by Sylvia Hart Wright ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A
A smart, straight-talking account by an author who courageously followed her beliefs.
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A human rights activist recalls a richly textured life in this memoir.
Hart Wright (When Spirits Come Calling, 2002, etc.) was born in the middle of the Depression. She grew up in New York City, where, as a child, she was ashamed to invite classmates back to the family apartment on account of it being poorly maintained and infested with cockroaches. This led to her being somewhat of an outsider. But her uncle and aunt were wealthy publishers, and the author grew up surrounded by books that she loved to dive into. Always a bright student, Hart Wright finally found her footing when she attended Juilliard Prep, where she felt she fit in with the other girls in class. Her outsider status came to an end in junior high, where she was elected to minor offices in two clubs and went on to win a scholarship to Cornell. So began a remarkable life adventure, which saw her active in the anti-war movement in Berkeley, California; witness the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech firsthand; and take up residence in Panama with her then husband, a zoologist. Hart Wright’s memoir details all manner of diverse experiences, from coming under attack in Mexico while supporting the Zapatistas to believing to have received messages from beyond the grave from her dead husband, Paul. This account elegantly captures the zeitgeist of mid-20th-century America. For example, when recalling a protest outside the United Nations Tower, the author notes how even though the “McCarthy era was beginning to wane, American civil liberties still left much to be desired.” She describes a man taking photographs of the protesters who she suspected was an FBI agent. She recalls: “Every time I circled past the man with the camera, I would raise my sign to cover my face.” Hart Wright’s writing is also astonishingly steely at times. When discussing a former husband, she asserts: “I didn’t love him, his presence didn’t excite me.” Yet at the very heart of this memoir is the vehement belief that “when good people help and the system works then, with luck, things can get better.” The book offers a powerful message of hope that resonates as strongly today as it did 50 years ago.
A smart, straight-talking account by an author who courageously followed her beliefs.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-73301-233-1
Page Count: 268
Publisher: EnAvant Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by William Strunk & E.B. White ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 15, 1972
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996
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
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