Sage guidance and practical tips for the management of hearing loss along with a reminder of how “important healthy hearing...
A manual provides advice on navigating the nuances of adult hearing loss.
In her third book on the subject, veteran journalist and lifestyle blogger Bouton (Living Better with Hearing Loss, 2015, etc.) offers additional guidance and strategic pathways to live and thrive with adult-onset hearing loss. In addition to presenting surprising statistical data and in-depth research, the author anecdotally draws from her experiences as a woman who began noticing hearing loss in her early 30s and, just a few decades later, now uses hearing aids in both ears. Supplementing basic tips, like how to talk to someone with hearing loss, the guide addresses such integral issues as the importance of assessing your own hearing abilities and looking for signs of impairment, the causes of aural problems, recommendations for finding a good audiologist, and what to expect on your first visit. A significant section thoroughly examining the wide world of hearing aids (including how to finance them) and cochlear implants is approachably written and easily readable, making the book ideal for readers of any age who suffer from varying stages of aural loss. Bouton also gets personal with this subject, noting that hearing aids involve vanity and pride factors because less than 20 percent of adults “ages 20 to 69” who “could benefit from” the items actually use them. Highly descriptive and comprehensive, this savvy book makes an attractive companion volume to the author’s 2013 memoir (Shouting Won’t Help), which plumbed the fear, denial, and stigma of coming to terms with hearing impairment, showing how its deleterious effects can extend to encompass relationships with family and significant others. Suggestions on how to travel comfortably with hearing impairment complement tips on choosing quieter restaurants and attending social gatherings. Bouton’s manual emphasizes the importance of recognizing the early warning signs of what she calls an “invisible disability” and that early treatment is key while delivering a final word of encouragement that a cure for hearing loss is surely on the medical-breakthrough horizon.
Sage guidance and practical tips for the management of hearing loss along with a reminder of how “important healthy hearing is for healthy aging.”Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-692-16498-3
Page Count: 311
Publisher: RiverWest Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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