A well-researched, engaging history enhanced by high-quality illustrations.
Clarie (Just Rye Harbor, 2005) serves up a feast of history and legend surrounding the Egyptian city of Alexandria and Pharos, its once-upon-a-time lighthouse.
Founded in 332 B.C by Alexander the Great, Alexandria—as presented in this colorful account—has been at various times a humble fishing village, a prosperous commercial port, an international capital with palatial public buildings and sumptuous dwellings, and a ruin laid low by earthquake, plague and foreign conquest. Sizable populations of Jews, Arabs, Europeans and sub-Saharan Africans have lived there, more or less in harmony with the Egyptians themselves. Emperors from the Ptolemies and Cleopatra to Napoleon ruled the city while illustrious personages from E.M Forster to Pierre Cardin have been inspired by its charms. The lighthouse Pharos, the focal point of the book, was a welcoming beacon in Alexandria harbor for more than 1600 years and a wonder of the ancient world. Some historians claim that its light could be seen by sailors 100 miles out to sea, a day or more before their ships reached the port. Partially destroyed and renovated many times during its long life, Pharos finally disappeared in the 14th century. Recent diving expeditions have found what many believe to be remnants of its stone blocks and statuary submerged in the mouth of Alexandria harbor. Clarie recounts an exciting tale and does it well for the most part, with a palpable enthusiasm for the curious twists and turns of Egyptian history. The proliferation of names, dates and numbers assembled here is impressive, if a bit overwhelming. At times it’s difficult to navigate through the competing versions of history and legend, scores of capsule biographies and leaps back and forth in time, between brave attempts to reclaim ancient monuments and political dithering. Though the writing is generally readable, more shading or emphasis would better illuminate the preferred explanations of various phenomena and events. But ultimately the delightful, surprising details and lively presentation reward the reader’s considerable efforts.
A well-researched, engaging history enhanced by high-quality illustrations.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-1934582121
Page Count: 276
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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