A gracefully written, travel-focused memoir with particular appeal for midlife and female readers.
In this collection of essays, the author taps into various travels as pivots for her midlife reflection.
In 13 chapters, Voss, a 50-something registered nurse, meditates upon her life’s trajectory in the context of what she has identified as key travel moments, encompassing childhood and adult experiences. In particular, she details trips within her native state of Iowa to the Mines of Spain Recreation Area; her visit to “Claus-Land,” i.e., Germany, the land of her ancestors and specifically great-great-grandfather Claus; and to Spain, the destination she set for herself as part of her process of obtaining a later-in-life graduate degree in creative writing. The chapter “Steps that Count” reflects the perspective taken in all her essays—that to document certain journeys is to hold a mirror up both to nature and one’s life. Her most affecting stories are often those of treks more near than far; for instance, a treacherous sailboat experience in Canada that she endures with a soon-to-be-ex husband, who she realizes cares more about adventure than her safety, and her connection to Iowa eagles and their shared “history of endocrine disruptor chemicals that led to the eagles’ near extinction and to the total extinction of my dreams of motherhood.” The autobiographical details are sometimes intense, as in a loaded sentence within “Claus-Land”: “Despite twelve years of trying to conceive, four lost babies, two lost husbands, five major surgeries, four outpatient procedures, fifteen artificial inseminations, three in vitro fertilizations, forty thousand dollars and countless daily hormone injections, motherhood wasn’t to be.” Still, Voss’ largely elliptical approach in unfolding her life’s stories is elegantly executed and effective. Readers may be left wanting more from this engaging author, who touches a variety of relatable topics, including a charming riff, while on Prince Edward Island, about her affinity with Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables (1908) and the character’s love of fashion as well as Mother Earth.
A gracefully written, travel-focused memoir with particular appeal for midlife and female readers.Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4826-1089-5
Page Count: 266
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 6, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
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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