This is Mayes in top form.
A collection of tales about searching the globe for inspiration, only to find fulfillment on the return home.
Seemingly inspired by Martin Buber (“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveller is unaware”), Mayes (Swan, 2002, etc.) finds comfort in the world as a visitor, not a permanent resident. In previous work, Mayes has described her adopted provenance of Tuscany with insight and allure. Here, her location has changed, but her writing remains in familiar territory. Divided into chapters that each represent a separate adventure, the book is at its best when its author describes the people she encounters along the way, like Rachid, the faithful tour guide in Fez who possesses an unusual enthusiasm for Joseph Conrad, and Guven, the rug dealer in Istanbul who speaks eight languages and sends notes woven in miniature looms. Literate and seductive, Mayes’s anecdotes are immersed in the culture of each destination. Whether it’s listening to soul-filled fado in Portugal, sailing in a traditional Turkish gulet along the Lycian Coast or participating in a Greek baptism in Mani, her observations get to the essence of place. The travelogue falters a bit when Mayes details her visits to museums and ruins; these guidebook staples can grow tiresome and require a degree of patience. Food is a constant topic throughout the book: tortilla de verdura in Madrid, steaming churros in Sevilla, tajines in Morocco and Sally Lunn bread in the Cotswolds. Shelter causes concern because Mayes and her companion, Ed, suffer from a common affliction: They have high expectations. They crave intimacy with their environment; large, impersonal chain hotels are out of the question. Getting the nod is an old stone charmer in the south of France and a well-outfitted row house in Lisbon. A noisy rental in the English countryside, meanwhile, proves unacceptable.
This is Mayes in top form.Pub Date: March 14, 2006
ISBN: 0-7679-1005-2
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Broadway
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2006
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
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
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