James Hilton meets the Karate Kid in this self-congratulatory account of an arduous trek across the roof of the world in search of a fabled warrior caste. A third-degree black belt in karate and an aerospace scientist, Logan is an able, if self-conscious, diarist who apparently never met a physical challenge she did not embrace. In an epic meander, Logan bicycles, hikes, and hitches rides throughout western China and eastern Tibet in pursuit of the fearsome yet elusive Khampas, formidable bandits who for many years harassed Communist Chinese troops along the Tibetan-Nepalese borders. Alas, happening upon only facsimiles of the real thing, Logan must content herself with the alternate goal of a pilgrimage to the holy city of Lhasa. Here, too, Logan's plans are repeatedly foiled by Chinese-dominated Tibetan officials. Her doomed attempts to outfox the authorities are ultimately exhausting to both writer and reader, as well as to various traveling companions lacking Logan's fierce singlemindedness. Tiring also is a literary contrivance inserted at indefinable intervals in which Logan recalls various karate drills replete with ``plunging punches'' and ``devastating counters.'' Yet Logan is undeniably an intrepid traveler, crossing cold, high, rugged terrain, frequently alone, sometimes in the company of Buddhist pilgrims and, later, Nepalese sherpas, encountering holy men, artists, ubiquitous and troublesome police, and occasional Western tourists who mostly elicit her scorn. Her depiction of this closed and remote region, while not unrivaled, is perceptive and convincing. Likeminded readers may find satisfaction in reading about Logan's mountain adventures, but for many, scaling her self- indulgent prose may prove to be hard work. (16 color photos, 5 maps, not seen) (Author tour)
Pub Date: Nov. 4, 1996
ISBN: 0-87951-643-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Overlook
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1996
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
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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