It is a sign of this book's lackadaisical presentation that even the subtitle (``from apples to zucchini, and everything in between...'') is inaccurate. This alphabetical guide to shopping for familiar and exotic fruits and vegetables, with the occasional recipe, begins with ``apples'' and ends with ``watercress''; zucchini are listed under ``squash.'' Napolitano, who owns a New Jersey produce store and makes occasional TV appearances, has exactly the opposite attitude toward produce that one might expect: He pays no heed to local growing seasons. By his measure, the delicate, warm-weather green arugula is ``available year round.'' He also has a devil-may-care attitude about chemicals, at one point boasting, ``I've been eating apples all my life—they're practically my favorite fruit—and I don't worry about alar.'' Recipes are tired versions of the same old thing (the world doesn't need another recipe for eggplant Parmesan) and seem geared to masking any fresh taste. Portobello mushrooms looked juicy and tempting after being broiled, but the lime-juice marinade overwhelmed them with tartness; strawberries were coated in sugar before being added to muffins, which covered up their natural sweetness. Napolitano revels in old, bad jokes. For storing strawberries he recommends, ``Rule 1: Refrigerate. Rule 2: Refrigerate. Rule 3: Refrigerate.'' Those who appreciate this kind of humor are in luck, because they'll get another sample under the Ts: ``The three most important rules to remember about tomatoes are 1. Never refrigerate! 2. Never refrigerate! 3. Never refrigerate!'' Corny year-round. (75 illustrations, not seen)
Pub Date: Nov. 22, 1994
ISBN: 0-688-12847-5
Page Count: 196
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1994
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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