A detailed, compassionate call for greater motorist responsibility in Oman.
A heartfelt, enthusiastic series of instructions and warnings about road safety.
Al Suleimany, a columnist for the Oman Daily Observer, observes that the Sultanate of Oman has one of the highest motorist casualty rates in the world, and he sets out in this book (not actually a novel, but rather a collection of dramatic real-life incidents) to raise Omani awareness of the causes—and results—of carelessness on the country’s roadways. Road Safety Awareness campaigns in Oman have even been endorsed by HM Sultan Qaboos, The Grand Mufti, The Royal Oman Police and others - from NGOs to High Profile Individuals. Al Suleimany stresses that the dangers involved are communal: “There can be no Omani in the Sultanate who has not been touched closely by a road death and yet we see dangerous driving every time we travel the roads.” As a newspaperman, Al Suleimany highlights printed accident reports: “Every week we see also in the newspapers about road casualty figures in the newspapers—but as usual in the coming story we never imagine or visualize that it could be someone we know well or related to.” The work shows examples of motorists making bad or careless choices (it’s also full of accident photos and emotional reminders of the loved ones left behind when a driver dies or kills someone). The author points out several underlying causes of all this tragedy: Oman as a culture is new to driving; it has been “thrust into the 21st century in a matter of a few decades”; and Oman has newly prosperous youth who prize fast cars over safety. The author attempts to prevent new-driver heedlessness by underscoring the personal tragedies that can result from reckless driving. Al Suleimany issues stern warnings about the high cost of irresponsibility, and although a good deal of the book is Oman-specific, many of those warnings have global applications.
A detailed, compassionate call for greater motorist responsibility in Oman.Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2013
ISBN: 978-1481843034
Page Count: 448
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 1, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
