A fine addition to a well-established series.
The 15th edition of this always-strong annual collection features essays that range in subject and tone from philosophical to poetic, guest-edited by Lightman (The Diagnosis, p. 1063, etc.).
Lightman’s assemblage very nearly defies generalization. It includes 21 essays from publications as elite as Harper’s and as obscure as The Natural Farmer on subjects from the metaphysical to the intensely personal, written by naturalists, poets, and scientists. They span the continuum from formal argument to informal reflection. Ultimately, however, these pieces are linked by their sincerity as well as the quality of their composition. As Lightman explains in his introduction, “In reading an essay, I want to feel that I’m communing with a real person, and a person who cares what he or she’s writing about.” Thus, as you proceed through the alphabetically arranged collection—from William Gass’s flawless “In Defense of the Book” to Mary Gordon’s open-ended narrative of her imagined and real encounters with Rome to Edward Hoagland’s quiet reflections on the intersection of nature, mystery, and religion—you’ll encounter distinct voices that are like-minded in their thoughtfulness. From this self-seriousness the collection understandably gains a certain weight: the essays are intended to be thought-provoking, and not on petty issues. Ian Buruma dissects identity politics, Richard McCann dwells on the life granted and taken through his liver transplant, and Steven Weinberg searches for God within quantum physics. Although some rely more heavily on the pronoun “I” than others, each represents (as Lightman desired) a personal struggle to express a thought, explore a belief, or understand a phenomenon.
A fine addition to a well-established series.Pub Date: Oct. 26, 2000
ISBN: 0-618-03578-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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