A worthy and moving but monotonous paean to the resiliency and character of Boston.
In response to the terrorist attack on the 2013 Boston Marathon, editor Blauner (editor: Central Park: An Anthology, 2012, etc.) presents a collection of essays celebrating the City on a Hill.
The lead essay, Kevin Cullen’s “Running Toward the Bombs,” harrowingly recounts the bombing attack that occurred on Patriot’s Day at the conclusion of the Boston Marathon and the manhunt for the perpetrators that followed. Cullen’s account is riveting, horrifying and ultimately inspirational in its depiction of the courage demonstrated by the first responders and ordinary citizens who reacted to the unimaginable trauma with selflessness and life-saving competence. The other writers included offer personal histories and reflections on the city without focusing on the attack (Cullen’s piece obviates the need for further elaboration) in a series of essays that range from wistful to (gently) sardonic. The contributors note Boston’s provincialism, distinctive dialect, confounding topography, and heritage as a center of American history, intellect and sport. Though nobly intended, the collection becomes repetitive in its litanies of fondly remembered landmarks and observations of the city’s distinctive character; the effect is somewhat like being subjected to the protracted narration of an unusually eloquent acquaintance’s vacation slides. The quality of the writing is uniformly high, and there are moments of welcome humor and surprise, but the standout pieces (excluding the heart-rending report of the attack) are reprints of George Plimpton’s “Medora Goes to the Game,” a droll and affecting account of the author and his young daughter attending the Harvard/Yale football game, and John Updike’s “Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu,” the much-anthologized tribute to Red Sox great Ted Williams. Unencumbered by elegy, these famous essays more fully engage and entertain as well as pay deserved tribute. Other contributors include Susan Orlean, Bud Collins, Dennis Lehane, Leigh Montville and Pico Iyer.
A worthy and moving but monotonous paean to the resiliency and character of Boston.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-0544263802
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2013
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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