Enlightening tour through Anatolia, rich in history and visceral detail.
A whimsical, winding journey by canoe and foot through the layers of Anatolia’s history.
A British travel writer who focuses on Turkey, Seal (Nicholas: The Epic Journey from Saint to Santa Claus, 2005, etc.) casts himself as a wandering scholar in the tradition of his earlier European compatriots William Leake, Richard Pococke and Francis Arundell. However, Seal attempted what they did not: a solo waterway trip down the 500-kilometer Menderes River (aka Meander), running from the fertile plateau of Anatolia’s interior to the tourist meccas of the Aegean. The river’s name, thanks to the earliest allusions by historian Herodotus, geographer Strabo and others, propelled it on a fanciful etymological odyssey that endures to this day. On his journey, Seal was harshly confronted by the befouled and eroded effects of industrialization, as many parts of the winding river have been used extensively for hydroelectricity and irrigation. Beginning at the river’s source at Dinar and ending near the great classical port city of Miletus, Seal traces age-old migrations of peoples through Asia Minor—including the Hittite, Phrygian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Turk—all who transformed the land in their fashion. While delving into the murky historical depths and recent tensions between the country's secular and Islamist elements, Seal was keen to befriend the locals on whom he largely relied for food and shelter as he made his way by a collapsible canoe or, when there was not sufficient water for navigation, by foot. The portraits of these simple farming people are fond and charming, but the lack of maps renders this more of a literary exercise than usable travelogue.
Enlightening tour through Anatolia, rich in history and visceral detail.Pub Date: June 5, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-59691-652-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: March 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2012
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
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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