A fun read for Francophiles, but lacks cohesiveness.
Memoirist and critic Baxter (The Most Beautiful Walk in the World: A Pedestrian in Paris, 2011, etc.) chronicles his exploration of France through its cuisine.
After an unsatisfying dinner at the Grand Palais, the author wondered what happened to the traditional French cuisine of 50 years ago. Did anyone still know how to roast an ox, and were recipes handed down from generation to generation still remembered? Baxter decided to create a menu for a meal that matched the grandeur of the Grand Palais’ architecture, a meal that would be the traditional French repas that UNESCO thought worthy of preserving. The food was to be served in several courses, and Baxter sampled and critiqued the liquor to be served at the aperitif with the same rigor and attention with which he selected the food. He began the quest with a stack of old menus he found in a flea market, then he traveled to different parts of Paris to sample the traditional dishes. He first went to Illiers to find the madeleine cookie that inspired Marcel Proust. He then traveled to Périgord to find truffle mushrooms and to Sète to taste bouillabaisse. Baxter’s narrative is mostly engaging, though his tangents about French culture and the people he met during his journey are more interesting than his thoughts on food. The author also sprinkles historical stories throughout the book—e.g., the story of the chef Francois Vatel, who committed suicide during a visit from King Louis XIV. The section on how different types of coffee took hold in different countries is fascinating as well. In the end, Baxter compiled a menu to serve to his family and friends. There was no actual feast, however, which feels like a letdown after 350 pages about his hunt.
A fun read for Francophiles, but lacks cohesiveness.Pub Date: March 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-208806-2
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Perennial/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2012
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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