The meandering, overly long autobiography of a gender-bending singer whose mercurial career doesn't warrant such an exhaustive catalog. But for a fluke hit on the soundtrack to the 1992 movie The Crying Game, Boy George's time has, by the hit parade stopwatch of pop music, long passed. With the help of journalist Bright, who is more ghost than writer, the singer of the trifling British quartet Culture Club has produced an account of the rapid rise and fall of his group and himself amid the decadent London club scene of the late '70s and early '80s. Constantly informed by the author's sexual orientation, this reads like a homosexual parody as it recollects the attire and style of each of its hundreds of flimsy characters. In between the numbing descriptions of bondage trousers and hennaed hair there are several funny and even tender moments. Boy George's upbringing in the working-class O'Dowd family produces some hilarious conflicts, and his failed romance with Culture Club drummer Jon Moss is still painfully close to the bone. One even gets the feeling that the reasons for the singer's battle with heroin are more interesting than first meets the eye. Culture Club's output, however, is insignificant in the canon of pop music, and Boy George's antics are tame by the standards of both his predecessors (David Bowie, Marc Bolan) and his successors (RuPaul, Madonna). Ultimately, his shallowness and excitability bury any vital signs beyond an occasional witty remark. Furthermore, for so emotional a personality, Boy George remains eerily unperturbed about the deaths of fellow club denizens who are falling victim to AIDS. This autobiography commits the worst crime its has-been subject can imagine: It's boring. (24 pages b&w photos, not seen) ($100,000 ad/promo; author tour)
Pub Date: Oct. 11, 1995
ISBN: 0-06-017368-8
Page Count: 496
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1995
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
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
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