A gossipy, entertaining peek into a glam world.
After giving the inside scoop on life in the Hamptons in Philistines at the Hedgerow (1998), Gaines now offers a cook’s tour of tony Manhattan addresses.
Gaines’s primary interest lies in the apartments that line Fifth Avenue, the so-called “best addresses.” Historically, these homes have housed the bastion of Society: those listed in the Social Register, those who might populate an Edith Wharton novel. Turning his attentions to the complex etiquette that governs posh Manhattan real estate, the author reminds us that the prestigious San Remo turned away Madonna in 1985; they worried that her recent photo shoots in Playboy and Penthouse would reflect badly on the building. Barbra Streisand was rejected by another Fifth Avenue co-op board because the residents thought that she’d host too many parties. In this neighborhood, it makes news when Tommy Hilfiger is allowed to buy into 829 Fifth Avenue. After all, his money is not only new, it was made selling urban gangsta clothes to teenagers—how déclassé! Gaines introduces readers to the powerful personalities behind the scenes of New York real estate. The most entertaining chapter features Linda Stein, so-called “broker to the stars,” who represents the likes of Donna Karan. We also meet Alice Mason, a real estate mogul whose 60-person dinner parties are legendary, and 78-year-old Betty Sherrill, a dowager who rules the roost at One Sutton Place South. Sherrill is chair of the building’s board of directors; thanks to her sharp eye, the board is known as “one of the most difficult” in New York. (For example, Sherrill tends to turn down singletons—overnight guests might tarnish the building’s reputation—but made an exception for Bill Blass.) Those with new money need not despair. Real estate done by the social register, Gaines implies, may be a thing of the past. His last chapter focuses on a new breed of Manhattan brokers, those who are solely interested in racking up sales.
A gossipy, entertaining peek into a glam world.Pub Date: June 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-316-60851-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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