The author’s supreme confidence can sometimes segue into dismissiveness and arrogance, but this does not diminish the...
A motley collection of previously published essays on topics ranging from Anne Frank to Bill Blass, by a New Yorker staffer and biographer (Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette, 1999, etc.).
Thurman—multilingual, articulate, globe-trotting, charmingly snide—can be a daunting companion for a stroll down the lanes of contemporary cultural history. There seem few books she has not read, few relevant celebrities she has not encountered (including Jackie O), few museums whose fashion collections she has not memorized, few significant sites in New York, Paris and Milan she has not adorned. Many of these pieces deal with appearances—with women’s fashions (she has one essay about men’s clothing), and with the men and women who design them (there are substantial portraits of Chanel, Schiaparelli, Balenciaga, Armani, Kawakubo, Versace and Scaasi). The earlier portions of the collection focus on literary matters. She reviews recent biographies of Edna St. Vincent Millay; has some harsh things to say about the “pedantry” of the definitive critical edition of Anne Frank’s diary; comments thoughtfully on Beloved, Charlotte Brontë, the photography of Julia Margaret Cameron and Irving Penn; expresses some reservations about Byatt’s Possession. Here, too, are pieces about bulimia, pearls (the world’s best pearls, she says, lie in the Persian Gulf), New York row houses and hair-straightening. She juxtaposes portraits of Madame de Pompadour (“one of those girls and women who are a pleasure to spoil”), Marie Antoinette, Teresa Heinz Kerry and Cleopatra. Her customary wit sparkles everywhere. The pouf, she says, was “a cross between a topiary and a Christmas tree.”
The author’s supreme confidence can sometimes segue into dismissiveness and arrogance, but this does not diminish the cumulative dazzle of her essays.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-374-12651-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2007
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
BOOK REVIEW
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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