Many parents, divorced or not, will see reflections of themselves in this pleasant collection.
A collection of humorous, sometimes poignant essays from an award-winning writer and happily divorced father who confesses to hating kids’ music but loving Barry Manilow tunes.
Schwartzberg (The 40-Year Old Version, 2009) returns with another mostly lighthearted ensemble of short reflections on life as a zany but loving dad trying to raise kids after a divorce. Except for a few f-words and some milder expletives, the humor in this easy beach read is almost squeaky clean. Most parents can relate to “Lost In Space,” about the author’s heart-stopping ordeal when he temporarily loses his son in an electronics store. Readers who have endured the trials and tribulations of selling Girl Scout cookies will chuckle at “Tough Cookies,” a series of tongue-in-cheek office memos in which Schwartzberg harasses co-workers to purchase more boxes. In “Football Redefined,” he creates silly definitions for football terms; for example, in a parent’s world, “Good Field Position” is a “shady picnic spot in the park that’s far from dog poop.” Although most of the essays are fun but shallow dips in the family pool, a few are more somber and affecting, such as the story of a teenage accident victim in “The Girl Who,” and touching reflections about his father and grandfather. The author’s self-effacing humor also reveals some insecurities, particularly when he ponders his role as a dad who no longer lives in the same house as his children. In “Dad to the Bone,” for example, he wistfully details the luxurious amount of time his kids’ stepfather can spend with them: “This man sees them in the morning and at night, takes them out to dinner, wakes them up, helps them with their homework, and tells them to brush their teeth. He sits with them in toy-filled waiting rooms, argues with them, jokes with them and even disciplines them.” In the end, however, Schwartzberg realizes that as his kids’ biological father, he will always hold the most special place in their hearts.
Many parents, divorced or not, will see reflections of themselves in this pleasant collection.Pub Date: June 15, 2014
ISBN: 978-1939288523
Page Count: 168
Publisher: Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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