Superb: a gift that keeps on giving and a fine introduction to the life and letters of a supposedly (but not really) gray...
Following on the previous anthology, The 40s (2014), the editors of the New Yorker continue to mine the magazine’s impossibly rich history.
With the possible exception of Esquire, there has been no general-interest magazine in the history of American journalism more influential, and more packed with talent, than the New Yorker. It’s arguable when the magazine’s heyday took place, but many knowledgeable readers place it in the tenure of William Shawn, “quiet, subtle, secretive, elliptical, and, to some, quite strange,” who succeeded Harold Ross in January 1952 and set to work building his own legacy. This volume contains work by writers who are still influential today—and some who have been all but forgotten. Joseph Mitchell, interest in whom has recently revived, turns up early, in a section called “American Scenes,” reporting from the front lines of the postwar civil rights movement. Dwight McDonald, little known today, turns in a fine portrait of the activist Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Workers, who—the sexist and ageist past being what it is—is described as looking “like an elderly schoolteacher or librarian.” In a similar vein, profiling the emerging movie star Marlon Brando in 1957 at a length unthinkable today, Truman Capote sets off with the odd observation, “Most Japanese girls giggle.” As he shows, Brando sometimes gave them reason to. The portrait is every bit as serious, though, as Lillian Ross’ reportage on the making of the now-classic John Huston film The Red Badge of Courage (1951). Other highlights: a forward-looking piece by Roald Dahl anticipating the wine craze of later decades and a deeply curious short story by John Updike describing in passing the antics of a party-going woman who, “insanely drunk, was throwing herself around as if wanting to break a bone.” Other contributors include A.J. Liebling, James Thurber, Wolcott Gibbs, Marianne Moore, Sylvia Plath, and Nadine Gordimer.
Superb: a gift that keeps on giving and a fine introduction to the life and letters of a supposedly (but not really) gray decade.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-679-64481-1
Page Count: 784
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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
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
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