An appealing text showing off an author who’s found his perfect genre. Readers can only hope these appealing and thoughtful...
A fourth installment from journalist Katz (A Good Dog, 2006, etc.) about his life and canine loves in upstate New York.
After three years in residence at Bedlam Farm, the author finally has his bona fides as a farmer: “a sunburned complexion, the hunched crab-walk...frostbitten fingers.” He already has a crew of hardworking dogs—border collie Rose, lovable Lab Clementine and injured Lab Pearl—when a new one enters his life. Izzy, a three-year-old border collie, has been rescued from a farm deserted by its ailing owner; the caretaker had fed him but otherwise left him to his own resources. Though wild and untrained, Izzy unexpectedly shows great sheep-herding potential, and Katz begins to spend more and more time honing his skills. Four dogs come to seem an unmanageable number. Rose is busy with her tasks on the farm, and Pearl works, unofficially, with the author at the physical therapy appointments for his bad back. But Clementine is frequently sidelined, and Katz reluctantly considers a startling solution: sharing ownership of Clem with Ali, a physical therapist who spends her off-hours hiking and playing soccer. It’s a wrenching decision, but Clem blossoms as an “only dog” under Ali’s care. Despite the book’s title, there’s more here than dog stories. Bedlam Farm hosts a herd of donkeys with which Katz shares a nightly snack and some music (the donkeys like Willie Nelson best), as well as an irrepressible, 1,800-pound steer named Elvis, who obeys simple commands when encouraged with apples. Katz’s views of animals continue to evolve. He’s come a long way from suburban pet ownership and now must consider not only the welfare of the animals, but also the welfare of the farm.
An appealing text showing off an author who’s found his perfect genre. Readers can only hope these appealing and thoughtful dispatches will continue.Pub Date: June 26, 2007
ISBN: 1-4000-6404-X
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2007
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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