An offbeat bowling manual that makes for compelling reading.
A comprehensive and surprisingly philosophical guide to the sport of bowling.
“We play games to fill the time, to take the pressure off, and to find ways to enjoy and smell the roses all at once,” writes Dilyard (Ian and the Great Silver Dragon: A Friendship Begins, 2019, etc.) in this nonfiction work. “Can we learn how to play these games with more fulfillment, and elevate our consciousness at the same time?” It may seem like an overreaching question, but such queries have resulted in successful books in the past, such as Eugen Herrigel’s classic Zen in the Art of Archery (1948) or even Ben Hogan’s Five Lessons (1957) by Ben Hogan with Herbert Warren Wind, which both reached wide audiences by blending sports instruction with advice for living. Dilyard, a self-described bowling obsessive, never loses sight of the practical elements of his discussion; indeed, his book is filled with engaging insights into the physical components of the sport: “Tossing a bowling ball puts the body in an unbalanced state and therefore it will attempt to find balance,” he explains in terms that will bring some comfort to students of bowling who thought that they were merely uncoordinated. “Training the body to not do a reflex movement takes time.” Indeed, time is a pervasive theme throughout the book; Dilyard is very good at explaining the physical subtleties of the game, but he stresses that time and practice are essential: “It may not take a lifetime to solidify being good,” he writes, “but it will take much more than five minutes.” However, alongside this expert advice about how to perfect one’s bowling game, there are deeper observations about the “search for perfection,” which Dilyard sees the sport as embodying. The game, he insists, is ultimately about honing one’s inner self by making key decisions: “It is and always will be about making choices, and thereby creating different outcomes.” He manages to combine the philosophical and the practical with seamless skill, and even readers who have no immediate plans to visit a bowling alley will find his book to be enlightening.
An offbeat bowling manual that makes for compelling reading.Pub Date: April 29, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-09-624556-8
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: Sept. 10, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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