An ambitious travel account that offers scant descriptions of an incredible adventure.
A poet follows in the footsteps of Alexander the Great in this memoir.
In 1998, Johnson (Don’t Search, Celebrate!, 2017), along with his Swiss girlfriend Marianne, set out to retrace the legendary journey of the ancient king of Macedonia Alexander the Great. In his introduction, the author reveals a vague desire “to experience, like Alexander, the land he passed through.” But other than wanting to learn “what the land feels like,” Johnson does not go into detail about the couple’s motivations for the trip. Part 1 of this series of travel memoirs records their trek through six countries: Greece, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt. Along the way, they stopped at key historical sites, including the Parthenon, Palmyra, and the Great Pyramid at Giza. Each chapter takes the name of the destination visited and opens with a brief itinerary followed by a narrative and photographs. The author’s rushed “we did this/we did that” approach lacks the necessary descriptive embellishments to transport readers. For example, Johnson remarks that the Parthenon is “arguably, the most important ancient monument in the Western world” but spends fewer than five short pages describing the site, with a focus on banalities: “A reasonably priced sandwich shop provides food. Next door is a currency exchange and a closed POST (office). A local dog vomits in front of us while we eat and shortly consumes its vomit.” To capture the experience, the author relies on his and Marianne’s photos, which are standard holiday snapshots with Johnson or his girlfriend often posing in the foreground. But his blunt honesty should appeal to readers—he is unafraid to describe even his most uncomfortable trials: “Tuesday morning is worse. Explosive diarrhea at 11:15 am soils my pants.” Unfortunately, he sometimes provides mere field notes from an intrepid journey, yet to be developed into a full-fledged book. The author leaves too many questions unanswered. For the uninitiated, he neglects to sufficiently describe who Alexander the Great was and why he embarked on his voyage. More importantly, readers will be left wondering what it truly feels like to tour these domains today—the key aspect of the odyssey Johnson intended to discover and convey.
An ambitious travel account that offers scant descriptions of an incredible adventure.Pub Date: March 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-976392-63-4
Page Count: 212
Publisher: The Einstein Academy
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 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
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
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