Neither as theologically profound nor as literary as the King James itself, but a useful and entertaining study.
Oxford don and theologian McGrath (Evangelicalism and the Future of Christianity, 1995) celebrates the King James Bible.
The English translation commissioned by James I and completed in 1611 is distinguished in two ways, according to McGrath. It’s important to historians and theologians because it put Scripture into the hands of ordinary people. It holds an equally key position in the literary canon as one of the most poetic, haunting works in the English language. The first three chapters summarize the history of the Reformation, the invention and dissemination of the printing press, the status of the European middle class, and the consolidation of the English language. This may be necessary background, but McGrath’s rehashes of well-known information about Gutenberg and Luther are stale and plodding. He serves up fresher material in chapter four, a discussion of the first English Bibles. Introducing readers to the Tyndale Bible, an English version that preceded the King James, McGrath notes reformer William Tyndale’s commitment to rendering the Scriptures in “proper English.” Tyndale’s clear, accessible translation would “prove to be of foundational importance to the shaping of later English translations.” We also read about the Calvinist Geneva Bible before finally getting to the King James Version. McGrath is at his most fascinating when explaining that the King’s translation team did not begin “with blank sheets of paper in front of them”; they were aware (and respectful) of the long line of English translators in which they stood. Bibliophiles will relish the discussion of printing errors in the early editions of the King James, and its defenders will be pleased to learn that none other than Noah Webster praised it for “forming and preserving” America’s English. The book also contains many lovely illustrations and the occasional helpful chart, like “A Note on Paper Sizes,” which explains the differences between a folio and a duodecimo edition.
Neither as theologically profound nor as literary as the King James itself, but a useful and entertaining study.Pub Date: April 10, 2001
ISBN: 0-385-49890-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2001
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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