An anthology containing some of the most amusing, insightful, and moving sports writing from the past year. Sure, series editor Stout and guest editor Boswell (Cracking the Show, p. 294) might not have extended their search to every hamlet with a sports page, as the preponderance of Sports Illustrated and New Yorker pieces clearly indicates. However, the fact that nearly all of the submissions faithfully depict athletes and their exploits as part of a grander choreography clearly establishes that many of the authors included are famous (or infamous) for good reason. Among the best entries are Bruce Buschel's ``Lips Get Smacked,'' a profane, Runyonesque trip to an Atlantic City casino with Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Lenny Dykstra (``Watching Lenny Dykstra gamble is like having an orchestra seat at a one-character David Mamet tragicomic- psychodrama. You are appalled and delighted by the language and the largesse''); Davis Miller's ``The Zen of Muhammad Ali,'' a touching portrait of The Champ battling the march of time and Parkinson's Syndrome—possibly the result of taking too many punches—with a generosity and dignity that fans seldom attribute to sports heroes; and Frank Deford's ``Running Man,'' an examination of the far- reaching effect of Phil Knight and his $3.7 billion sneaker-making, sports-marketing, and entertainment colossus, Nike. Nearly all the selections display uncanny wit and flourish, and these writers have the imagination to shun the obvious ``feet of clay'' athlete profiles to deliver realistic, humane portraits of people who, like many of us, have either risen to face life's adversity or turned tail and fled. Not just the best sports writing, some of the best writing anywhere. Period.
Pub Date: Nov. 3, 1994
ISBN: 0-395-63326-5
Page Count: 303
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1994
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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