What amounts to a working journal affixed to the pages of the first draft of East of Eden (1952) in the form of letters addressed to Steinbeck's editor, the late Pascal Covici. These remarks were originally set down on the left hand pages of a huge notebook, with the day's writing pushed forward on the right. The "letters" cover working days from January 29, 1951 to November 1, 1952, and are just about as useful (to anyone but the author), as writer's warming up exercises are apt to be. Steinbeck worries the bones of structure, the aspects of his characters, but the value of such preor post-creation musings is always in doubt. Often the message hasn't arrived or has already gone out. There is some personal detail—about the childhood troubles of his young sons; frequently expressed affection for his second wife, Elaine; and the quality and durability of pencils. And of course there are expressions of moods blue, bright and downright frantic, induced by, as every writer recognizes, gawdknowswhat. Remarks on contemporary public events or self scrutiny, are few, far between and fragmentary. Although Steinbeck appeared to be at this time a severely disciplined craftsman, he admitted that his method differed from that of The Grapes of Wrath when he wrote "headlong." And considering the impact of the late novelist's Joads compared with the forgettable Trasks and Hamiltons, therein might lie a shade of moral.
Pub Date: Dec. 20, 1969
ISBN: 0140144188
Page Count: 196
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1969
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
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
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