Senator Gore (Tennessee), who was known as the environmental candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination last time around, says here that he strayed from that concentration when pollsters steered him onto other issues—and that he now has redirected himself to saving the earth. His book is not just another roundup summary of threats to the environment, though it does include chapters on water problems, deforestation, and the genetic erosion of the global food supply, but it's a seemingly heartfelt attempt to understand and convince those (politicians and public) who deny the urgency of the problems and the need to act. Gore has a roundabout way of making his points, often diluting amazing quotes, facts, and stories by presenting them as examples or asides within the abstract frameworks he constructs in his indirect way of approaching the issues. He is fond of analogies, but the analogies can be stretched far beyond their value to illuminate—as in an entire chapter, ``Dysfunctional Civilization,'' that goes on at length about dysfunctional families, addiction, and co-dependency. And instead of using the familiar as analogy to clarify a difficult concept, he often does the opposite—for example, calling on chaos theory and Einstein's Theory of Relativity (``Bear with me'') to help us recognize the threshold for dramatic change in our relationship to the environment. Yet on particular issues he often gets caught up in conventional thinking and fails to cut through with fresh ideas. Gore's concluding recommendations for a global environmental strategy work as a thoughtful position paper but are unlikely to inspire politicians or popular action. Which, however, is not to dismiss the desirability of getting Gore's agenda in motion. So consider buying the book, displaying it, and hoping for the best.
Pub Date: Jan. 22, 1992
ISBN: 0-395-57648-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1991
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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