Offers rueful proof that successfully joining an authentic Middle Eastern culture requires more than writing checks and...
An ambitious Australian couple renovates a crumbling Moroccan house.
Tired of what they saw as the soulless homogeneity of their native Brisbane, Australian newspaper editor Clarke and her husband Sandy became entranced by the exotic prospect of securing a spacious home with a garden in Fez. Early in their spiritual search for domestic nirvana, they encountered the ominous Arabic term inshallah, “God willing,” the true implications of which manifested themselves only later. Everything in Morocco, the couple discovered, proceeded at a tortoise-like pace, as though everyone was waiting for the hand of God to intervene in even the smallest transaction. In a city barely grazed by Western-style development—many Fez residents lived without running water—Clarke and her husband pursued the uphill task of hiring dependable, efficient local contractors to rebuild the long-neglected ancient abode they purchased. Professional obligations in Australia led them to set a time limit of five months on the process, a deadline that adds a mild “race against time” element to a narrative unsurprisingly short on drama—though the microscopic detailing of the home-rebuilding process will undoubtedly appeal to participants in the current renovation craze. The Australians’ demanding Western conception of efficient work standards rubbed against the ingrained deliberateness of Moroccan contractors and laborers, some of them decidedly shifty. The constant haggling over material costs and workers’ hourly pay occasionally brought the normally patient author to the brink of scrapping the whole project in frustration. Continent-hopping Clarke had neighborly intentions, but she and her husband remained slightly aloof from a hyper-religious Muslim society still skeptical of encroaching westernization. Nonetheless, she offers some incidental but valuable cultural insights into Morocco’s social history and post-millennial life.
Offers rueful proof that successfully joining an authentic Middle Eastern culture requires more than writing checks and giving orders.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4165-7893-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2008
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
BOOK REVIEW
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