A frothy celebration of the joy of numbers. Having waltzed through the world of letters (Alpha to Omega, 1981), the Humezes—this time with the help of freelancer Maguire- -turn their sights on numbers 0 through 13, along with infinity (whose sign, a sideways eight, explains the title). Numbers, they assure us, shine with integrity: ``To the extent that numbers say anything about the real world, they do so unfailingly and incorruptibly.'' Drawing on thinkers as diverse as Camille Paglia and Georg Cantor, and dipping into history, etymology, mathematics, and folklore, the authors praise each integer in turn. Zero, ``where it all began, the clean slate''—the only number that is neither positive nor negative—gives birth to ``zero hour'' and ``ground zero.'' One (``in the beginning, all things were one'') allows discussion of the Peano postulates, which demonstrate how and why numbers run in sequence. Two leads to meditations on left-handedness and pairings of heroes and sidekicks. Three brings Fibonacci numbers, golden rectangles, prime numbers, pi, and jokes: ``How many Californians does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Three: one to screw it in and two to share in the experience.'' Four suggests the four-color map problem. Five? ``Take five!'' Six includes anagrams—as well as antigrams, wherein ``The Waldorf'' becomes ``Dwarf Hotel.'' And so on up to infinity, which holds ``an infinitude of infinities.'' The approach is giggly, inventive (the discussion of eight includes a floor plan for a one-dimensional house), stuffed with arcana (13 is ``the only number for the fear of which we have a specific word in English: triskaidekaphobia''). Nimble nutty number play, as the authors make their case, four-square and to the nines, that ``no number is dull.'' (Line drawings)
Pub Date: Aug. 5, 1993
ISBN: 0-671-74282-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1993
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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