The master essayist-doctor celebrates the tools of his literary trade—in this delightful etymological exploration of the English language. "In our backyard is a horse-chestnut tree the size of a church," Thomas begins. Two hundred years old, 120 feet high, this creation of nature can't help but evoke feelings of reverence and admiration. Imagine, suggests Thomas, asking a small child to invent a word for the tree. The word would most likely embody the emotion it inspires. Later the same word would be used to evoke similar emotions, and would be pummeled into varying shapes to represent related qualities and conditions such as vigorousness, youth, and eternity. Thomas' sheer pleasure in such a notion proves contagious as he flips through his well-thumbed American Heritage Dictionary and etymology books to find ancient links between "self" and "secure," "gorgeous" and "gargoyle," "repent" and "in a hurry," etc. More than a mere historical science, etymology is, in Thomas' admittedly unscholarly view, an enchanting window into the long-buried meanings still subtly at work inside modern words—meanings that add resonance and subtext to every conversation. In pursuit of poetic undercurrents, the author doesn't hesitate to depart from traditional Indo-European genealogies to speculate on, for example, the notion of a youngster inventing language by gazing at his twin miniature reflections in his mother's eyes and naming the dark mirrors "pupils"—small children. Such charming images are the mark of an infectious enthusiasm, and will surely tempt others to succumb.
Pub Date: Oct. 23, 1990
ISBN: 1566491665
Page Count: 197
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1990
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
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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