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PASS THE BUTTERWORMS

REMOTE JOURNEYS ODDLY RENDERED

Cahill (Pecked to Death by Ducks, 1993, etc.) delivers all the goods—vibrancy, wit, intelligence—anyone could hope for from adventure travel writing in this, his fourth, collection. There is not a turkey among these tales (which have appeared in magazines, mostly in Outside). A few of them are snappy little deskside essays—concerning malaria, how to keep Congolese bees from entering your nostrils, a testament to the family values of New Guinea's Dani people. But most concern Cahill's forte, ``remote travel oddly rendered.'' There he sits, curled in the bow of a boat drifting through the unspeakably rotten weather of a Montana spring: ``It was beautiful in a savage and entirely unsettling manner''; or he may detail how sea-kayakers climb the front of monster waves, punch through the crest, and ride a rainbow of spray back to the sea's surface; he concocts a thralling fantasy of landing a small airplane after the pilot's gone and died on you (``when Geraldo Rivera calls to ask you to be on his show, you get to turn him down flat''). And there is a long piece set in Honduras, on a prospecting mission for an eco-tour group, that's all rough edges, a dispatch direct from the field, appealingly jagged, utterly memorable. Cahill's writing gets better all the time, his storytelling style evolving into an art form, his cracking-wiseass humor bevelled by every manner of nuance; waggish he may be, but he's also got a lot of brains. And what more could one ask? He's willing to die for his art. In the end, many of these adventures come down to ``one of those intangible things I'll own forever because I've paid for it, paid for it in equally intangible dues.'' Cold comfort for Cahill, high entertainment for his readers.

Pub Date: March 1, 1997

ISBN: 0-679-45625-2

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Villard

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1996

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STICKS

A STORY OF TRIUMPH OVER DISABILITY

A real-life Frank Capra tale, just as corny, sentimental and inspiring as It's a Wonderful Life.

Hokey but charming memoir, reminiscent of an afternoon spent flipping through the pages of an antique photo album.

Although an autobiography, Coleman chronicles his life in the third person with a dispassion and modesty remarkable for a novice writer. It is perhaps the era that speaks through his prose—not a child of the "Me Decade," Coleman reminds us that the past was, indeed, more difficult than the present. And people certainly tended to whine a good deal less back then. The account begins chronologically, with his birth in 1902 to pioneer parents, their eighth child. By the time he was nine, the family had moved to their own homestead in Myrtle Creek, Ore. That summer he contracted polio and lost the use of his legs. Overcoming his crippled condition occupied a good portion of his youth, admirably marked by self-reliance and invention. He whittled his own crutches, made violins and, at 19, attempting to find a trade that would accommodate his physical condition, paid a jeweler $25 per month in order to serve as an apprentice to the watchmaker. As a young man in the '20s, he married and became a father, then established himself as sole proprietor of a jewelry store. The narrative is interspersed with photographs, newspaper clippings, Coleman's poems (an unfortunate weakness), musical scores (also not very solid), jewelry designs and the Coleman family tree. At a glance, Coleman’s history, aside from his disability, is not unusual. He becomes one of the leading merchants of a small town, state archery champion, and president of the Lion's Club. His would seem to be the unremarkable chronicle of a small-town success of interest to no one outside his family. Even so, it's his banality that is oddly compelling. Following the ups and downs of the Coleman jewelry store through the Depression, World War II, and the post-war era up until Coleman's death in 1972, is an enjoyable journey through the low-key strength and integrity that sustains middle-American lives. Coleman's son, John Coleman, today runs Coleman's Jewelers, the jewelry store founded by the author, in Corvallis, Ore. (Proceeds from the sale of this book, which has an endorsement from former senator Bob Dole, will go to Rotary International's "effort to eradicate polio" and to the Austin Family Business Program at Oregon State University.)

A real-life Frank Capra tale, just as corny, sentimental and inspiring as It's a Wonderful Life.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: 0-9754140-0-3

Page Count: -

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: April 17, 2011

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MAGNIFICENT OBSESSIONS

TWENTY REMARKABLE COLLECTORS IN PURSUIT OF THEIR DREAMS

Meet Norma Hazelton, connoisseur and collector of swizzle sticks. If you're not impressed by a plastic Jackie Gleason long since separated from its maraschino cherry, take a look at Robert Cade, inventor of Gatorade and a collector of Studebakers (re the carmaker's Dictator line of the 1930s, he says: ``Dictator was a good name until Hitler and Mussolini and Stalin. They dropped the Dictator line in 1937 because of them''). Among the 20 collections that Tuchman and photographer Brenner cast their eyes on are caches of Civil War memorabilia (a banjo, a musket, a toothbrush); aquarium furniture (a lot of mermaids); and representations of the Last Supper (a clock, a saltshaker, a funeral-home fan). Tuchman's text, mostly a pastiche of comments from the collectors themselves, is informative—and just glib enough to keep the whole book from feeling like a spooky visit to your mad Aunt Mabel's attic.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994

ISBN: 0-8118-0360-0

Page Count: 144

Publisher: Chronicle Books

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994

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