A pleasant voyage with a genial, worthy captain—though we do sail to many places we have been before.
A veteran copy editor debuts with an account of his beliefs, preferences, and peeves about contemporary English grammar and usage.
Dreyer—vice president, executive managing editor, and copy chief at Random House—rehearses a bit of his personal history with the copy editing profession and then takes us on a journey to the many major and minor isles of written English. In most ways, the author is not an Ahab-ian captain. He recognizes the arbitrary nature of many of our “rules” (after all, we made up most of this stuff). Early on, he explains the silliness of our adherence to such things as never splitting infinitives, never starting sentences with “But” or “And,” never ending sentences with prepositions. Soon, however, Dreyer begins to list specific dos and don’ts, instructing us on the uses of commas, colons, parentheses, and quotation marks. He pauses to explain the difference between an en- and an em-dash, between “who” and “whom,” and “lie” and “lay.” He also has some fun with dangling modifiers. In fact, Dreyer has fun throughout, exhibiting a light tone and a sly sense of humor. He could not resist, when reminding us of the difference between “hanged” and “hung,” that some men are, indeed, hung. He thinks we are losing the battle against “alright” and doesn’t really observe the difference between “nauseated” and “nauseous,” but he does like the distinction between “each other” and “one another.” Also included are some sections on the correct spelling of proper names and on the use of the word Frankenstein (the creator, not the creature). He wryly reminds us that “clichés should be avoided like the plague” and that we really shouldn’t trust internet memes as a source for authentic quotations.
A pleasant voyage with a genial, worthy captain—though we do sail to many places we have been before.Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9570-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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
BOOK REVIEW
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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