Bytes and bombs, bureaucrats and booze dominate Wiener's lively account of the six months he spent as the CNN executive producer in Saddam Hussein's Baghdad. When the veteran newsman—he previously covered the Vietnam conflict and the Romanian War- -arrived in August 1990, Iraq and the non-Arab powers were inching toward war. Wiener soon discovered that working in the Iraqi capital was unlike any of his earlier assignments. For one thing, foreign correspondents were assigned Iraqi ``minders,'' functionaries whose job, according to the authorities, was to facilitate the news- gathering process but who were, in fact, little more than government informants. Setting up the CNN offices in the Al-Rasheed Hotel, Wiener and his staff managed, despite the obstacles placed in their way, to broadcast reports that accurately detailed conditions in the country. Government ministers were interviewed, and the local situation was analyzed on a day-to-day basis in such a way that the Iraqi powers-that-be gradually became more cooperative. (Wiener made it clear to them that he felt the Bush Administration's early handling of the crisis was provocative and bound to fail.) When war eventually broke out and most of the foreign press was expelled, Wiener and his crew were allowed to remain. The CNN news team—notably Peter Arnett and Bernard Shaw- -were thus able to become the first in history to report on a conflict from behind enemy lines. Several vignettes here capture such personalities as Muhammad Ali, Jesse Jackson, and Carl Bernstein, all of whom visited the Iraqi capital during the crisis. Wiener views most of these emissaries with a jaundiced eye, finding their motives self-serving. According to the author, Bernstein was a moocher, Ali seemed punch-drunk, and Jackson received special treatment from the American embassy. A refreshingly candid memoir told with pride but also an often disarming flippancy.
Pub Date: Jan. 15, 1992
ISBN: 0-385-42165-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1991
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
