A collection of mildly inspiring snapshots of the Christian life–a good gift for those who participate in devotional...
A new voice in Christian inspiration offers quaint glimpses of a devoted life.
This collection of first-person vignettes is intended to show how God is manifested “in the ordinary.” The first story opens in the titular coffee shop–awake an hour early due to an alarm clock snafu, Ingram arrives at Starbucks at 6:30, and is tickled to find a high school group meeting for early morning prayer and praise. Ingram also finds Jesus through other varied mediums: a bedtime conversation with his son, a beggar on the street, his hobby of beekeeping and at a convenience store. He expounds on his efforts to support and sympathize with a friend whose wife leaves him after 26 years, as well as the spiritual lessons he’s learned from bugs. Each story ends with a sermonic spelling-out of the point: Jesus’ blood washes away our sins, we are all beggars before God, Jesus’ “words are real,” Christ “is freedom indeed.” Not exactly revolutionary religious concepts, but pleasant nonetheless. Some of the short chapters are reflections on Scripture–he retells the story of Elisha (whom you can meet in II Kings), meditates on the sufferings of Job, interprets the Sacrifice of Isaac and muses about becoming more like Moses. The stories and lessons are approachable and good-natured, but it’s somewhat disconcerting to be told, in the author’s note, that “some–but not all–of these stories are true.” Readers may be distracted, wondering which of these small epiphanies really happened, and which are products of Ingram’s imagination. And some of his musings are a little twee: “I’m God’s croissant, and I’m not quite done...What do dough and I have in common? We are both bread in the making. We are both unattractive to the untrained eye.”
A collection of mildly inspiring snapshots of the Christian life–a good gift for those who participate in devotional sessions.Pub Date: May 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-9747425-1-1
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
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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