This book is welcome principally because it is the only systematic discussion of the life (or a good portion thereof) of one of the important musical figures in the second half of the 20th century. Unfortunately the author fails to capture the essence of what made Robert Shaw successful as a performer and how his inspiration largely fueled the "choral renaissance" in this country. The definitive critical biography of this singular talent remains to be written.

People who think Robert Shaw was something special and who come across this book will be delighted with its readability. While it certainly captures Shaw's unique ability to command your respect and warm your heart, it is especially successful in putting the phenomenon that was Shaw into the context of music in America in the Twentieth Century. One often doesn't think much about what it must have been like, especially in the earlier part of the era, to champion and perform the "modern" serious music repertoire; this book forces us to think about it, to put ourselves in the places of those who felt, like Shaw, compelled to do it. Along the way, there's a good overview of the evolution of recording, and how Shaw fit in there, not so much exploiting the medium as using it to serve the larger purpose of his art. Compelled throughout his career to make popular recordings, Shaw's final one for RCA ("Irish Songs," August '67) is in fact finished by a capable associate while he runs off to do more important things with his latest love, the Atlanta Symphony. The "popular" Shaw was to always dog the "artistic" Shaw throughout his career. He was once stung by a critic who said of his light encores, "They drew lots of applause mingled with the soft plash of the cognoscenti being quietly sick in their hats."

Everyone will have their favorite quote from Shaw after reading this book. Mine is a long, affectionately comic poem on Mahler's Eighth Symphony, which concludes, "So, grieve not, Gus! Our new Apollo! // Where you lead us, we will wallow!" Indeed, the many quotes from Shaw as he speaks and writes to his choruses are the principal glories of this book.

But always, always the music. You can feel the march of performances as they are roll-called before your eyes. This may not be the most authoritative, most definitive book on Shaw possible, but it is the one I wanted most to read. A real five star recommendation, and no apologies to the cognoscenti!

The late Robert Shaw had an incredibly long and distinguished career. This authorized biography by Joseph Mussulman, a one-time Shaw chorister, covers Shaw's life and career up to 1979 in detail, with a Foreword added in 1996 which briefly covers those later years. But a revised edition, with full detail in the period 1979 to Shaw's death in January, 1999, would fill in a lot of blanks for those who know him best through his Telarc recordings with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and his Chamber Singers and Festival Singers, or through his Carnegie Hall Choral Workshops and Tanglewood appearances in the later years of his career.

I came by my appreciation of Shaw relatively late in life, and by a somewhat unusual means. When he founded his Collegiate Chorale in 1941, I was all of two years old. I was still way too young to latch on to him seven years later, when he had disbanded the Collegiate Chorale and founded the Robert Shaw Chorale. For three decades after that, I had a somewhat different musical agenda, and he was a musical "ship passing in the night" for too many years.

The signal event which brought Shaw to the forefront of my musical consciousness was the launching of Telarc's digitally-mastered LP's by Bob Woods and Jack Renner, in 1977. The second of these LP's was a performance of Stravinsky's Firebird Suite and Borodin's Polovtsian Dances by Shaw and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. Shaw had earlier assumed the directorship of the ASO in 1968, and Woods and Renner had been associated with Shaw during the period when he was assistant conductor and choral director for George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra. In a very real sense, Woods and Renner were, by bringing this new technology to Shaw, thanking him for past friendships and associations. And the history of his role in leading the ASO, and bringing it to prominence with its recorded repertoire, was dramatically changed by this event. But much of this later history, and what followed Shaw's "retirement" as active music director of the ASO, has unfortunately been compressed into the all-too-brief Foreword, and the last three years of his life are not documented at all.

It is fair to say that the Telarc "gift" which Woods and Renner presented to Shaw made the difference between a career which would have been insufficiently documented by recordings (except for a handful of earlier RCA Victor recordings of the Robert Shaw Chorale) and one which will now stand the test of time. The ASO, good as it became under Shaw's leadership, served as much during his tenure as the recording instrument which would provide support for the "ultimate" Robert Shaw Chorale, the remarkable, and totally amateur (in the best sense) Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus, as it would as the civic orchestra for the greater Atlanta area.

I could wax eloquent about the dozens of recordings this orchestra and chorus produced over a 20-year period of Telarc support. But there is one recording which stands out above all, of a work which was the closest thing to a cornerstone for Shaw's career: Bach's B Minor Mass. His professional life with this work is well-documented in Joe Mussulman's book. There is a wealth of anecdotes about how his performances of this work could reduce folks to tears, from Alaskan Aleuts to college kids everywhere to Soviet apparatchiks at the height of the Cold War.

One anecdote stands out above all others regarding his mastery, as well as his unassuming modesty in the face of it all, regarding the B Minor Mass. It occurred after a performance that must have really come together in a very special way. Following the concluding "Dona Nobis Pacem" of the Mass, Shaw left the podium and darted behind the curtain, awaiting the applause. He waited, and waited some more. Finally, not understanding why it was that the applause never arrived, he poked his head out from behind the curtain, only to find both the audience and the musicians facing each other and bawling their eyes out from what must have been a rendering of the final "Dona Nobis Pacem" of the Mass for the ages. Those who were at that performance carry a very special event around in their memories.

This single, simple paragraph of an anecdote says volumes about Shaw's largely underrated mastery. When you read this book, you too will cry. And you will laugh. And you will likely do both simultaneously. For all the right reasons.

Now, if only someone would fill in the final missing 20 years or so of "Dear People," we'd have it all.

Bro. McConkie tried to glean current church doctrine from the B. of M. but in my opinion he missed the point. I give five stars for the verses he quoted from the B of M and zero stars for the commentary which comes to three overall. Our people do not need another so-called "commentary" by an "expert" to understand this most simple of books. Read it, the B of M that is, and you cannot help but be overwhelmed by the message.

This is a fairly good series of commentary for the begining Book of Mormon Reader. These books provide a good basis to start from. Having sat at the feet of these two great scholars, I was a little dissappointed in the depth of their commentary. However they are both reliable sources.

The last Book of Mormon commentary war written in the late 1950's Elders George Reynolds and Janne Sjodahl, so it was about time that another Book of Mormon commentary was written, especially since President Ezra Taft Benson placed such a pointed emphasis on this Book of Books.

This commentary is also an improvement upon other books, since its focus is primarily upon doctrine, and not on archaeology or culture. I think someone once referred this at to "likening the scriptures unto ourselves."

The books contain both the text of the Book of Mormon, followed by the specific commentary. It is, therefore, similar to Elder Bruce R. McConkie's "Doctrinal New Testament Commentary."

This book has a good spirit about it, and I feel myself smarter and more spiritual as I have read it. I have read a lot of books, and each book has a degree of light, and this book is rather bright.

It is great for Sunday School teachers and quorum instructors, or just for personal edification.

Dunninger's Complete Encyclopedia of Magic is a must have for every magicians library. This book covers he early stage magic of vaudville days. It includes everything from very large techniques that require a lot of preperattion to simple techniques and tricks that can be made with ordinary household objects. Some of the best illusions of all time are explained in this book. Mr. Dunninger was one of the last performers of live vaudeville. He had over 50 years experience as a magician.

This book has got to be three inches thick full of
magic layed out in turn-of-the-century style. It
almost feels like your browsing through an old
Sears & Roebuck catalog.

Several of the tricks require lots of preparation.
I enjoyed the ones with on hand items.

You know how it's said that sometimes you don't find greatness, it finds you? September 1980 was when it fell into my hands. I was in the sixth grade at the time, and hiding in one of the many u-shaped cases of books in my junior high school's library. In that month, Dunninger's Complete Encyclopedia of Magic snared my eyes away from my usual reading of history volumes and comic book anthologies. It provided an escape for me, a literary astral projection back to a time where discovery, invention and intrigue were sacred values. This book is a staggering read, from the 30's Hollywood prose of the author to the turn-of-the-century illustrations explaining almost every magic trick performed; from coin tricks, fakirs, disappearing acts, sleight of hand, secrets of mediums to large stage magic, there's a new adventure with every page turned. 15 years after I left junior high, I thought I'd never see that book again. I am unbelievably lucky to have this book in my possession today. A small retailer in Cleveland found this for me after a six month search, so don't expect to get it right away. But when you do, you'll look forward to days, months, even years of enjoyment, whether you perform magic or not.

If you are looking for clear explanations of basic electrical principles, Mr. Kaiser does an excellent job of using mathmatical formulas to explain them. His examinations of ac theory are clear, concise, and written at apprenctice-level. The writing style is certainly dry.

Motor control occupies a very short section at the end of this book, and it is badly out of date. Look elsewhere if you are interested in recent technological advances.

I am an electrical engineer. I have read and used this book to explain certain technical complex issues dealing with ac electrical power. Mr. Kaiser has explained things in a great way that makes understanding the behavior of electricity easy. Thanks !!!!!

Even thou I have not completed this book in its entirety, I am pleased to say that I have found it to be informative.

I have been in the electrical industry for almost twenty five years and in all that time there have been several aspects of electrical theory which I have never really fully understood.

This book has made some of the mathematical problems seem so simple and easily understood that I now feel that I have just come out of my apprenticeship.

Anyone who wishes to understand the logic behind electrical theory needs to read this book.

Joseph Campbell's Flight Of The Wild Gander provides selected essays by the author, which cover mythological explorations from 1944-68. From myth symbols to temporal terms in spiritual thinking, this provides many intriguing insights.

This is Joseph Campbell at his most wide-ranging--from intense academic essays like his foreword to the Grimm Bothers' Tales to philosophical explorations of the place of myth in today's world like "Secularization of the Sacred" and "Symbol without Meaning." My favorite essay in the collection is "Bios and Mythos", where Campbell goes into the question of the biological basis for spiritual thought. Really mindblowing stuff!

This is one of my favorite JC books. The essays in this book stand up to the test of time, albeit not THAT long ago. Campbell was a romantic Jungian and Neumannian, but he took their work, and Zimmer's to greater heights and broader sights. This book is just lovely-- a treasure-filled collection of comparative mythology and psychological insight. Definitely one of Campbell's best.
It was so hard to find, I pleased that it has been reissued.

This book is an essential a textbook for college students. It provides all the basic materials about the futures market. But I feel it doesn't cover too much about the problems of real world trading. After trading for sometimes, I know that there are many tricks using by the professional traders. They are really important. They can give you edges over other traders. But they are seldom covered in college textbooks. So you still need to read other books or learn from other people before you put the money into this risky game.

This is clearly one of the best investment books written. The title belies the breadth of valuable market knowledge the book offers students of the markets.

If you are going to trades futures, read this book, make a few trades, then read this book again. It is a cold, hard look at the reality of trading. While just about every other book on futures trading assumes you are a gullible idiot, this one exposes the difficulty of the pursuit. Its depth and breadth are incomparable.

Dr. Carrier pioneered long-term fieldwork among a subculture of males who have sex with males. This book presents some of his data from Guadalajara, extending back to his dissertation fieldwork in the early 1970s. Like most anthropologists, he has no tools for making sense out of changes. That he has data extending over decades does not mean he treats these data historically. The data _are_ important and interesting, but the author is at a loss about what to do with them. (Like Annick Prieur and Don Kulick, among others, he is not at all hesitant to overgeneralize from a relatively narrow, unrandom sample: taking the network the anthropologist happened to enter as a microcosmic epitome of a culture/society is something else anthropologists do all too readily!)

Because "gay research" was so stigmatized, Carrier has never had an academic job. He obviously has not followed developments in the field of research he helped create. Other than data (and ignoring the probale difficulty of publishing about homosexuality then!), this book could be from the 1970s. One might think that being outside academia might be an advantage for immediacy and freshness, but Carrier's ponderous writing is "academic" in the worst sense. Although his writing is not obscured by "queer theory," it is dry and often awkward. So much academic talking and writing about gender and homosexuality lacks systematic data that it is very unfortunate that someone who actually has lots of data that he has gathered over a long duration of time has not been able to do more to make sense of changes or continuities in how young Mexican males live their desires for other males or to use the data to address contemporary concerns.

This book provided a lot of good information pertaining to homosexuality among Mexican men. The nice part about it is that if presents many stories of real people and their interactions with homosexuality in Guadalajara. I would recommend this book with the understanding that it is very explicit sexually.

Dr. Carrier is a phenomenal ethnographer and writer. He's done a magnificent job in bringing anthropological methods to life in a very palatable form.

When I saw the authors were the authors of "Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands" I immediately bought this book. It was disappointing, because the authors have shown they can write good books.

The biggest problem is with keeping current. (The authors allude to this issue in their preface.) This book was based on 1999 material and published in 2001. There's a lot of material that has very limited shelf-life, such as a list of government officials in Italy. They publish a list of national holidays for each country, listing both date and day of the week. (Where was their editor?) Obviously that information is only good for one particular year.

Treatment is superficial in many aspects. Under "currency" they only state the name of the currency, with no reference to pegging or exchange rate volatility. Under "Intellectual Property Rights" they discuss the treaties the country has signed. You would never learn there is an intellectual property issue in China from reading this book, because China has signed all pertinent treaties.

Their treatment of cultural issues is not structured. They list five cultural tips per country. These tend to focus on manners issues such as being (or not being) on time. I'm more attune to the method that Geert Hofstede uses in his books where he defines a cultural trait, discusses its implications, and then states how strong that cultural trait is in the country. For example, Hofstede introduces "power distance" as a measure of hierarchy and respect for authority. He then discusses implications for the decision making and negotiation processes. Finally, he gives the scores for each country, leaving the reader to draw conclusions. The authors of this book do discuss one cultural trait for all countries, defined as "Time." To them it means attitudes toward promptness. There is no discussion of the inverse relationship between attention to promptness and flexibility in scheduling, which is a hugely important issue in buying or selling.

Finally, and this is a personal issue because I am a purchasing consultant and educator, there is a heavy emphasis on selling in other countries but almost no attention to buying there. They could have given GSP-status for imports into the US, for example.

I recommend spending your money elswhere. Buy "Kiss, Bow" to learn about manners issues. Get "Culturegrams" to get annually updated information on history and geography. If you really want to study a country it will take more depth and more current material than this book carries.

If one is interested in doing business internationally, then this book in question, i.e., Dun & Bradstreet's Guide to Doing Business Around the World by Terri Morrison, et al, is a must have have. In this book the author presents a plethora of useful information, e.g., negotiating styles, investment climate and protocol, to mention a few. The book is well written and Dun & Bradstreet is a venerable company with a long and distinguished history for exellence.

Here is the best single-source I have come across thus far which provides information about trade opportunities, tariffs, risk factors, negotiating styles, investment climate, protocol, and cultural tips. (I refer to the revised and expanded version.) The authors discuss 40 countries (in alphabetical order, from Argentina to Venezuela), then provide five appendices: Contracts and Websites, Documents Used in International Trade, Abbreviations of International Organizations, Corruption & Bribery Index, and Conversion Factors. I am now convinced that almost every company throughout the world will eventually become involved, directly or indirectly, with e-business. Here is a comprehensive guide which contains invaluable information and hard-headed recommendations based on real-world experience. Other volumes are now available which provide more information about a single county (eg Stuttard's superb The New Silk Road whose subject is China) but none, to my knowledge, which is comparable in terms of global coverage.

This book can be characterized as a list of attached examples, or a collection of notes. It is difficult to follow and not thorough. Rather than explaining concepts the authors give examples, one per chapter. Furthermore, most of the material is repeated in each chapter since they apply to all the examples. This is a book made in a hurry by compilation of the authors notes. My major interest was in AMT implications which were ignored. After trying to read it for 2 days it went to a corner of my bookcase.

A reader from Westborough reviewed the book and did not find it helpful, I disagree. I think the book is intended for the reader like me who has a limited knowledge of their options. In addition, the stories/examples within the books were the best part of the book. If you have an advanced knowledge of options this book might not be right for you, but if you need a simple, easy to read and enjoyable overview of options - I suggest you read this book.

I was lost with my options until I read this book. I feel that I am able to guide myself through the maze of options with help of this book.

Unless you are a lover of bureaucracy, don't buy this book; if you're mainly interested in military affairs, you'll be disappointed. Except for a pretty good, but brief, summary of Libyan history, the entire first half is a tedious recitation of memos, briefings, meetings, press conferences, etc that just goes on and on. Following the actual attack, the description of which is pretty good, the aftermath up to and including Lockerbie and Sept 11th is again overlong and plodding. A major theme in the book is the extreme mission undertaken by USAF F-111s based in England. The book says there were sound reasons why these aircraft had to be included (ie, not just interservice rivalries) but, after the mission in which most of them failed due to mechanical and operational problems, it's pointed out that the F-111s were notoriously unreliable after just 2-3 hours flying. This mission was 14 hrs, 6000 miles! Some of them almost ran out of fuel due to poor post-mission planning! One is left with (a) a profound appreciation of the courage and professionalism of the Air Force pilots and (b) a bit of anger over why they were put in this position. The Navy pilots, operating under much better circumstances, had better success. Overall, the good information in this book isn't worth the trouble of finding it, turning page after page.

As the U.S. ramps up toward war with Iraq, Mr. Stanik's book assumes new interest. He tells the story of the six-year confrontation between the Reagan administration and the secular Islamic dictator Muammur Qaddafi of Libya. It's hard slogging through the first half of the book, which details in sometimes confusing terms Qaddafi's terrorist games and the American responses. But the second half--the chapters involving Operation El Dorado Canyon--are fascinating because they illustrate the first use of the type of warfare that has since become the hallmark of American arms: a precision strike, at night, with split-second timing and guided bombs, over incredible distances. Well worth reading. -- Dan Ford

Joseph Stanik, a retired naval officer and former history instructor at the U.S. Naval Academy, provides readers with a well-researched political and military history of U.S.-Libyan relations from the start of Reagan's presidency through the aftermath of Operation El Dorado Canyon, the precision air strike aimed at Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi's terror apparatus. He chronicles the development of administration policies to confront international terrorism and its most prominent advocate, Colonel Qaddafi, and carefully describes the political and economic strategies, diplomatic initiatives, covert actions, and military operations aimed at the Qaddafi regime. A major asset of Stanik's book is his clear analysis of those policies. Along the way, he explains why it took Reagan so long to retaliate against horrendous acts of terrorism directed against American citizens. Disagreement within the administration over the application of military force and unsupportive allies--Sound familiar?--are among the reasons.
Four times during Reagan's presidency, hostilities erupted between American and Libyan forces; therefore, Stanik devotes considerable space to operational planning, descriptions of military equipment and tactics, and accounts of combat action. He provides thrilling accounts of two dogfights between U.S. Navy and Libyan fighters, naval surface action in the Gulf of Sidra, and tension inside the cockpits of U.S. Air Force F-111Fs as the planes bore down on Qaddafi's compound in downtown Tripoli. Stanik also takes readers through the Lockerbie affair and relates our current war against global terrorism to Reagan's controversial pledge to strike terrorists with 'swift and effective retribution.'