more typical of her youth. Her deceased father—a complicated, pungent soul who wends his way through the story—had been an energetic guide to the mystery and myth of the outdoors, and he effectively conveyed that to the author, despite her being a fearful kid. Pike writes of her various encounters with faery-believers and faery lands, from New York to Mexico to Ireland to Scotland, in a winning voice that roams freely from melancholy to mirth, incredulity to bright surprise.
“In chasing the beliefs I had as a child, I’d somehow managed to grow up”—into a person easily as captivating as her quarry.Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-399-53617-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Perigee/Penguin
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2010
An exhaustive and exhausting marriage of Austen's Pride and a modern reader’s analysis of it.
A mammoth edition, including the novel, illustrations, maps, a chronology, and bibliography, but mostly thousands of annotations that run the gamut from revealing to ridiculous.
New editions of revered works usually exist either to dumb down or to illuminate the original. Since its appearance in 1813, Austen's most famous work has spawned numerous illustrated and abridged versions geared toward younger readers, as well as critical editions for the scholarly crowd. One would think that this three-pounder would fall squarely in the latter camp based on heft alone. But for various other reasons, Shapard's edition is not so easily boxed. Where Austen's work aimed at a wide spectrum of the 19th-century reading audience, Shapard's seems geared solely toward young lit students. No doubt conceived with the notion of highlighting Austen's brilliance, the 2,000-odd annotations–printed throughout on pages facing the novel's text–often end up dwarfing it. This sort of arrangement, which would work extremely well as hypertext, is disconcerting on the printed page. The notes range from helpful glosses of obscure terms to sprawling expositions on the perils awaiting the character at hand. At times, his comments are so frequent and encyclopedic that one might be tempted to dispense with Austen altogether; in fact, the author's prefatory note under "plot disclosures" kindly suggests that first-time readers might "prefer to read the text of the novel first, and then to read the annotations and introduction." Those with a term paper due in the morning might skip ahead to the eight-page chronology–not of Austen's life, but of the novel's plot–at the back. In the end, Shapard's herculean labor of love comes off as more scholastic than scholarly.
An exhaustive and exhausting marriage of Austen's Pride and a modern reader’s analysis of it.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-9745053-0-7
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Smart but meandering, inconsequential entertainment.
A frank battle cry from a 20-something woman in the modern-dating trenches of New York City.
Roberson, a freelance humorist and researcher at the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, wields generous self-criticism to chronicle the current state of affairs among heteronormative singles on the hunt for love and/or just enough interaction with the opposite sex to keep the conversation about male idiocy going. Despite the catchy title, this book is neither a polemic against men nor a navigational how-to tome filled with advice. There is no narrative arc (chapters include, among others, “Crushes,” “Flirting,” and “Breaking Up”), catalyst for personal or romantic evolution, or tests of any real consequence for the author. Readers in search of deeply personal revelations should look elsewhere, but those seeking relatable accounts of just how unromantic the pursuits of romance actually are will be richly rewarded. Roberson’s great strengths are her blistering comedic sense and her cringeworthy, unexaggerated insights into her dealings with men. By “men,” clarifies the author, “I am talking in most cases about straight, cis, able-bodied white men…who have all the privilege in the world”—traits Roberson admits could be used to describe her. The author is as forthright about her sexual desires and lack of understanding of “ANY text ANY man” sends her as she is about her lack of experience with intimacy. Throughout the book, Roberson provides plenty of reasons for readers to laugh out loud. In a list of ways to kill time while waiting to answer a text, for example, she includes “Be in Peru and Have No Wi-Fi” and “Think About a Riddle.” She also satirizes The Rules, the notorious bestseller with archaic advice about how to catch a husband, and seamlessly weaves in pop-cultural references to countless sources. The so-called conclusion is a misstep; this book isn’t a story so it doesn’t have a beginning or end. Roberson doesn’t have a vendetta against men, only an understandable wish that they would be clear about their intentions and then take action.
Smart but meandering, inconsequential entertainment.Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-19342-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
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