Another splendidly keen-eyed and cant-free book from Boyles (African Lives, 1988), who takes the old travel chestnut—a journey by train in the wilds—and turns it into a tart but not unsympathetic commentary on East Africa, past and present. Boyles begins on the once-prosperous clove-growing island of Zanzibar, center of the Arab-run slave trade and the first British foothold in East Africa. He next travels to Mombasa, the former Arab stronghold on the Kenyan coast and the first stop on the railway, planned by the British to run from the coast through Nairobi and Kenya to Kisumu on Lake Victoria. Begun in 1896 and built with imported labor from India, the railway's progress into the interior was slow, and events at Tsavo—site of the very real but much underused Man Eaters Motel of the title—almost ended the project. Now a sleepy railway halt in the middle of the Taru desert, Tsavo was once the scene of a terrifying spree by man- eating lions, who before they were finally shot had killed more than 128 people, often snatching them from their tents while they were sleeping, or, in one instance, from a stationary railway carriage. The rest of the journey to Kisumu, a place ``trouble enough for most people,'' is relatively tame in comparison but typically enlivened by Boyles's cogent observations and penchant for the unusual. Vivid writing, well-chosen anecdotes, illuminating facts, and a special knack for finding and delineating memorable characters make this a treat for those who delight in the offbeat, always objective, and never pompous travel book.
Pub Date: June 28, 1991
ISBN: 0-395-58082-X
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1991
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
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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