A detailed secular morality that should have even the most traditionally religious readers thinking deeply about their...
A debut book examines the urges behind spiritual yearning—and their modern interpretations.
In his ambitious work, Hoolhorst believes he has identified many of the deepest existential questions that have preoccupied humanity forever—and that he’s discovered rational answers to many of them. These answers are based in principles of truth and love rather than rooted in dogma and mysticism. He acknowledges at the outset that humans have an almost instinctive yearning for answers to these great imponderables, and his book seems designed to circumvent the normal response: “Those who fail to deal rationally with these yearnings become confused,” he writes, “and most of them are subsequently drawn towards religion and other social, political and economic structures characterized by the gang mentality of those involved in them.” The account that follows is sometimes-disjointed and distracting, although Hoolhorst is an unfailingly energetic and readable author. Philosophical ruminations brush up against textual analysis and bits of Hoolhorst’s intriguing autobiography, but sure-footed readers should find enormous amounts of captivating material here. “It is one thing for a person to have been indoctrinated into a religion,” the author writes, for instance, during an intensely effective examination of some of the inconsistencies to be found in the New Testament. “It is another thing altogether if that person never checks the claims that they were indoctrinated with.” Ultimately, Hoolhorst develops a moral and even spiritual epistemology, a theory of enlightenment that calls for readers to reject all ideas of deities—the props of authoritarian thinking—and instead gain a deeply personal and individual fulfillment along the moral lines he lays out. His goal is to help readers find their way to the truth, and even if his pronouncements will likely strike some as borrowing far too many ideological assumptions from the very schemas he’s rejecting, the end result is an extended and extremely thought-provoking, multipart challenge to all entrenched moral traditions.
A detailed secular morality that should have even the most traditionally religious readers thinking deeply about their assumptions.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-925516-70-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 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
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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