An entertaining addition to the growing shelf of books about the discontents of lawyers and, by implication, the rest of the citizenry who has to put up with them. Glendon (Rights Talk, not reviewed), a professor at Harvard Law School who started her legal career as an associate at a large Chicago law firm, offers an extremely interesting—if somewhat rambling and ultimately inconclusive—mixture of personal anecdote and sociological theory to describe purportedly profound changes in the legal profession over the past half-century and the effect of these changes on our democratic society: the rise in the number of lawyers, the burgeoning caseloads (one federal judge refers to himself as the ``Terminator'' because of the need to get matters over with rapidly, often at the cost of reflective justice), the economic pressures that have, in some eyes, reduced professionalism in favor of market imperatives and created the rise of an adversarial class of lawyers who accede to their clients' every wish. Glendon solemnly quotes Gibbon with respect to another empire where the growth in lawyers and legalism coincided with a decline and fall in the spirit of law that makes republican government viable; yet the author is neither as pessimistic nor as whiny as Sol M. Linowitz in his recent lament (The Betrayed Profession, p. 372). She does, however, raise many more questions than she answers, and her premise of seismic shocks to the foundation of the profession remains just that: premise rather than proof. Over 20 years ago, S.F.C. Milsom demonstrated that the growth of the Anglo- American common law comes not from some idealized development of legal principles but from the everyday work of lawyers attempting to find new solutions for their clients' problems. In light of that historical perspective, it remains to be seen whether alterations to the legal profession and society since the early 1960s are as cataclysmic as Glendon characterizes them. Well written and thought provoking, if not totally convincing.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-374-21938-9
Page Count: 388
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1994
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
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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