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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Korda (Country Matters; Charmed Lives) recounts in his trademark affable style a growing involvement over decades with horses and the people who ride them. Beginning with his youth, and following with his reconnection to the horse world when he takes his son to lessons, Korda relates how horses changed his life: he met his current wife, Margaret, at New York City's Claremont Riding Academy, and eventually they purchased a home in Dutchess County with grounds to accommodate a growing number of horses. In one hilarious episode, Korda, the editor-in-chief at Simon & Schuster, visits an author in Middleburg, Va., and finds himself, unprepared, on a foxhunting horse jumping over walls and into backyards. He begins to analyze the symbolism of horses ("the horse stood... for social superiority, mobility, and not getting your feet wet and muddy like ordinary folk"), but this meditation is an exception, as Korda favors the anecdote and the caricature. There are rather too many "movers and shakers" for this book to live up to the diversity implied by its title, and while he briefly raises moral questions (about foxhunting, for example), he largely ignores the sociopolitical and emotional aspects of the horse-human relationship. He takes his reader on the occasional jaunt through less tony neighborhoods (with a veterinarian in Rhinebeck, N.Y.; to a rodeo in Archer City, Tex., with Larry McMurtry; and to a correctional facility's horse farm), but he tends to focus on places like Southlands, a privately owned facility in Dutchess County. While the book is more a series of vignettes than a full narrative, Korda's humor will be a delight to anyone who loves the world of riding.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
One mark of a good writer is to engage readers on a topic in which they have no inherent interest. This is what Korda, editor-in-chief at Simon & Schuster and author of several popular memoirs, does here with horses and horse riding. For, although the publicity copy that accompanies the book earnestly gives numbers on how many people ride, the fact remains that the horse world, primarily of New York, is not on most readers' radar screens. So Korda draws us in slowly with stories about the persnickety folks who populate that world and what it feels like to be astride so powerful an animal and what it feels like to fall off. That one of the earlier stories in the book is the one about how he began an affair with the woman who was to become his second wife doesn't hurt when it comes to keeping readers intrigued. But it is the horses who are the stars of the story; certainly they are more appealing than the many wealthy, oblivious people who dominate the horsey crowd. Korda wisely casts himself as an Everyman in this rarefied world, sharing an intense camaraderie with other riders but, nonetheless, more knowing than them and certainly friendlier. As in his previous book, Country Matters (2001), this is rather self-indulgently illustrated with Korda's pencil drawings. In fact, the whole book is a bit self-indulgent; the trick here is that you barely notice. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
Korda (Country Matters; Charmed Lives) recounts in his trademark affable style a growing involvement over decades with horses and the people who ride them. Beginning with his youth, and following with his reconnection to the horse world when he takes his son to lessons, Korda relates how horses changed his life: he met his current wife, Margaret, at New York City's Claremont Riding Academy, and eventually they purchased a home in Dutchess County with grounds to accommodate a growing number of horses. In one hilarious episode, Korda, the editor-in-chief at Simon & Schuster, visits an author in Middleburg, Va., and finds himself, unprepared, on a foxhunting horse jumping over walls and into backyards. He begins to analyze the symbolism of horses ("the horse stood... for social superiority, mobility, and not getting your feet wet and muddy like ordinary folk"), but this meditation is an exception, as Korda favors the anecdote and the caricature. There are rather too many "movers and shakers" for this book to live up to the diversity implied by its title, and while he briefly raises moral questions (about foxhunting, for example), he largely ignores the sociopolitical and emotional aspects of the horse-human relationship. He takes his reader on the occasional jaunt through less tony neighborhoods (with a veterinarian in Rhinebeck, N.Y.; to a rodeo in Archer City, Tex., with Larry McMurtry; and to a correctional facility's horse farm), but he tends to focus on places like Southlands, a privately owned facility in Dutchess County. While the book is more a series of vignettes than a full narrative, Korda's humor will be a delight to anyone who loves the world of riding.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
One mark of a good writer is to engage readers on a topic in which they have no inherent interest. This is what Korda, editor-in-chief at Simon & Schuster and author of several popular memoirs, does here with horses and horse riding. For, although the publicity copy that accompanies the book earnestly gives numbers on how many people ride, the fact remains that the horse world, primarily of New York, is not on most readers' radar screens. So Korda draws us in slowly with stories about the persnickety folks who populate that world and what it feels like to be astride so powerful an animal and what it feels like to fall off. That one of the earlier stories in the book is the one about how he began an affair with the woman who was to become his second wife doesn't hurt when it comes to keeping readers intrigued. But it is the horses who are the stars of the story; certainly they are more appealing than the many wealthy, oblivious people who dominate the horsey crowd. Korda wisely casts himself as an Everyman in this rarefied world, sharing an intense camaraderie with other riders but, nonetheless, more knowing than them and certainly friendlier. As in his previous book, Country Matters (2001), this is rather self-indulgently illustrated with Korda's pencil drawings. In fact, the whole book is a bit self-indulgent; the trick here is that you barely notice. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
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