Nine of America's most powerful (though virtually unknown) executives are scrutinized in this extraordinarily candid and thought-provoking probe into their business and personal lives. Consumer advocate Nader and Taylor seek to demystify the "Big Boys"—the often elusive wizards who guide their corporations through trying economic downturns, unforeseen crises, and, sometimes, periods of unparalleled success. Who are these enigmas? Does the power they wield emanate from the corporate entity alone, or from the man as well? Through a series of interviews with the myriad friends, relatives and associates of the chosen few, plus exhaustive background analysis and reference checks, Nader offers vital glimpses of this rare breed of businessman—in the boardroom, as well as on golf courses or fishing in remote locales. In exposing the motivations, aspirations and principles that the likes of David Roderick, Felix Rohatyn, and Paul Oreffice, among others, embody, Nader tends to focus on the individual's treatment of a significant crisis situation to set the stage for interpreting his background. The presentation varies from light, personal vignettes to complex documentary material acquired via the Freedom of Information Act. There is unfortunately a tendency towards digression, though the offshoots are usually valuable in their own right and integral to the whole. The Big Boys is a very big book. It offers, in wordy prose, a number of meaningful insights into the hows and whys of corporate executive decision-making, plus unhedged opinions on some of the less parochial issues of interest to a diversified public. The subjects are well chosen, though the depth of detail more often than not buries the authors' initial point. Of interest to corporate people-watchers and others who wonder what kinds of people make it to the top.
Pub Date: May 19, 1986
ISBN: 039472111X
Page Count: 612
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1986
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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