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AT THE BAR

THE PASSIONS AND PECCADILLOES OF AMERICAN LAWYERS

An engaging and exceedingly readable collection of essays on legal matters both great and modest. Margolick is a journalist who also boasts (perhaps ``admits to'' is a better phrase) a law degree. From November 1987 until he became the New York Times San Francisco bureau chief earlier this year, he wrote the entertaining Times column ``At the Bar,'' 120 examples of which are collected here. Although often depicting the legal profession at its best or its worst, Margolick's pieces are not blatant commentaries. He neither proselytizes nor expounds grand theories about law because, he argues, interesting anecdotes alone cannot be the basis for judging the value of the legal profession. Rather, Margolick seeks to show through examples that ``lawyers are, in fact, nothing but mirrors of ourselves.'' Loosely grouped into 12 chapters (``Personalities,'' ``Ethics,'' ``The Feminization of the Law,'' etc.), the essays cover such serious issues as the attempts of attorneys to balance career and parenthood; the firing of a lawyer who reported the ethical violations of another attorney in his firm; and an exceedingly cruel satire written by members of the Harvard Law Review lampooning the life and writings of a recently murdered feminist law professor. Lighter topics include the legal profession's passion for footnotes; how lawyers vied for cameo parts in the movie The Firm; and the campaign for the 1994 presidency of the American Bar Association, during which one candidate alleged that his opponent's foot condition made him physically unable to hold office, while the pedally impaired aspirant countered that his rival was too fat. Margolick's columns are invariably well-written, entertaining, thought-provoking, and pleasingly devoid of legal jargon. Fascinating snapshots of the myriad foibles and occasional heroics of lawyering and the law. A book that will engross lawyer and layperson alike.

Pub Date: April 24, 1995

ISBN: 0-671-88787-4

Page Count: 320

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995

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I AM OZZY

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

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THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE

50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

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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