A commendable survey of Abu Dhabi’s origins, intricacies, achievements and vision, which ultimately distracts from...
A British woman who spent much of her childhood in Abu Dhabi returns to examine the sociological and economic character of the United Arab Emirates and to unearth the truth about her brother’s rushed departure from the UAE as a young adult.
For most Westerners, the Middle East remains an overwhelmingly enigmatic culture about which finding authentic yet accessible insights can be challenging. Unlike recent portraits of Abu Dhabi, including Christopher M. Davidson’s Abu Dhabi: Oil and Beyond (2009), Tatchell (The Poet of Baghdad, 2008, etc.) excavates the region's gritty history from the perspective of a foreigner who goes back to study its glimmering present and ambitious future. Displaying an impressive breadth of research into the region's centuries-old tribal lineage, rocky political evolution and steep recent economic trajectory as a destination for opulent tourism and high culture, the author also takes readers on her largely futile quest for access to archives of past local media coverage. However, Tatchell’s analysis of UAE society eclipses the deeper roots of the personal impetus driving her investigations. Consequently, the revelatory information at the end of the book about her brother's swift exit from the country years earlier proves anticlimactic. Key nuggets of enlightening dialogue by Emiraties are far more trenchant—i.e., “We are a tiny country. We have a tiny army. We can never be the biggest. That is why we will take power in another way.”
A commendable survey of Abu Dhabi’s origins, intricacies, achievements and vision, which ultimately distracts from Tatchell’s investigative path toward intimate family truths.Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-8021-7079-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Black Cat/Grove
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2010
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
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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