Customer Reviews

A Desk in the Elephant House (Walt McDonald First-Book Series)

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In the poem "The Mathematician, Counting" (from Cath-
yrn Essinger's terrific book 'A Desk in the Elephant House')
there's the line: "Such guts, such pizzaz!" Well, that pretty
much sums up the collection-- wonderfully strange and strange-
ly wonderful-- what a way she has for making the mundane spe-
cial (if you feel something the size of an elephant sitting
next to you, if you feel the power of the air sustaining the
life of birds or notice the Gorbachev's rummaging through the
lettuce at the grocery store("Are you my Angel?")-- welcome
to Essinger's world. Like Shakespeare, she knows that humor
(and wit)is serious business:

But at the end, when the software
fails and the radiation is rising,
I think that even an English major
will be resourceful enough to loop
the string of the window sash to the neck
of the coke bottle, balanced
to tap out some erratic Morse Code
to a world half annihilated
by the wonders of modern science.
ON THE BEACH

So, never mind deciding on a diet plan or whether to take
a vacation in Iceland or Malta, do something that will really
be worth it: Buy 'A Desk in the Elephant House'--the Muse will
thank you for your excellent taste.