A travel journalist’s search for pornographic relics, subversive texts and sinful sites becomes the itinerary for his family’s European vacation.
Victorian elites once sent their sons on the Grand Tour. These lengthy excursions allowed young men the opportunity for leisurely indulgence in the cornucopia of European cultural delights. Perrottet’s quest for enlightenment heads in a more saucy direction. Having tackled similar bawdy topics in his previous books (Napoleon’s Privates: 2,500 Years of History Unzipped, 2008, etc), the author was mesmerized by collection of sexual oddities housed in the British Museum, including ancient Roman phallic jewelry and amulets depicting athletic coital positions. With his family in tow, Perrottet began tracking down the “forbidden historical fruit” scattered across Europe. Starting their vacation along the gloomy Scottish coastline, the author visited the Beggar’s Benison, a sex club founded in 1732. As his wife and sons longed for sunshine and swimming pools, the family slowly navigated toward sunnier locales with stops in Paris, the French countryside, Lake Geneva, Venice and the Vatican. They finally landed in Capri, where “[i]t was as if the soil itself were irrigated with sin. The brilliant light, the crystalline water, the languid heat, all cried out, carpe diem.” Throughout, Perrottet humorously recounts his travails at tracking down the location of luxurious Belle Époque brothels; his thrill at securing a spot with a secret tour of Casanova’s prison cell; and his successful wrangling with Vatican authorities for a glimpse of Raphael’s Bathroom of Love. In Lacoste, the author gently and persistently pestered Pierre Cardin, the owner of the Marquis de Sade’s home, into allowing him a visit into the infamous rake’s dungeon. Perrottet layers his narrative with tantalizing historical research, funny family complications and slightly acerbic comments regarding contemporary Europeans. A well-researched, amusing recollection of one family’s offbeat holiday trek to the naughty nooks of Europe.
Pub Date: May 10, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-307-59218-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Broadway
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
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
BOOK REVIEW
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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