Tayler ventures at points into Colin Thubron and Robert Kaplan territory, returning with a satisfying narrative that is of...
A closely observed memoir of travels through Central Asia, where portents of continent-wide conflict loom.
Atlantic Monthly correspondent Tayler (River of No Reprieve: Descending Siberia’s Waterway of Exile, Death, and Destiny, 2006, etc.) locates at least one emergent cause for strife in the geopolitical reality of an exponentially growing China, which faces huge shortcomings in the form of pollution, joblessness, a lack of drinking water, degradation of farmland and energy shortages, but has a tremendous surplus of people. Russia has a comparative advantage, with per capita income many times higher than China’s and plenty of natural resources, but with a rapidly declining population. Likely this demographic context will result in changes of various kinds, perhaps including Chinese expansion into Russia and other Central Asian lands—and, if nothing else, in more deals for resource exchange between the two major powers that will have the appearance to some of an “anti-American alliance.” And why not, asks Tayler, who visits the future front and returns with countless character sketches to enliven an already interesting big-picture narrative. A Cossack ataman contemplating an Asian future, for instance, fervently insists that “it takes four generations for white genes to be reestablished after mixing blood, you know.” A Dagestani promises that a billion Chinese will die if they try to invade his homeland, and layabout Chinese youngsters in the unlikely desert metropolis of Ürümqi suggest that the rising generation may not be up to the task. Yet, as Tayler notes, ten years ago Ürümqi was “under construction and chaotic, all skyscrapers going up and cement dust coming down,” while today it is just one of many teeming, highly productive cities in a nation whose fortunes seem ever on the rise.
Tayler ventures at points into Colin Thubron and Robert Kaplan territory, returning with a satisfying narrative that is of considerable interest to students of contemporary events, and futurists too.Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-618-79991-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2008
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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