A useful, easy-to-read guide for those who want to learn more about complying with U.S. fair housing law.
A guide for apartment owners and managers looking to learn about U.S. laws and regulations governing equal housing opportunity.
Lawyer Leshnower (Every Landlord’s Property Protection Guide, 2008) takes a modified Socratic approach to explore the basics and subtleties of the federal Fair Housing Act by writing this book in quiz form, which he describes as an “interactive format that encourages knowledge, participation, and lasting comprehension.” Mostly that’s true. Walking readers through the law, the quiz poses 117 questions on topics from racism to pet policies. Followed by true-or-false or multiple-choice answers, the questions let readers make their best guess and then turn the page to find the correct response. Leshnower covers the basics of the law, including its seven protected classes—race, color, religion, national origin, sex, disability and familial status—and more esoteric questions, such as how to handle albinos and how to replace refrigerators without getting into hot water with the feds. The book offers plenty of good advice in plain English. For instance, sometimes it’s best for landlords to keep their mouths shut even if they just want to be helpful; while the FHA treats drug addicts as part of its protected disabled class, it doesn’t afford the same status to recreational-drug users; and though “very often, landlords get into fair housing trouble because they don’t take the same action with all tenants,” exceptions exist—e.g., even though landlords may require all tenants to pay a pet deposit, they must waive the fee for disabled tenants with service animals. Though the quiz format makes learning the law fun and easy to digest, it doesn’t lend itself to quick referencing; a table of contents, index and section headings would have made this book handier for landlords seeking immediate answers for particular problems. Also, though the author points out that even innocently violating the law “can lead to fair housing trouble,” readers want a better idea of exactly what kind of trouble that might be.
A useful, easy-to-read guide for those who want to learn more about complying with U.S. fair housing law.Pub Date: April 19, 2013
ISBN: 978-0989291101
Page Count: 306
Publisher: Hillocrian Creative
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 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
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
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