An important book that gives coherence to a massive data dump.
Thoughtful analysis of one of the largest leaks of classified information in history—how it happened, what the secret documents say and what it all means.
In its first e-book, the New York Times brings welcome order to the chaos of the hundreds of thousands U.S. government documents released last year by the elusive and volatile hacker Julian Assange, founder of the WikiLeaks whistle-blowers’ website. In addition to the newspaper’s own extensive news and op-ed coverage, including the texts of military and diplomatic documents published on the Times website, the book has an extended insider’s essay on the entire episode by Times executive editor Bill Keller, as well as profiles of both Assange and Army Private Bradley Manning, his suspected source. Keller details his six-month experience working with the “secretive cadre of anti-secrecy vigilantes” known as WikiLeaks, whose release of the candid documents about world leaders and events embarrassed the U.S. government. A Times team created a searchable database of the material: 500,000 military dispatches on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and 250,000 confidential cables between the State Department and 270 U.S. embassies and consulates. Keller says the newspaper acted responsibly in publishing the documents, redacting information that might endanger lives. The book includes contrasting views as well as reflections on the episode’s implications for the future of secrecy and diplomacy in the digital age. Both Assange and Manning emerge as bright, attention-seeking outsiders from unstable backgrounds. Assange, envisioning WikiLeaks as a new “scientific journalism” allowing people to judge facts for themselves, became increasingly erratic as his notoriety grew. Manning landed in a brig, where he awaits trial. One-third of the book consists of solid, old-fashioned journalism, offering the context and background needed to understand the documents. With links to cables and images, a helpful glossary and an appendix of significant photographs, the text takes full advantage of the capabilities of the e-book format.
An important book that gives coherence to a massive data dump.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2011
ISBN: 9780615439570
Page Count: -
Publisher: The New York Times
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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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