The author digs deep into the rich artisanal soil of Sicily's wine culture, unearthing centuries-old lineage and lore while...
An Italian-American writer embeds himself in the Sicilian wine trade for a year.
Wine Spectator contributor Camuto (Corkscrewed: Adventures in the New French Wine Country, 2008) takes an intimate journey through vineyards from Marsala to Corleone and up the slopes of Mt. Etna on the island that is said to boast as many as 4,000 grape varieties. Sleeping in rustic agriturismo lodgings and enjoying foods from the nearby farms—bright green pistachios, plump olives, cassata cake filled with sheep’s-milk ricotta—the author extracts illuminating insights from both seasoned and novice winemakers, whose methodologies range from staunchly traditional to trail-blazingly controversial, revealing vivid familial lore, historical tragedies and triumphs, technical challenges in the present and innovative plans for the future of their enterprises. Whether chatting in cavernous vat rooms filled with massive clay amphorae, the back booth of a 19th-century focacceria now under anti-mafia protection or amid craggy branches on terraced vineyards, Camuto gleans illuminating nuggets of wisdom, as when third-generation winemaker Giuseppe Tasca sums up his family's ethos: “My grandfather understood that you make wine in the vineyard…not in the winery.” Though other books offer in-depth portraits of Sicilian winemakers and their product—including Kate Singleton’s Wines of Sicily (2004) and Carlo Gambi’s photographic Journey Among the Great Wines of Sicily (2008)—by coexisting with his subject through four contiguous seasons, Camuto captures an intimate family album that eloquently details the idiosyncrasies, charisma and drive of Sicilian winemakers today.
The author digs deep into the rich artisanal soil of Sicily's wine culture, unearthing centuries-old lineage and lore while closely studying villages, vintages, vintners, vats and a few intriguing vendettas.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-8032-2813-9
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Univ. of Nebraska
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2010
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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