Words of solace and inspiration ready to be put into action through your devices or a guiding Christian hand.
Lane presents a year’s worth of pithy reflections and advice with a strong Christian inflection.
This book moves along as a diary/journal; each page is given over to a day of the year with Lane tackling some aspect of life’s progress with a few considered sentences and then leaving ample empty page space for the reader to jot down their thoughts. Many of the subjects are touched upon time and again—character, vulnerability, motivation, choice, blessings, curses, love, trust, honesty and acceptance. The hope is for prevention, to gain some insight into behavior and take corrective measures before the 12-step program is in order. The Christian cast to the proceedings is never in question—“Only one relationship redeems us because God is making us into His image and His best for us is who He has revealed Himself to be in Jesus Christ,” and “[t]he character of Jesus is the perfect role model”—but even those readers without Lane’s beliefs will find thoughtful, frank comments on such qualities as patience, honesty, awareness, generosity, goodness, encouragement, self-healing, decency and responsibility (“each person is still responsible for his own choices in life, reaping his own blessings and curses”). The days proceed apace and gather a motivational momentum as considerations build upon one another; vulnerability is built upon acceptance and honesty, character builds upon change. There are instances when Lane can be runic—“It’s like gouging out an infected eye, but if Christ is Lord then it isn’t even about the pain or what He can do, but it’s about who He is in the midst of it all”—and contradictory—“memory can be selective and pain is gone, just like that,” versus “Once you experience something, you never forget”—but she is never anything less than bighearted and optimistic.
Words of solace and inspiration ready to be put into action through your devices or a guiding Christian hand.Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2011
ISBN: 978-1453677513
Page Count: 367
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 24, 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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