Petroski does for the bookcase what he did for The Pencil (1990) and for bridges in Engineer of Dreams (1995): offers an elaborately detailed history of a common item as an artifact. Ever the engineer (Petroski chairs the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Duke University), he traces the development of the bookshelf “in response to real and perceived problems with existing technology,” i.e., the “shortcomings in the way . . . books were stored.” Obviously, bookshelves adapted to physical changes in books themselves. Roman and Greek scrolls were often stored in a container that looked rather like a hatbox. The development of codices and the use of papyrus, vellum, and other materials all called for differing storage methods. When books began to look like books—flat and rectangular—bookshelves became recognizable. In medieval times, particularly in European monasteries, books were shelved horizontally and were chained to the shelving unit. Petroski delights in detailing the engineering problems of making dozens of chained books accessible to the reader and scholar. He notes that arranging books vertically did not become a regular practice until overcrowding created the need, which was, in turn, created by the mass production of books after Gutenberg. Books previously designed to rest horizontally and with fore-edge out, had to be redesigned in response to shelving requirements. The author does a lovely job of describing famed libraries, such as those at St. John’s College at Cambridge, Merton College at Oxford, the Bodleian, and the Laurentian Library in Florence. He takes a lengthy look at the design of the British Museum Reading Room and the New York Public Library and the engineering feats required to shelve millions of books on miles of shelves (as early as 1910, the NYPL had 63 miles of shelving). The layperson or casual reader may struggle with Petroski’s often dry prose, but librarians, bibliophiles, and engineers will find the effort worthwhile. (67 illustrations)
Pub Date: Sept. 19, 1999
ISBN: 0-375-40649-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1999
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
BOOK REVIEW
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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