Warren writes with verve and provides rare insight into our working partnership with canines.
How adopting a German shepherd puppy turned out to be life-changing for Warren (Science Journalism/North Carolina State Univ.).
Having hoped that her new puppy would become a replacement for the companionship of a recently deceased dog, she was dismayed by the aggressive, rambunctious new addition, Solo, who could turn into an uncontrollable, snarling, biting “Tasmanian devil.” After two months, even though she was at her wits' end, she didn't want to give up on the puppy, who, despite it all, was “funny and charming” and clearly very intelligent. Warren appealed for help from the trainer who had worked with Solo's predecessor. The trainer suggested that he had the makings of a cadaver dog, a working dog used to locate missing people presumed dead. His aggression could be channeled by the demands of the search and the rewards of success. For Warren, the task of training and handling became the “rare perfection of that human and canine partnership…[which entailed]...the intense physical and mental challenge of stripping a search to its essential elements.” Warren chronicles how she and Solo each learned their jobs so that they could become effective volunteer members of criminal investigations. She had to teach him to perfect his ability to assess odors but also to deal with electric fences, swim rivers and push through undergrowth while ignoring distractions. Her responsibility was to guide Solo, as he alerted her to being in the vicinity of a target, by judging the effects of intangibles such as wind and temperature. She also had to train herself to tolerate gruesome crime scenes and dangerous environments while maintaining Solo's enthusiasm for the chase.
Warren writes with verve and provides rare insight into our working partnership with canines.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4516-6731-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
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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