An enjoyable account that will interest readers considering a nautical adventure.
Illustrated with many color photographs, this travel diary recounts a sailing voyage around the Adriatic.
In June 2007, Primož and his friend Vladimir Pezdirc-Lube set sail south from their home in Ljubljana, Slovenia, to Greece and the Corinth Canal. As it happened, they changed their course on the southward journey, turning west near the island of Ericoussa and returning home up Italy’s Adriatic coast. This book, first conceived as a travel diary to be given as Christmas presents to family and friends, expanded in scope. Its intended audience now includes “all the people who are trying to fulfill their childhood or adult dreams.” Rode doesn’t say much about himself, but he’s retired, well-read (he sends himself off to dreamland each night with a few pages of Casanova’s memoirs), enjoys classical music and has a wry sense of humor. Before this journey, he had little sailing experience—so setting off to sea in a 25-foot boat, even with a friend, was daunting. Though problems arise (a big storm, a mechanical breakdown), Rode and Lube have a mostly great time working hard, eating fresh seafood and drinking lots of red wine. The author’s most troubling experience was seeing the results of overfishing along the Italian coast, which leaves him pessimistic: “I am afraid the day when all the fish and marine life will be gone is not far away.” What makes this book more than just vacation slides with text is Rode’s thoughtfulness about his journey, particularly the perspective it gives. He writes, “I was becoming convinced more and more that politics and politicians are the most important unnecessary thing in this world.” He encourages readers to follow their dreams without hesitation (after checking with family members for understanding) and to maintain a calm acceptance of whatever life brings. Not bad advice—on land or sea.
An enjoyable account that will interest readers considering a nautical adventure.Pub Date: Jan. 4, 2010
ISBN: 978-1439255841
Page Count: 164
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2013
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
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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