A treat for dog lovers.
Journalist Pearse tells the heartwarming lost-and-found tale of Sophie, an Australian blue heeler who became an unwitting castaway on St. Bees, an island off the Queensland coast.
Sophie was a pet store puppy, “the sleepiest of a litter of otherwise bumptious cattle dogs.” Although apparently disinterested in human attention, she nevertheless caught the eye of 16-year-old Bridget Griffith, who “fell hopelessly in love” with her. Gentle and affectionate, Sophie quickly won the hearts of Bridget’s parents and became the “fifth child” in a family of four children. Over time she transformed them from “steadfast canine disciplinarians to utter softies” who allowed her to come indoors and lay claim to an old leather armchair, a feat no other Griffith dog had ever accomplished. When Bridget left for college a year later, the bond between Sophie and Bridget’s parents—especially her father—intensified. In 2009, while the Griffiths and their canine “bestie” were out sailing, Sophie quietly slipped off the deck of their boat and into the ocean. A grief-stricken husband and wife gave up their beloved dog as lost. But against all odds, Sophie managed to swim treacherous, shark-infested waters to land on one, then another, sparsely populated island. Rejecting the humans with whom she came into contact, she survived alone for an incredible five months until she was captured and returned to the Griffiths. Occasionally overdramatized, this story of canine loyalty and the power of human-animal relationships is as charming as its blue-furred heroine.
A treat for dog lovers.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7382-1467-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Da Capo Lifelong
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2011
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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