A mishmash, but even those who don't have children and have never lived in Miami or searched for a Wi-Fi connection in the...
Another wide-ranging collection of funny essays about parenting—and "grammar, sex, camels, women, brain surgery, sex with women, how to become a professional author, airlines, Justin Bieber and death"—by best-selling humorist Barry (Insane City, 2013, etc.).
The author has made a career of chronicling his life (and those of his now-adult son and teenage daughter) in his syndicated newspaper column and several essay collections. The format is as familiar as an episode of a police procedural: Barry offers ludicrous yet authoritatively delivered advice and glumly acknowledges that following it might get you arrested. Although parenting is well-worn fodder for comedians, only Barry would coolly share his idea to install traps around his home to capture any teenage boys who would dare watch TV from the same sofa as his daughter and release the boys ("nothing more than short men") into the Everglades. The author provides useful information for parents of tweens and teens—e.g., "BFF stands for 'Best Friends Forever.' This is a term that girls my daughter's age use to describe essentially everyone they know"—as well as not-so-helpful advice on how to perform emergency first aid: "Keep the victim calm by administering several brisk facial slaps and shouting, ‘CALM DOWN, DAMMIT! DO YOU WANT TO DIE??’…When the ambulance arrives, ask the paramedics if you can operate the siren." The book is also part travelogue and part writing guide, as well as the author's detailed, pre-planned funeral program ("IX. Lucky Seat Announcement: The Audience will be instructed to look under their seats. Under one of them will be a small container of my ashes, which the audience member can take home").
A mishmash, but even those who don't have children and have never lived in Miami or searched for a Wi-Fi connection in the Israeli desert will appreciate Barry's lighthearted absurdity.Pub Date: March 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-399-16594-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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