The well-known Boston-based National Public Radio host (Only a Game) slaps his quaint “ain’t sports funny” shtick between two covers, leaving readers, unlike listeners, unable to switch the station. Littlefield has carved out a niche for himself among sports-loving radio listeners for his amiable, sometimes achingly wry musings on the sporting world. This volume, comprised of essays, commentary, and excruciatingly corny verse, gives focus to the author’s gentle conceit that he and his listeners are somehow above the rank and file of fans who, owing to their blind lust for statistics, sporting memorabilia, and $175 sneakers, are somehow accountable for the decline of our civilization. Undoubtedly displaying a fine style, Littlefield’s writing, when divorced from his dulcet-toned radio voice, seems meandering. For instance, his take on how a pitched baseball seemingly defies the laws of nature (—a virtual staple in the baseball writer’s repertoire—) will only seem fresh to readers who seldom stray into the sports section of their local papers. But apparently that’s the point. To his credit, Littlefield offers lucid and moving odes to such heroes as the late tennis pioneer Arthur Ashe, Boston Celtics star Larry Bird, and the baseball hurler Nolan Ryan, as well as some evocative slice-of-life stuff about minor-league and amateur athletes, and his daughters’ soccer leagues. Nevertheless, these gems seem lost among such puffery as his ode to the Harvard-Yale game or his painfully unfunny football haikus. Contrary to modern myth, sports and high erudition are not mutually exclusive. Sportswriting like this only helps perpetuate that myth. This book will thrill Littlefield’s core of listeners; it will anger anyone who simply likes to play and watch games, rather than dwell on their greater cultural significance.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 1-883684-14-8
Page Count: 248
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1998
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
