"Who would without a thurber be/ Should never, never speak to we..." (Ibid., old song). This is strictly a luxury item for eager lex'lconeers in language whether they are curious about the author's "alphabetical sedation" (never, ever, start to begin on this, medication), or his rogering in on Roget, or his visual vocabularizing; or are fascinated by his preoccupations about abbreviationists or verbal smoke screens; or the madness that befalls him via Sengalese love birds or Stamese cats; or his dim view of statistics; or his feeling about Henry James and his revival in theater (or worse mediums); or his attitude toward nurses.....or any aspect of the life that is filtered — and exposed —- through his alert ears (lack of sight makes for more sensitive hearing). Even if not concerned with the precarious state of the English language, readers (to be flogged into reading) should be exposed to this "circumambient mental air" (it is invigorating — breath-taking too) if only to begin to understand palindromes, watch an expert juggle words, learn about the "marvelous sixteenth letter of the alphabet" (and others in the 26 that will astound), jargon that jars and communication that confounds and radio that riles — and all the "if on" added together mean it's thurbertime again- and with 50 drawings!
Pub Date: April 12, 1961
ISBN: 0060142804
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1961
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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