``The style of the essayist is that of an extremely intelligent, highly commonsensical person talking, without stammer and with impressive coherence, to him- or herself and to anyone else who cares to eavesdrop,'' writes essayist Epstein in his introduction to this satisfying eighth volume of the annual series. Along with series editor Robert Atwan, Epstein presents a range of voices and styles—from Joseph Brodsky writing in The New Republic to Cynthia Ozick in The New Yorker and Lewis Thomas in Audubon. In ``Collector's Item,'' Joseph Brodsky tells us that in August 1991 he saw an issue of the London Review of Books festooned with a blown-up Soviet postage stamp featuring ``Soviet Secret Agent Kim Philby (1912-1988).'' The shock of seeing a traitor so casually celebrated nearly made Brodsky sick. In the end, however, he concedes that ``what's revolting about his stamp is its proprietary sentiment; it's as though the earth that swallowed the poor sod licks its lips with profound satisfaction and says, he is mine.'' In contrast to the dense, elliptical style of Brodsky, James Salter writes a limpid memoir about West Point, ``You Must.'' But like Brodsky, who categorizes spies as a kind of lower life form, Salter raises questions about the qualities that distinguish some people—encountered at West Point or on a Wyoming road—whom he considers unusually highly evolved. Meanwhile, in her hilarious if scathing taking to task of the Frugal Gourmet (``P.C. on the Grill''), Barbara Gruzzuti Harrison shows that quaintly correct sentiments can't replace real humanity, and in a poignant personal memoir of doomed writer Alfred Chester (``Alfred Chester's Wig''), Cynthia Ozick explores the impact that early heartbreak can have on a life. A solid collection of 22 essays that, for the most part, draw us into the quietly entertaining pleasure of contemplating what makes humans tick.
Pub Date: Nov. 3, 1993
ISBN: 0-395-63649-3
Page Count: 367
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1993
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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