Essays on the myriad pleasing details of family life by the author of Daddy's Home! (1990), an English professor (Sarah Lawrence) with an eye for the magic in the mundane. ``What is this thing called love, I wonder, lying beside my wife on a narrow sofa in the middle of a Sunday afternoon....How have we managed to navigate the sandy shoals of marriage and parenthood...? And what, God forbid, would we ever do without each other, entwined as we are, body and soul?'' So go Schnur's unabashedly sentimental ruminations on the birth of love and the complex family life that can result—as perfectly pitched for Valentine's Day as a Hallmark card. Having married his high-school sweetheart, a graphic artist, Schnur went on to buy a small house in the country, work as a magazine editor, and, eventually, hope for kids. It took a number of years—the Schnurs had their bout with fertility clinics—but they finally hit the jackpot with a first child and then, shortly thereafter, twins. Along the way, Schnur found he adored being the neighborhood ``dad''—more available than most of his neighbors for horsey-riding, swing- pushing, hair-mussing, and baseball-tossing. It's in these little moments that he finds material for his essays: in ``Love Letters,'' wherein the sight of a mother walking with her children inspires him to write a note to his wife; in ``The Universe Over Breakfast,'' in which Schnur attempts to discuss metaphysics with his family at eight in the morning; in ``Four Generations,'' in which Schnur's grandmother plays with her great-granddaughter and wishes she could see the child when she is grown. Offering few true literary insights, and at times smacking of a deliberate intent to manipulate and charm. Nevertheless, a pleasant diversion for those with no time to smell the flowers in their own backyards.
Pub Date: Jan. 17, 1992
ISBN: 0-688-11022-3
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1991
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
IN THE NEWS
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
