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A review by nonna7
Writings from the New Yorker 1927-1976 by E.B. White
4.0
I read this over a period of a couple of months, a little at a time. Some of the essays are funny, some are charming, some are an interesting window at the times. E.B. White, probably known better to the general public as the author of Charlottes' Web, worked for the New Yorker from 1927-1976 and produced a number of essays long and short. It's an interesting collection. The essays are topical for the period and often are footnoted for the reader who may not understand the person or event that is the subject of the essay. For instance he talks about the famous toy store FAO Schwartz and compares the cost of a toy in 1905 vs the date he wrote the essay which was 1933. He marvels that it's the same toy, just costs more money. He also talks about a little car that is selling for $33. I can't imagine anyone I know who could have afforded that in 1933. That would have been more than a week's wages for a lot of people, more than their rent. It's an interesting look at the changes that happened in the period that he was writing. He has a particularly moving essay about John F. Kennedy.
"When we think of him, he is without a hat, standing in the wind and the weather. He was impatient of topcoats and hats, preferring to be exposed, and he was young enough and tough enough to confront and to enjoy the cold and the wind of these circumstance and national danger. He died of exposure, but in a way that he would have settled for - in the line of duty, and with his friends and enemies all around, supporting him and shooting at him. It can be said of him, as of few men in a like position, that he did not fear the weather, and did not trim his sails, but instead challenged the wind itself, to improve its direction and to cause it to blow more softly and more kindly over the world and its people."
"When we think of him, he is without a hat, standing in the wind and the weather. He was impatient of topcoats and hats, preferring to be exposed, and he was young enough and tough enough to confront and to enjoy the cold and the wind of these circumstance and national danger. He died of exposure, but in a way that he would have settled for - in the line of duty, and with his friends and enemies all around, supporting him and shooting at him. It can be said of him, as of few men in a like position, that he did not fear the weather, and did not trim his sails, but instead challenged the wind itself, to improve its direction and to cause it to blow more softly and more kindly over the world and its people."