Novelist Coyne (Child of Shadows, Fury, etc.), once a Peace Corps volunteer in Ethiopia, edits a sheaf of lively essays close to his heart. Thirteen former Peace Corps writers, all professionals with published books to their credit, are asked to return to their country of service or another country in which they lived, and write about what is true and lasting, what has changed, and what a traveler really needs to know about the place. Among the countries the writers dig into are Kenya, Peru, Somalia, Japan, Senegal, Mexico, Cameroon, Grenada, Hungary, Tanzania, and Micronesia. Mike Tidwell burrows excitingly into the heart of the Petroecuadorean darkness in search of Randy Borman, a 36-year-old Caucasian born in the jungle to missionary parents, who went native, became chief of a remote tribe of Cofan Indians, and was fighting the oilmen killing the rain forest—in outline, a very Conradesque character. In ``Beauty and the Beach,'' Bob Shacochis, a volunteer to St. Vincent and St. Kitts in the Caribbean, describes what's happened to the islands as moneymen have tried to organize the beaches of paradise. Jeff Taylor's ``School of Exiles'' tells of teaching English in Hungary while nearby Yugoslavia deteriorates and blood flows along the border. In ``Piquing the Spirits,'' Mary-Ann Tiron Smith goes into the Federal Republic of Cameroon and from the rain forest climbs Mount Cameroon with a movie-location scout—looking for a site for a remake of Tarzan—who contracts Dengue fever and has to be stretched out. Immensely diverse, often clever, unfailingly gripping as volunteers reach through barriers of tradition and culture to touch other lives, while a series of epiphanies blows their minds clear as a moonscape.
Pub Date: March 9, 1994
ISBN: 0-684-19629-8
Page Count: 305
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1994
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
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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