The whys and wherefores of our inner clocks, zestfully presented by journalist and novelist Orlock (The Goddess Letters, 1987). You say hello, and I say goodbye. So it goes, for people's body clocks are rarely in sync—and, according to Orlock, these internal timekeepers control just about everything we think, feel, or do. Chronobiology has uncovered over a hundred biological rhythms so far, with more on the way. They fall into three categories: ultradian (short—e.g., the firing of neurons); circadian (24-hour—e.g., the wake-sleep cycle); and infradian (long—e.g., the menstrual cycle or—the longest of them all—the life/death cycle). Orlock's jaunty tour of this fledgling science includes plenty of ethology, including Darwin's studies of biorhythms in plants and earthworms. The focus, however, is on humans—who appear to be a lot like puppets tugged by chemical strings. Migraines, calorie intake, alacrity of thought—all bow before internal cycles. Some facts amaze: when asleep, we ordinarily ``breathe through one nostril for three hours, with the tissue in the other nostril slightly engorged, then we switch''; more sobering is Orlock's discussion of the millions of Americans who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder—serious depression brought on by winter. To battle the cycle blues, Orlock proffers plenty of advice: If you want to lose weight, eat in the morning; for best sex, wait until October; to cure jet lag, splash yourself with sunbeams. How to tell inner time—and how to beat the clock. Fun.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1993
ISBN: 1-55972-194-4
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Birch Lane Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1993
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
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