Holland (One's Company, 1992, etc.) presents a collection of exemplary little essays in praise of a lot of her favorite things. A kind of personal book of virtues, it's one that should, if life is fair, speak to a wide audience. From the first piece, ``Waking Up,'' through ``Lunch'' and ``Spring,'' on to ``Air,'' ``Fire,'' and ``Water,'' past ``Getting Older'' and five dozen others, the persuasive essayist chronicles her view of the Good Life in basic terms. She praises recreational talking and the recumbent state, noting ``that you don't see any other intelligent mammals wobbling around all day balanced on their hind legs, or pretending to relax by sitting upright on their backsides.'' Working is great, she tells us. Not working has its advantages, too. Because we dream, she reminds us, we know how a bird feels (``wonderful''), and she makes us remember that certain things, like happy hours, were given to humanity for enjoyment; it's wasteful and wicked to scorn them. The author expounds on diverse matters that make her heart leap for joy, from firecrackers, gardening, cats, and dogs to bare feet, speeding, and whistling. Her heart leaps a lot, to be sure, though there are a few things, like seat belts, with which Holland is not entirely pleased; and she offers a better defense of smoking than the cigarette industry has ever come up with. Written in confident style, one in which nouns may masquerade as sentences, this winsome text corrects a current misapprehension about the world—it may not be so bad, after all. Just consider all the fun in it. There's coffee and colors and the Fourth of July. Down comforters. Flora. Fauna. Books of essays. Recalling Pollyanna or E.B. White in his lyrical mode, Holland, with her instructive essays, may not lengthen our days on this planet, but perhaps a few of those days will be enhanced for a little while. And that's not bad at all. (line drawings)
Pub Date: March 31, 1995
ISBN: 0-316-37057-6
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1995
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
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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