Like its subject, rarely stylish or flashy—but always sturdy and reliable. (8 pp. color illustrations, 99 b&w...
A lushly illustrated history of the wealthy and their dwellings since the Great Fire.
Amateur historian (and ex-insurance broker) Thorold employs skills from both his avocation and his profession to produce a chronicle of the rich and their sumptuous retreats. He begins with a brief account of London before the Great Fire; thereafter—without any account of the fire itself—he adheres to strict chronology. The movement of the rich into various areas of the city was often a form of flight from “the irresistible onrush of the poor,” the author describes—sometimes thoroughly, sometimes not—the genesis and development of the posh squares in the city: St. James, Hanover, Grosvenor, Berkeley, Portman, and others. He also illustrates (with excellent maps) London’s accelerating sprawl. Often, Thorold provides engaging details about the construction (and fate) of individual properties—e.g., Eastbury House, which remains “one of the evocative memorials to the old rich in London,” and Holland House, whose ruins are “perhaps the prettiest in London.” Occasionally, he provides illuminating portraits of some of the owners and builders—e.g., John Nash, whom the Prince Regent employed in the early 1820s to redesign Buckingham House (now Palace). The author quotes often and effectively from myriad Londoners and visitors (the latter, he notes, most frequently commented in the 19th century on the city’s “immensity, its materialism, and the extremes of riches and poverty”). And, as he most appropriately observes, “the servants . . . made these houses possible.” When the going tends toward tedious, Thorold inserts the most effective antidote: anecdote. In 1661, for example, one Londoner commented that the fog and smoke in the city were so dense and pervasive that from his pew in church he could not see the minister. It is surprising, also, to learn how short-lived many of these grand houses were: Kensington House, for example, built at great expense, was never occupied and was pulled down six years after its construction.
Like its subject, rarely stylish or flashy—but always sturdy and reliable. (8 pp. color illustrations, 99 b&w illustrations)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-312-26616-2
Page Count: 416
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2000
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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