A zesty lexicon of a book with a strangely connected text: "Afraid of Computers to Zenith: The Final Days of Man Before the Machines Take Over?" The artful Crichton wrote this primer/guide on his word processor, of course, instructing it to scan the text and, except in special cases, delete "software" (a word he despises). You learn many practical lessons: Buy a word processor if your needs are strictly word-processing—they're better than add-ons to computers. Always copy your disks; your back-up is your savior when you or the computer inadvertently destroy the data. Don't wait for the next-generation machine on the principle that it will be that much snazzier and cheaper; Crichton made that mistake and wasted a year. Some of the advice is funny: what to do with smart-ass kids who can instantly handle the machine you've bought, or what to do about "Widows, computer." (Crichton let his wife use his from the start, and ended up buying two.) The book does not tell you how computers work or how to fix them. That's a gain, because Crichton assures you that you shouldn't feel guilty over failure to understand machine codes or internal electronics. He also includes a beginner's guide to using an Apple II, a "Grouchy Glossary," and a couple of programs: "Mystery Writer" and "Soothsayer"—the latter, Crichton's version of how to get your computer to give you I Ching answers. That diversion is revealing of his philosophy. Computers are stupid machines, he states emphatically: they may get super-smart, but people and non-rational modes of contact and behavior (the surgeon's "touch") remain supreme. Comforting words for those who harbor computer fear—and a useful compendium altogether for those who are not the first on their block to succumb to computer wiles. . . but now, just might.
Pub Date: Sept. 23, 1983
ISBN: 0345317394
Page Count: 266
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1983
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
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
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