A thrilling, surprising collection—one of the best in the series.
A lavish and often revelatory assortment of travel writings.
Adventure off the beaten track is the guiding theme of this latest collection in the long-running series, and most of the contributors deliver it on a level that will gratify both armchair travelers and the most seasoned and fearless thrill-seekers. These writers provide dispatches from all corners of the globe—from South Sudan to Paris to Brazil to Calcutta to the Adirondacks—and in most cases, they deliver refreshingly original stories, alternately humorous, nostalgic, exhilarating and horrifying. On the whole, the quality of the writing is high, with only two or three descents into bombastic machismo. Elif Batuman pursues a mysterious local kidney disorder in Croatia; Stephanie Pearson explores the lesser-known areas of Colombia; Amanda Lindhout describes her "460 Days" as a prisoner of Somali insurgents; Michael Paterniti explores an extraordinary type of cheese in an adaptation from his outstanding memoir, The Telling Room (2013); and Matthew Power, who died tragically this year, plunges into the world of “urbex,” the exploration of secret places in some of the most-visited cities of the world. Not all the essays will be to everyone's taste, but in most cases, this is a matter of personal preference, not quality. One low point is Harrison Scott Key's strained comedy on traveling by Greyhound, in which he finds only the caricatures he went looking for. Some pieces provide contemplative breaks in the action, including Thomas Swick’s “A Moving Experience,” which considers how unexciting travel can be. In the foreword, series editor Jason Wilson provides another fine essay about rediscovering his first great wine experience, and second-time editor Theroux introduces the book with thoughts on his own career of risky explorations and the pleasures of reading about the most challenging "adventures and ordeals—the traveler's baptism of fire." Other contributors include A.A. Gill, David Sedaris and Colson Whitehead.
A thrilling, surprising collection—one of the best in the series.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-0544330153
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2014
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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