For all things feline, this one is a cat lover’s fancy.
An ebullient paean for felines, complete with true stories and practical advice from veteran cat sitter and CatChannel.com expert Adlon and Cat Fancy Magazine editor Logan.
Endorsed by Garfield creator Jim Davis, this debut is a cat lover’s paradise. Adlon’s spent 35 years as the first full-time cat sitter in the “city that never sleeps,” and she’s picked up enough experiences along the way to fill nine lives—e.g., the time John Lennon visited her gift shop to buy a cat tree, paying with cash and telling Adlon to “keep the change.” It wasn’t his last visit either, as he returned to the shop with wife Yoko in tow several times. The author’s whimsical voice guides readers through tales long and short, such as how she braved summer heat and blackouts, winter storms, a tarantula and even her own claustrophobia to cater to the whims of her finicky, furry clients. Adlon’s “distinctive feline” stories are touching highlights meant to impart lessons to readers, such as the story of Reggie, a cat who came to say goodbye to his owner before peacefully passing away in his sleep. It’s obvious that Adlon and Logan love their subject—gender pronouns are alternated throughout the book, but the word “it” is never used in reference to cats. In addition to plenty of life lessons, the book is brimming with helpful cat-care advice, touching on myriad topics including adoption, preparing the home for a cat, pet health tips and what to do when kitty stops using the litter box.
For all things feline, this one is a cat lover’s fancy.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7570-0344-8
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Square One Publishers
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2011
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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