Coren, author of the bestselling The Intelligence of Dogs, wants you to get the right dog and to cut back on the alarming human-dog divorce rate, and here he delivers the kind of goods a professional matchmaker would be proud of. This is a book of pure good intention: Deploying his background in psychology and dog intelligence, Coren endeavors to hitch people and canines in a lasting, mutually beneficial relationship. Considering that four out of ten dogs don’t last one year with their adoptive families, it is a worthy project. He emphasizes the importance of emotional attraction and companionship over image, and devises a new classification of dogs that, in contrast to the classic kennel-club standards, groups them by behavioral characteristics and temperament (this is accomplished with the input of veterinarians, trainers, dog-show judges, and canine psychologists): friendly, protective, independent, self-assured, consistent, steady, and clever. He then provides a personality test for readers to measure their own extroversion, trust, dominance, warmth, and such. In subsequent chapters, he outlines what dogs fit what categories, including psychological detailings and copious anecdotes (a kind of —dog styles of the rich and famous—): why Steinbeck had a poodle, Eugene O’Neill a Dalmatian, Emily Brontâ a boxer, Picasso an Afghan hound, what dogs presidents have chosen, and those selected by queens. Then he delves into the mechanics of his personality profiles, how readers can use them to find an appropriate dog, or maybe even to learn that they are, like Goethe and Napoleon, not meant to have a dog at all. The final chapter, a listing of the dogs of celebrities, is gratuitous, as readers will likely have little clue as to the glitterati’s real personalities. Coren, a humble dog lover and a longtime student of the beast, has the best interests of both dogs and humans at heart. His is a scheme worth a gamble. (8 pages b&w photos, not seen) (Author tour)
Pub Date: June 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-684-83901-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1998
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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