For serious fans only.
The third of a projected six-volume set of Huxley’s essays.
In addition to authoring the classic Brave New World, Huxley was also a prolific essayist; most of the pieces here are short, editorial-style columns that originally appeared (with the exception of those taken from a collection published in 1930 titled Music at Night) in periodicals such as the Evening Standard, Nash’s Pall Mall Magazine, and Hearst. Written during “the Slump” and during the early rumblings of Nazism, Fascism, and the launching of Stalin’s “Five-Year Plan,” they provide a window into the social and political climate of the times. Huxley covers a wide range of topics. His commentaries on the value of technology and industry are still interesting, and his uninhibited musings on the different political systems evolving during the period are sharp; critical of American political democracy, Huxley was intrigued early on by authoritarian social planning and even Fascism. The primary value of this collection, however, will be to chart the evolution of Huxley’s ideas. Frequently diffuse and surprisingly insubstantial, many essays are also dated—ranging from his amusing pronouncement that “the energy set free” in splitting the atom “is too small, for practical purposes, to matter” to his disappointingly short-sighted optimism about the possibilities offered by eugenics (especially as regards the loathsome prospect of “sterilization of the unfit”) to his ironic call for state funding of “bio-chemical researches for the purpose of discovering the ideal substitute for alcohol, cocaine, and opium.” He also placed great hope in parapsychology training programs, given that research had “definitely established” in the 1880s “the reality of telepathic communication.”
For serious fans only.Pub Date: June 22, 2001
ISBN: 1-56663-347-8
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Ivan Dee/Rowman & Littlefield
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2001
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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