In a narrative based primarily on the personal correspondence of the youthful Winston Churchill, his family, and other contemporaries, interspersed with the mature Churchill's poignant reminiscences, his granddaughter provides a rare and moving look at the formative years of Britain's great wartime leader. The son of a preeminent MP and an American socialite, Winston was born at Blenheim Palace, his ancestral home. A shy, lonely boy with a speech impediment and delicate health who barely knew his famous father, Churchill spent his early years mostly in the company of his beloved nurse, Mrs. Everest (``It was to her I poured out all my many troubles''), and younger brother, Jack. When he was not yet eight, he was banished from this comfortable environment to boarding school at St. George's, where birch- wielding despots bestowed the refinements of a classical education on their charges. Sandys presents the boy's affecting letters home to his mother from this period in full childish scrawl, along with his report cards, drawings, and reminiscences from other schoolboys. Churchill was later transferred to a school in Brighton, where the propitious climate and the relative kindliness of the teachers did not result either in better academic performance or in improved health. Sandys show that, despite precocity in certain subjects, Churchill was a mediocre student and deeply unhappy youth who suffered from what in modern terms can only be viewed as parental neglect. After several failed attempts, he achieved entry into Sandhurst, the British military academy, as a cavalry officer. His father's premature death, which occurred as he graduated creditably from Sandhurst (Churchill had at last found his niche in the Army), deprived him of his dream of entering Parliament at his father's side but filled him with a determination to pursue his father's political aims and, more importantly, to make his own mark on life. Inspiring and engrossing. (color and b&w photos)
Pub Date: Oct. 2, 1995
ISBN: 0-525-94048-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1995
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
BOOK REVIEW
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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