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WINGS

Name: WINGS
Author: Tom D. Crouch
ISBN: 0-393-05767-4

A HISTORY OF AVIATION, FROM KITES TO THE SPACE AGE

by Tom D. Crouch ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2003

A real treat for aviation buffs, and by far the best one-volume analysis of the subject.

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A superb history of flying machines, by one who should know.

Crouch, senior curator of the aeronautics division of the National Air and Space Museum, brings impeccable credentials to his task. He’s also a fine writer with an international outlook, which sets this apart from recent histories that take a US-centric view of aviation. His episodic, anecdotal narrative opens in 1908 with Orville Wright’s hour-long circling of a military parade ground outside Washington, an incident that prompted the assembled brass to wonder about the application of aircraft to warfare—and then, almost immediately, to dismiss the possibility. (Said the Secretary of War: “I just can’t see that these aeroplanes are going to be especially practical just yet.”) The brothers Wright hoped, for their part, that the airplane would help bring about world peace, reducing the distance real and metaphorical between nations. Alas, Crouch observes, things didn’t quite work out that way. The author touches at many points on the relation between military and civilian developments in aircraft design and manufacture, and on the role of international figures in bringing air supremacy in both spheres to the US; the German inventor Hugo Junkers, of WWI fame, for example, designed both military and civilian aircraft, and his firm “inaugurated the age of commercial air transportation in Japan, China, Africa, and Australia” while selling plenty of its ultramodern (for the 1920s, at least) F13 aircraft to the US Post Office and military. Crouch’s pages are full of technical details and enough facts and factoids to satisfy the most demanding trivia buff. He closes on an international note, observing that by 1990 the European Airbus consortium was outselling its biggest competitor, Boeing, in “every class of airplane smaller than the 747.”

A real treat for aviation buffs, and by far the best one-volume analysis of the subject.

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-393-05767-4

Page Count: 512

Publisher: Norton

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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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

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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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.