An amusing diversion, good for your next long flight.
Cahill (Pass the Butterworms, 1997, etc.), the founding editor of Outside magazine, has culled these diverse and diverting pieces from books by Dave Barry, Bill Bryson, J.P. Donleavy, Mark Salzman, David Sedaris, and other travel-writers and editors. Most are short—five or six pages—but there is one considerably longer one by Randy White. With most of the stories set in other countries, cross-cultural mishaps abound (e.g., getting one’s hair cut in Turkey or having one’s dental work done in Cameroon). Animals (a baboon in the bedroom in Zimbabwe, a ferret in the trousers in Scotland, and a wayward jumping frog on Amtrak) figure in several tales, and dealing with human vomit, urine, and feces provides the humor in three others. Clearly, not all are equally charming or will appeal to the same sense of humor. Cover-to-cover reading at one sitting is easily accomplished but not recommended lest the idiosyncratic humor of individual pieces be blurred. Quirky little paragraph-long pieces separate the titled anecdotes, even briefer items appear in boxed inserts within them, and (apparently) cartoons (not seen) will be added.
An amusing diversion, good for your next long flight.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2000
ISBN: 1-885211-55-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Travelers’ Tales
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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