Hilarious travel writing for the chronically snarky.
A drunken challenge pits Hollywood television writers against each other in a bumbling race around the world.
Start with several bottles of 99-cent-store wine. Add a pinch of nostalgia for Old World exploration, a dash of witty (if often juvenile) one-upmanship and a healthy advance from a book publisher. Shake well, and you have this savory cocktail of comedy, adventure and barbed insults. Little planning ensued before Chandrasekaran and Hely peeled off in opposite directions in their madcap dash around the globe, bound by a single rule: no airplanes. Chandrasekaran headed east, making a quick, ultimately unsuccessful detour through Mexico to see a man about a jetpack, while his competitor sailed west on a cargo ship bound for Shanghai. Fluidly and humorously weaving between their two narratives, the book fuses sidesplitting shenanigans with clever dialogue and well-researched history. Along the way, Chandrasekaran succumbed to the ease of air travel, flitting around the world to fall in with a graffiti gang in a Brazilian favela, set up shop as a souvenir hawker in Cairo and revisit the horrors of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. Hely traveled the rails from Beijing to Moscow before disembarking to ogle Peter the Great’s collection of deformed fetuses in St. Petersburg and to hobnob with B-list Swedish celebrities in Stockholm. Lots of testosterone-fueled razzing occurs along the way, abetted by the authors’ expat friends and pithy text messages sent via clunky satellite phones. The authors, veteran TV comedy writers, make the transition to long-form prose with ease while retaining a Hollywood grasp of what will make readers laugh and cry, often simultaneously. Hely’s Victorian notions of world travel and the glory of bygone eras provide the perfect foil for Chandrasekaran’s glib embrace of the comforts of modern life. Their comically inoffensive braggadocio is akin to your older brother’s tales of his misspent youth; Chandrasekaran and Hely might be slightly obnoxious, but therein lies their charm.
Hilarious travel writing for the chronically snarky.Pub Date: July 8, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-8050-8740-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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