An essential adventure in British journalism.
Scharrer offers a riveting fictionalized biography of her great-aunt Flora Shaw, one of the first successful female journalists.
In the late 19th century, men dominated the world of journalism, and it was almost unheard-of for a woman to report from the field. Pioneering reporter Shaw, however, turned this world on its head by using her intelligence, wit, charm and bravery. Debut author Scharrer creatively reimagines Shaw’s trailblazing life by piecing together her biography and embellishing it with scintillating conversation and rich, vivid description. Shaw first made her mark as an author of children’s books, and this work carefully spells out her influences prior to her break into journalism. Early on, for example, she meets writer and social theorist John Ruskin, one of many thinkers who shaped her ideas on life. Yet, as she establishes herself, her own distinct philosophies become quite clear. This book isn’t just about a writer coming of age, but also about her many breathtaking achievements. At first, the budding journalist was forced to write under the name of “F. Shaw,” as revealing her gender would have damaged her credibility with many London Times readers. She eventually used her full name in her byline, however, and she rose to become the newspaper’s “Colonial Editor” and one of the greatest (and highest-paid) female journalists of her time. Scharrer also observes that Shaw was involved directly in the Jameson Raid, a botched assault on the South African Republic of Transvaal led by the British statesman Leander Starr Jameson. The author expertly sets this scene: “Jameson sighed as he nervously slapped at the flies buzzing around him in his tent.” Readers will feel as though they’re getting a privileged, candid view of Jameson, and they’ll sense the tension and the heat of the landscape, as if they’ve been transported directly there. Scharrer’s prose is always sharp, elegant and controlled, much like the era it portrays. From the outset, it’s clear that this work is a carefully researched labor of love, and it dutifully fulfills the vital task of remembering a pioneer in women’s letters.
An essential adventure in British journalism.Pub Date: Nov. 22, 2014
ISBN: 978-1500807573
Page Count: 382
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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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