A venture down the Ob River and into the heart of Siberia by Wall Street Journal Berlin bureau chief Kempe, who offers telling vignettes of a region now in flux but once as notorious for its climate as for its infamous history. Over five weeks in the summer of 1991, Kempe was part of a Russian-European expedition—which included Greenpeace scientists monitoring environmental damage as well as a member of the Supreme Soviet—that followed the course of the Ob, which rises near Mongolia and then flows north to its mouth, beyond the Arctic Circle. Though the expedition used a specially chartered boat, Kempe and his companions also made side trips by helicopter and train to visit local landmarks. The journey began in Kemerova, heart of the Siberian coal-mining and industrial region; continued on to Kolpashevo, grisly riverbank site of one of Stalinism's mass graves; and ended with a journey by train to Vorkhuta, once a notorious gulag in a region home to most of Russia's nuclear program. Kempe was the first American allowed into Tomsk 7, a planned town run entirely by the defense ministry; he also visited oil-drilling sites and spoke with native reindeer-herders. Everywhere, he and the accompanying scientists heard alarming stories of environmental damage and saw examples for themselves. In most places, local water is so contaminated as to be undrinkable, and widespread destruction of the fragile tundra threatens to become more significant than that of the rain forests. Along the way, Kempe talked to a variety of people, including a former prisoner who claimed to have tried to assassinate Stalin, and the son of a native people's shaman. Despite intermittent observations on the Siberian tendency to hold fate responsible for everything, more an anecdotal than analytical account of a place ``that has always been more a warning than a region.'' Timely.
Pub Date: July 17, 1992
ISBN: 0-399-13755-6
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1992
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
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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