A thorough, though not untroubled, understanding of Columbus’ adventures.
Di Giovanni (Flat and Corrugated Diaphragm Design Handbook, 1982) presents an extensive history of Christopher Columbus and his travels.
Columbus was born in Genoa in 1451. As far as the historical record shows, the future explorer was largely self-educated and began his sailing career at a young age. In 1492, he famously sailed with three ships under the patronage of Spain, ostensibly to find a western route to Asia. The author explains this journey in detail, including the expedition’s encounters with many native peoples, and asserts that, for all of Columbus’ skills as a navigator, he truly believed that he had found a passage to the Far East. But the story doesn’t end there; Di Giovanni takes readers along on Columbus’ other sea travels, his eventual final return to Spain, and even tells of the demise of his descendants. The journeys of Columbus were not short, and readers will be struck by just how lengthy and frightening sea travel was in the 15th century. Sheer terror plays a big part in this story, and not just for the sailors who dared to test the high seas. The often friendly native people that Columbus met didn’t fare well, and the author avers that “their repeated acts of generosity accelerated their own enslavement and eventual decimation.” Nevertheless, Di Giovanni writes with an affection for Columbus, pointing out that the captain overcame many hardships “all with resilience and acceptance, always trusting in God.” Although this reverence for the explorer may seem dated, the book progresses easily and soberly. The author appears to consider Columbus a hero, but he still includes less savory material; an oft-cited and chilling passage, written by Columbus’ shipmate, Michele de Cuneo, shows how unashamedly brutal the age of exploration could be, as he captured a native girl that “Columbus allowed him to keep as a slave.” Readers likely won’t find Columbus to be endearing in the end, but they’ll probably have learned a great deal about what it meant to venture out on a vast, unforgiving ocean.
A thorough, though not untroubled, understanding of Columbus’ adventures.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-947431-08-9
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Barbera Foundation, Inc.
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2018
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
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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