The Sterns (Way Out West, 1993, etc.), pop culture's Boswells, turn their attentions to more blue-blooded purlieus in this deeply satisfying chronicle of a year spent on the dog-show circuit. Some time back the Sterns owned a purebred dog, a flatulent bulldog, Richard by name. Richard was entered in a local show. Richard savaged the judge's trouser cuff. So much for Richard's championship season. No matter, the Sterns retained their fascination with the show ring, and this book is the result. Attaching themselves to Mimi Einstein, breeder and shower of bullmastiffs, they sought maximum immersion in the dog show ``subculture with its own rules, lingo, and codes of behavior.'' The Sterns tour with Einstein from small venues to large, from the early season Eastern shows, then the grueling summer show in Texas, to the apex of the circuit at the Westminster Dog Show in New York City, with many a stop in between. They detail the competitive maneuverings of the owners and handlers, breed trends, the search for bodily perfection according to the American Kennel Club standard. They delve deep, exploring the ``original intent'' of the breed (bullmastiffs have no white in their coat, for they were bred to be guardians of the night at country estates, where a splash of white might give them away) and how show dogs ``express the soul of the culture at large,'' a Stern specialty for any topic they tackle. There are forays into poodleland (how about a Royal Dutch clip and high-teased topknot?) and Canary Island Gripping Dog turf (they'd as soon be at your throat as look at you), but mostly the Sterns lavish their attentions on Einstein's dogs. Readers will emerge with a real feeling of kinship with Sam and Rusty and Mugsy Malone. Droll, warm, and impeccably researched—another Stern treasure. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-684-82253-9
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1996
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
