Sincerely written and full of sage advice—an astute guidebook for first-time travelers and people stuck in a rut.
Drawing on the author’s experiences as a seasoned traveler, this handy guidebook helps people with stagnant lives enrich themselves abroad.
Although Ennis spent part of his childhood in Ireland, the Virginia-based writer didn’t become a serious globe-trotter until he finished a master’s degree. Inspired by his adventurous friend John, Ennis found himself transformed not only by travel, but also by ambitious language acquisition. Most of the book consists of straightforward advice, from how to pick a destination to budgeting and studying a new tongue. Ennis says he’s conversational in five languages besides English—a process he started in his mid-30s—and his earnest enthusiasm is infectious. But Ennis also intertwines an episodic fictional story about Mark and Hannah, a loving couple who have become mired in routine. When Hannah meets a Dutch visitor at work, she becomes enamored of Holland and convinces Mark to plan a vacation there. They learn basic Dutch, study the history and culture of the Netherlands, and plan an itinerary that appeals to their interests. In preparation for the journey, they even start to cook Dutch foods in their own home. Ennis peppers his book with color photographs of famous locales, such as the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro and the canals of Venice. He caps each chapter with a simple exercise—“Mental Voyages,” he calls them—and starts each new section with a rousing quote from a famous author, such as Mark Twain and Ayn Rand. While Ennis writes with pride and authority, he refrains from filling his text with self-inflating anecdotes. He shifts the spotlight to Mark and Hannah, whose believable narrative demonstrates the positive effects of travel and reveals how even a short excursion to a friendly (and stable) country can powerfully bolster a relationship. The book may be short and breezy, but it’s a resource readers could very well revisit again and again.
Sincerely written and full of sage advice—an astute guidebook for first-time travelers and people stuck in a rut.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2015
ISBN: 978-1502584090
Page Count: 108
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
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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