A highly personal and ultimately uplifting faith manual.
A short and intensely autobiographical debut guide combines inspirational talks and a faith memoir.
George Gilmour and Becky Gilmour weight their concise account of their faith journey with ample stories from their own lives, starting with the sudden death of their little daughter, Stephanie, in an accident. That tragedy prompted painful days and, eventually, a hard-won kind of acceptance: “We areprotected and shielded from the effects of the storm, just not from all of it. The rain falls on the good and the bad, and the drought comes to the righteous and unrighteous.” The authors’ narrative alternates in just this way between personal accounts and broader spiritual teaching moments; they'll tell a tale about their daily lives and then shift to traditional inspirational passages. “We must stop focusing on and rehearsing our problems,” they write. “Instead, we must focus on the promises of God, and on pursuing our dreams and keeping a positive attitude.” As a couple, they have many times put their whole trust in God’s plan for their lives, as when they decided to pack up their belongings and move from Southern California to Austin, Texas, or in how they respond to health and financial setbacks. They finish each of their book’s brief chapters with a “Think About It” section of useful discussion questions designed to bring readers into the process of examining their own faith and the way it’s been tested or confirmed by the events of their lives. The highlight of the guide is the clean, bright optimism of the authors, who regularly remind their Christian readers about the all-embracing nature of their religion. “Whatever you are going through, you may be assured that God is there, and He has not forsaken you,” they write. “God is both God of the mountains and God of the valleys. He is God when the bank account is full and God when it is empty. He is God when we are healthy, and He is God when we are ill.” It’s a lucid and heartfelt message that their Christian readers should appreciate.
A highly personal and ultimately uplifting faith manual.Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5127-0787-8
Page Count: 130
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: April 10, 2018
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
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
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