Accessible yet abbreviated; will appeal largely to boomers who want a broad-brush approach to the major elements of...
An engagingly written but thin overview of retirement basics.
Debut author Davis, a former New York City chiropractor, wrote this book after doing research for her own retirement. Intending it to be “help for broke baby boomers,” Davis does indeed cover all the basics: Social Security, Medicare, Supplemental Security Income, retirement plans, wills, living wills, health, working during retirement, saving money, and where to relocate. Davis writes in a folksy, informal style, sharing her own story and adding some personality to otherwise fairly standard text. The chapters are short, offering a cursory glance at each topic without the depth of detail found in other retirement books; instead, the author provides numerous links to additional material. Much of the book’s content is, in fact, compiled from other sources, but for those readers who don’t wish to hunt around, Davis’ work is likely to be a time-saver. Still, readers should be aware that this guide just scratches the surface. The 11-page chapter titled “Retirement Plans,” for example, is nothing more than definitions of and a few facts about 401(k)s, pensions, IRAs and Roth IRAs. The discussion of wills, inheritance and living wills, a mere five pages, feels incomplete. The chapters about healthy eating and exercise seem to convey the author’s personal view of food and her own experience with physical activity rather than authoritative, objective facts. One of the more compelling chapters, “Living Abroad,” should be valuable to retirees who may be considering an international relocation. Here, the author shares useful details about visa and financial requirements. She also provides a helpful rundown of many of the more popular international retirement spots, such as Panama, Ecuador, Mexico, Belize, Nicaragua and Thailand (though one can’t help wondering why Costa Rica was excluded). A nice touch: Davis includes relevant lines from songs popular with boomers, like “Don’t Stop” by Fleetwood Mac and “Let’s Live for Today” by The Grass Roots.
Accessible yet abbreviated; will appeal largely to boomers who want a broad-brush approach to the major elements of retirement.Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2014
ISBN: 978-0692303375
Page Count: 124
Publisher: Golden Goddess Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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