Impressive, well-translated (from the German) life of the notorious Nazi propaganda chief and anti-Semite, much of it drawn from new sources. To tell the story of Goebbels—a leading architect of Nazi style, and the man perhaps closest to Hitler—Reuth (a reporter for the Frankfurter All-gemeine Zeitung) uses material uncovered from Staasi files and personal papers owned by a Swiss attorney. Goebbels's nightmarish childhood in a poor, hard-working Roman Catholic family is nicely explicated, and the author shows how the boy—repeatedly ill and rejected by schoolmates and his mother (who considered her son's clubfoot to be a divine punishment)— discovered books while in the hospital for a failed operation. Reuth captures Goebbels as a young, liberal socialist and aspiring writer, willing to lie and steal, fascinated with drama, his work dominated by Nietzsche and Spengler and his personal life dominated by a taste for women above his station. Similarly, the author captures post WW-II Germany, and how this desperate country—in which no kind of ability, industry, or talent was a guarantee against poverty—nurtured Goebbels's search for a savior who could galvanize the stricken Volk and satisfy his own personal longings as well. Hitler is shown doing with Goebbels what he did with all his followers—giving the future propaganda minister belief and energy, then stripping him of convictions and reducing him to a slave (albeit an effective one), whose campaign to launch a pro- Nazi newspaper proved to be a master-stroke of media manipulation generations ahead of its time. Before long, Goebbels, who'd studied under Jews he liked and respected, became under Hitler's rule the ``twisted dwarf'' of Kristallnacht. A harrowing account that focuses clearly on the man and his long degeneration rather than on his politics. (Thirty-three b&w photographs—not seen)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-15-136076-6
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1993
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
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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