An emotionally powerful love letter to cars and the human spirit.
An introspective collection of essays focuses on the joys found in automobiles, old and new.
Contemporary Americans are “chronically overstressed, overworked,” and tired. For Webster, a vintage-car enthusiast and former editor-in-chief of Road & Track, “there’s never been a better time to go for a drive” in a “four-wheeled escape pod.” With contributions from over a dozen renowned auto enthusiasts from around the nation, this volume offers readers a collection of essays and vignettes that reflect debut editor Webster’s belief that cars are more than functional assortments of metal important only to get from place to place. The book’s essays explore such topics as the agony and thrills of finding the perfect vintage vehicle, the mentally restorative value of car repair, and the simple pleasures found in driving both for excitement and relaxation. Vignettes by some of the nation’s leading automobile columnists, such as Rob Siegel, provide musings on topics like “The Joy of Problem Solving” and the importance of learning from past mistakes. The volume concludes with interviews with Jay Leno, Mario Andretti, and others who discuss what their perfect “last drive” on Earth would look like. Brett Berk’s essay makes the case that worthy automobiles should be admired on the same level as majestic paintings or Frank Lloyd Wright homes, as modern forms of art that transcend mere function in their ability to evoke wonder and awe. Indeed, the book is adorned with spectacular shots by various photographers that reflect the beauty, delight, and restorative peace found in cars. Even nonenthusiasts will find much to value in this collection, from its gorgeous photos to its impassioned prose that skillfully blends elegance and approachability. Constantly evolving in mechanics and design, in frequent need of maintenance and repair, and the products of multiple generations of failures and breakthroughs, cars are “the perfect embodiment of what makes us human,” according to Webster. In many ways, this is not just a book about cars—it also examines the importance of seemingly pointless hobbies that bring humans happiness, connections beyond themselves, and fulfillment.
An emotionally powerful love letter to cars and the human spirit.Pub Date: July 23, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7603-6341-6
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Motorbooks
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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