Further tales of rural Ireland's trials and rewards, told by a husband-and-wife team. In their fourth book together (O Come Ye Back to Ireland, 1987, etc.), the authors continue to inform their readers about the nuts and bolts of daily life on the Emerald Isle. Mostly written by Williams, with some journal entries and sketches by Breen, their story is no longer about adjusting to Ireland after moving there from New York, but about how to maintain the life they have made for themselves and their two children within the bleak economic climate of the agrarian west coast. ``We have come to realize that we must write about our life in order to continue living it,'' Williams begins. In a country where emigration is often necessary to gain employment, survival is their achievement: After almost ten years, ``we are still here.'' For Dublin-born Williams, the village of Kilmihil provides a sense of belonging and community. His days are filled with his family as well as with part-time teaching, gathering turf for winter fuel, the Tidy Towns Committee, and directing a play. Breen and Williams clearly have embraced Ireland's traditional ways—she is ``a mother first'' and spends the rest of her time gardening and painting—and they sometimes romanticize what is quaint about the nation, from a neighbor's ever-ready scones to the community dance to pay for the local school's roof, as well as the land itself (``the kind of country that keeps coming back to you even when you have left it behind''). Williams's storytelling is calculated but not forced. His chatty narrative gives us a small taste of life on Ireland's west coast. At times precious, but an easy, enjoyable chronicle for the pair's family of readers. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Jan. 31, 1995
ISBN: 1-56947-022-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Soho
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 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
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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