A quick and fun read that should delight seasoned travelers as well as those planning their first adventure to this...
A collection of short essays by female authors on Paris, a city that “is so many things, all of them wonderful.”
All of the bestselling authors featured in this book have written works that feature Paris, and this lively assemblage, edited by Brown (The Light of Paris, 2016, etc.), puts on display the personal narrative of each woman’s experience of the City of Light. Whether recalling the books about Paris that propelled Cathy Kelly to travel there, the variety of experiences gathered by Paula McLain and Therese Anne Fowler during research trips for their books, Jennifer Coburn’s mother-daughter trip, which featured an unexpected outcome, or Ellen Sussman’s exploration of how her passion for the city masked the pain and emptiness of her crumbling marriage, the essays offer tantalizing portraits of both the city’s beauty and grit. Following each essay is a brief biography of the author, listing her works, her favorite and least-favorite Paris moments (M.J. Rose: “the last time I had to leave”), what shouldn’t be missed during a trip to Paris and what to skip (Sussman: the Champs-Élysées, which has become “a shopping mall for tourists”), and her favorite non-Paris travel destination. What makes this collection a treat are the varying viewpoints about this singular city. Each story offers a unique vantage point for better understanding the history and culture of the city. Award-winning romance writer Megan Crane, who has written more than 60 books, three of which feature Paris, describes how meandering around the city helped her to know herself better: “I could finally be me. That was what Paris did for me, one long ago weekend on my own. It scared me, then it challenged me. And then it set me free.”
A quick and fun read that should delight seasoned travelers as well as those planning their first adventure to this “enormous and complex place.”Pub Date: July 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-57447-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2017
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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