Perfect balance of tips, recipes and anecdotes for continual referencing.
The story of a farming experiment that reaped far more than fruits and vegetables.
Skepticism is the first seed planted when Warren (Turpentine, 2007), a novice gardener and self-proclaimed slacker, sought to transform her yard into a farm, in which she intended to produce 75 percent of her family’s consumable food. The author readily admits, “I hate weeding. I forget to water. My garden is a testing ground for plants able to withstand abuse.” This humility and honesty sets the tone for not only the project, but the book as well. Warren’s enthusiasm gained her family’s gradual compliance, and each member and even a few friends contributed to the experiment in their own way. Son Sam was an enthusiast in the kitchen, his brother Jesse an avid mushroomer, and Warren’s husband’s patience and support cultivated not only a harvest, but family harmony as well. The author roots beneath the surface, revealing a candid account of what does and doesn’t work whether in the garden, the kitchen or her life. She provides gardening tips in a witty, approachable manner, most obvious in the chapter “Sadism in the Garden.” Her advice is properly seasoned with a blend of recipes that range from the simple to the downright eccentric—while trying to rid the farm of snails, a bit of culinary research confirmed her suspicion that the pests were closely related to the delicacy escargot. No matter the undertaking or the outcome, Warren demonstrates how determination and a willingness to learn can yield more than crops.
Perfect balance of tips, recipes and anecdotes for continual referencing.Pub Date: March 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-58005-340-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Seal Press
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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