Robust, unflinching thoughts on piloting life through all the reefs and shoals, whether you cherry pick her ideas or devour...
Lane’s deeply spiritual relationship with God touches each of these short, essayistic considerations of life’s facets, from acceptance to children to respect to self-discipline.
Lane has structured this book as an abecedarium, starting with reflections on acceptance and wending her way to wisdom and words. As in her earlier Relation Education Journal (2011), there is a strong infusion of Christianity—“Only the Spirit of Christ will lead our souls to freedom.” Still, there is never anything less than an abiding sense of inclusiveness, an invitation for all to dip into her thoughts in hopes that readers may partake of ideas that will be preventative, rather than having to partake in a long recovery process. The writing has a uniform polish to it, striving for an economy of expression, but not at the expense of burrowing into her topics, going deep, bringing her appreciation of God to bear, tendering her experiences, thinking and feeling her way to some crux. For instance, she starts her thoughts on right and wrong with a quick broadside against selfishness, then follows a thread to appearance (“Whether we appear right or wrong has more to do with the one who is looking.”) and then awareness (“when we are aware, our choices need to be bringing goodness and happiness to others…and that includes making good choices for ourselves.”) As in her earlier book, there is much to pull from these pages even if you do not share her Christianity. She has wise, often overlooked things to say about shaping character when young—“Start when they are young, with close-ended choices and their sense of cause and effect…develops along with great character”—though readers may quibble with “Character can only be learned in the formative years, otherwise consequences become the teacher.” Can’t one learn through consequences? But then Lane is all about engagement and never shies from tackling a topic; witness her frank and sprightly comments on sexuality.
Robust, unflinching thoughts on piloting life through all the reefs and shoals, whether you cherry pick her ideas or devour them whole.Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2011
ISBN: 978-1453748930
Page Count: 590
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
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
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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