Enjoyable and informative—perfect in-flight reading.
An unfiltered meditation on the airport, a space that de Botton (The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, 2009, etc.) argues is representative of humanity's philosophical outlook.
While spending a week in London's Heathrow Airport as its first “writer-in-residence,” the author was given a desk positioned in the departures hall, generous access to the airport's nooks and crannies and a room at the adjacent hotel, all with the expectation that he would compose a book on-site. The result is this slim, lighthearted volume, which is often punctuated with wry observations about things most travelers don't think twice about—e.g., the assembly of in-flight meals or the popularity of thrillers at the airport bookstores (“High above the earth, [passengers] were looking to panic about being murdered, and thereby to forget their more mundane fears”). The author synthesizes hundreds of these small details into a sociological report, concluding that the airport encompasses many of the tenets of modern culture. Whether it's our increased reliance on technology—from the automated check-in to the fantastically complicated management of coded flight patterns—the simple comfort of being greeted at the arrivals gate or the erection of a new, aesthetically adventurous terminal designed by Richard Rogers, the details of an airport reflect human ambition and desire. De Botton also doesn't miss the opportunity to include a few witticisms about the contrast between the life of an author and that of an airline pilot: “I would never be able to acquire the virtues that I so admired in them...and must instead forever remain a hesitant and inadequate creature who would almost certainly start weeping if asked to land a 777 amid foggy ground conditions in Newfoundland.” In addition to the author's musings, each page is adorned with an accompanying full-color photograph by Richard Baker, lending visual evidence that is especially welcome when de Botton explores the areas of Heathrow that are off-limits to the average traveler, like the corporate offices of British Airways’ CEO or the middle of an airstrip at midnight. Not surprisingly, it is often in these behind-the-scenes moments that the author's perceptions are especially keen.
Enjoyable and informative—perfect in-flight reading.Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-307-73967-4
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Vintage
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2010
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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