An absorbing, well-researched addition to the expansive canon of World War I literature.
The devastating trauma of modern warfare and its influence on psychotherapeutic advancements and inspiration for some of the most emotionally charged poetry of the 20th century.
Craiglockhart War Hospital, which opened in October 1916 outside of Edinburgh, was among the first hospitals established to treat officers suffering from shell shock (later called PTSD). Rather than return these officers to civilian life, the treatment was intended to prepare them to return to battle and fill in the ranks of massive losses sustained since the beginning of the war. Craiglockhart was notable for the significant role it played in advancing therapeutic treatments of shell shock through psychiatrists such as W.H.R Rivers—and for the impact this facility had on the lives of two emerging poets: Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. The literary journal The Hydra, produced by the patients and edited by Owen, became “a vehicle...for some of the most profound and heartrending poetry of the war.” Within an engrossing novelistic structure, Glass, a former war correspondent and author of They Fought Alone and The Deserters, expertly weaves the stories of these men into a history of Craiglockhart and advancing insights into the causes and treatments for shell shock. Along the way, the author traces how class differences influenced the level of treatment provided. Only ranking officers received sufficient treatment for shell shock, while the soldiers were often forced to go back into battle or risk being executed. Drawing from letters, diary entries, and military and medical documents, Glass probes deeply into the complex lives of Rivers, Sassoon, and Owen, and he capably explores the profound influence that Sassoon and Rivers had on each other’s careers and how the burgeoning friendship between Sassoon and Owen impacted their poetry and feelings about the war. “To both poets, the war was damnable,” writes Glass. “Sassoon blamed the country’s rulers and its complacent citizenry, while in Owen’s poetry the war appeared as a natural catastrophe beyond human control.”
An absorbing, well-researched addition to the expansive canon of World War I literature.Pub Date: June 6, 2023
ISBN: 9781984877956
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
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
A fascinating and funny look at the life of a famous actor who found further fulfillment through giving back.
The actor discusses his career on the stage and in film, and his life focusing on the value of art and public service.
Now 66, Stern, perhaps best known for his roles in Home Alone and City Slickers, is no longer "the precocious teenager who moved to New York as a seventeen-year-old, at least ten years younger than all of my friends, the youngest dad at all my kids’ school events.” As he discusses his childhood in Maryland, his introduction to the theater, and writing a musical version of Lord of the Flies, the author's love of the work shows through on every page—as does his family’s legacy of a strong work ethic (his mother told him, “I don’t care what you do but you are out of this house when you turn eighteen”). Realizing that “academics were not going to get me anywhere,” he committed to acting. After some early stage work, he began working in films, appearing in a number of critically successful projects in the late 1970s and early ’80s, including Breaking Away and Diner. Stern analyzes key moments in the development of his craft, as well as the twists and turns of a very public life, which included work with the USO and the experience of being sued for $25 million over a TV show. Although readers may pick up the book to learn more about Hollywood, his focus on his work-life balance brings some of the most memorable passages, from his narration and directing work in the TV series The Wonder Years (which included no on-screen billing), which helped him overcome his childhood dyslexia, to his experience working with the Boys & Girls Club and his lifelong focus on public service.
A fascinating and funny look at the life of a famous actor who found further fulfillment through giving back.Pub Date: May 21, 2024
ISBN: 9781632280930
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Viva Editions
Review Posted Online: Jan. 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
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