Delightful in small doses, but too intense to be consumed in a single sitting.
Novelist Harrison (The Beast God Forgot to Invent, 2000, etc.), a man of firm opinions and titanic appetites, here collects his previously published essays on food.
Holding the view that “many of our failures in politics, art and domestic life come from our failure to eat vividly,” Harrison is in search of the transcendent, whether in nature (trekking is the only pastime he seems to feel as passionate about as food) or on the plate. He finds it in intense flavors, the American landscape, his past, and his family: the subjects of most of his essays. In general, he concerns himself with documenting some of the colossal meals he’s hunted, created, and consumed, but he concludes with an extended essay about French eats and a collection of correspondence with Gallic food expert Gerard Oberle. Those two pieces place Harrison in the continuum of great food-lovers, reminding us that he is not just a lonely champion of appetite in an American wilderness of moderation. The author’s relationship with food is nothing if not extreme, having run the gamut from youthful anorexia to his current battles with gout, that plague of unbridled gourmands. Somewhat surprisingly, this master of clever iconoclasm turns out to be a namedropper, although it is almost always in an effort to give credit where credit is due. He lavishes praise on favored cookbook authors, chefs, and restaurants, and perhaps he simply wants to give buddy Jack Nicholson proper acknowledgment for the witticism “only in the Midwest is overeating still considered an act of heroism.” The author claims to be victim of “one of a writer's neuroses—not to want to repeat himself”; this collection, however, insistently reveals his pet phrases and anecdotes.
Delightful in small doses, but too intense to be consumed in a single sitting.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-8021-1698-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
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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