Some documentary material reflecting aspects of American Jewish history—but, as an entity, less coherent or substantial than Meltzer's various earlier books on the subject. A handful of selections show Jews confronting historical anti-Semitism: Asser Levy's appeal to the New Amsterdam authorities for the Jews' "burgher rights"; the protest of three Paducah, Ky., Jews, to Lincoln, against Grant's order expelling Jews from the Tennessee district; a rabbi's memoir of bucking Klan agitation in 1920s Indiana. A considerable number, especially of early date, attest to Jewish participation in mainstream American events—the Revolution (a patriot, a Tory), the Mexican War, Western settlement, the Gold Rush. Also of this ilk are Ernestine Rose's 1832 feminist speech and August Bondi's recollection of John Brown. A very few derive, without Meltzer's precisely saying so, from particularly Jewish union or radical activity (Rose Schneiderman's Triangle Fire speech, Emma Goldman's protest against deportation). The largest number, however, are snippets of Jewish life. Haym Solomon (1783) tells an uncle, in Europe, "it is not in my power to give you or any relations yearly allowances." Harry Roskolenko recalls his first visit to the sweatshop where his father worked ("When the foreman laughed, everybody laughed. . ."); Mary Antin recalls her father's euphoria on the first day of school. These are classics of immigrant autobiography—and so is Maurice Hindus' awe at "the decorative and juice-soaked tomato," and other things American, or Charles Angoff's memory of his father's disdain for just such American things. The chronicles of more recent times mainly commemorate salient experiences (a Jewish G.I. at Buchenwald, an Auschwitz survivor, an American kibbutznik) and have little individual flavor. Not an especially auspicious group, then, or in any single way outstanding-except for some of those vivid and affecting immigrant impressions.
Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 0690042272
Page Count: 200
Publisher: T.Y. Crowell
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1982
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
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
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