A lucidly informative tour of the natural world’s astonishing complexity, cheerfully conveyed.
A collection of short essays reflecting on the surprising majesty of the natural world that surrounds us.
Debut author Sura Jeselsohn routinely marvels at the hidden wonders of the natural environment, spectacles that can be enjoyed without the fuss of exotic travel. In a series of brief essays that originally appeared in the Riverdale Press in her regular column, “Green Scene,” the author recounts adventures big and small in encountering the ecological gems hiding in plain sight: “It always amazes me what you do not see when your eye is not sensitized.” Jeselsohn takes the reader on a guided tour of these barely concealed delights, many of which she finds around her home in Riverdale, New York: She goes beachcombing on Coney Island, searches for fossils in nearby streams, and explains how midtown Manhattan can be seen as a “geological opportunity.” She also makes grander excursions, too, to Israel, Uganda, London, and the Red Sea, among others. The book is organized thematically; for example, there are sections that collect essays on marine biology, plants, insects, and birds, and a few others. As the collection’s title suggests, she returns repeatedly to the notion of noticing and enjoying the natural beauty accessible to all with the patience to look for it—all that is “happening beneath the radar”: “I have always thought that I was reasonably aware of the natural world around me; yet as I am repeatedly reminded, a whole lot goes on out there, right under my nose, that I’m completely unaware of.” She vividly describes her often fascinating findings, like the “extraordinary structural complexity and surprising coloration” of flowers. Jeselsohn writes with great clarity and informal unpretentiousness; her expertise is undeniable, but she expresses it without a hint of professional arrogance. In fact, quite the contrary, she infectiously invites the reader to share the experiences she believes are open to all, given a heightened attentiveness. And while there is a more urgent lesson that lurks beneath her explorations—that nature is precious and we “ignore it at our peril”—this is not a work of activism but a quietly inviting paean to the infinite beauty of the Earth.
A lucidly informative tour of the natural world’s astonishing complexity, cheerfully conveyed.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-946989-30-7
Page Count: 234
Publisher: Full Court Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2020
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
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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