A good choice for those who look for expert advice in finding more adventurous choices for their global journeys.
Hearst Magazines president Clinton’s first nonphotography book (American Portraits, 2010, etc.) mixes travel guide and travel diary.
Beginning with a youthful dream to visit family in Ireland, the author relates how he became obsessed with travel and then highlights some of the 122 countries he’s visited, with each chapter representing a different country or region. Fortunately, with so many experiences to choose from, Clinton is able to warn readers to avoid the disappointing or overexposed. In many countries, he suggests itineraries to add on to the usual jaunts—e.g., in Tuscany, certainly visit Florence or Pisa, but also the coastal town of Forte dei Marmi. Unfortunately, these tips are buried among Clinton’s personal asides, thoughts that often come off as arrogant. In an anecdote about trying to leave Europe when a cloud of volcanic ash had stopped most flights, he writes, “Ahhh, now I know what it must have been like when people tried to get out of Europe in 1939!” In relating his memories, the author clearly wants to express the wonder of his experiences, but the stories often fall flat and seem unfinished. Still, each chapter contains the kind of information that could change a journey from average to amazing. At the end of many chapters, Clinton includes a list of tips from other world travelers that will be handy for explorers in different stages of their own globe-trotting adventures. Though it will take perseverance to uncover them, the tips contained in this book are treasures worth the work.
A good choice for those who look for expert advice in finding more adventurous choices for their global journeys.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-9851696-6-4
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Glitterati Incorporated
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2012
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
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
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