I want to buy the Greenfield's Neuropathology. Please let me know when it is avairable.

Monica Bohm-Duchen has taken 8 famous paintings and told me the story of both the artist and the painting with the understanding that there really is no separation between the artist and his or her painting/s. How I hope that she writes a sequel, another sequel, another sequel! (This time I hope she includes women artists.)

Especially, this book speaks to artists and art lovers. We artists know that each painting is a spirit that is very much alive.

Unlike most book discussions of great art, Bohm-Duchen's is a page turner and almost a voyeuristic glimpse into the private lives of 8 artists, not so easily gleaned in the retrospectives and other tomes that speak of the art of these famous artists.I got an amazing pictural look at Jackson Pollock and gained a greater respect for his artistic composition and methodolody. I discovered the history of madness of the van Gogh family here and not in literally dozens of other books on van Gogh and his body of work. Every other book merely said Theo, his benefactor and art gallery owner brother, died about six months after van Gogh and never mentioned madness as the cause, or that his youngest brother killed himself at 32 or that his favorite sister, Wil, also spent time committed to a mental asylum.

Bravo! Every artist and art lover and artist-to-be needs to read this book now. This book is a gift of joy you give yourself and others.

This book is surprising. It doesn't quite have the format of a traditionnal art book, but it is an excellent book. I own many books on Chagall and this one was truly a great surprise! I would compare it with the book "Chagall: The art of dreams" by Daniel Marchesseau because both are like mini-encyclopeadias about the artist. The difference is that this one by Monica Bohm-Duchen is bigger, and I would say easier to read ( each page of Marchesseau's book is literaly loaded with information and pictures! ). The quality of the illustrations is superb, and the information on Chagall's life is never boring and hard to understand for people like me who doesn't really have big knowledge on art. Beautiful book.

The author is clearly a fan of Korngold but this book does little justice to its subject. The problem is that the book is a simple linear account of the composer's life. Korngold did indeed have a truely remarkable life, a genuine child prodigy, forced out of Austria by the Nazis threat, settling in Hollywood and winning Oscars are but a few highlights. However, even the sense of wonderment that his youthful achievements must have engenedered are not communicated.

A good acid test for any biography of an artist is that it should encourage the reader to further investigate the artist's work further. The author's lack of empathy for the composer's music and the remarkable time through which he lived is such that the book fails to enthuse. A great disapointment.

Jessica's bio of EWK (as we affectionately abbreviate him) was for me a wonderful glint into a life which was heretofore hidden. Those in the know were anticipating Brendan Carroll's "definitive" biography. Jessica's book gave us an overdue insight into the life of this genius in the absence of anything else. Now, it seems that we have an embarassement of riches, with Carroll's exhaustive bio and the ongoing recording revival. All of this should not obscure Duchen's acheivement in bringing to life a man who was for most an elusive character. Duchen's prose is mellifluous, and has a touch of humour(see when she writes of Korngold's love of sweets). The timing of this book's appearance may have been a bit off, but it will still hold its place. There is some inevitable repetition between the Duchen and Carroll books, no doubt having consulted the same sources. Yet each book has an individual character. There can never be too much written about one of the most misunderstood composers of our world. Duchen deserves kudos for bringing out the first ever English language book on Korngold. Her acheivement serves as an economical and invaluable alternative to Carroll's lengthier, more in-depth, and required opus.

Erich Wolfgang Korngold is a composer who for far too long was known only to film buffs and a few aficionados here and there. His centenary in 1996 brought with it a tremendous rush of reappraisal, recordings and performances, all of which have helped to re-establish Korngold as a force to be reckoned with. I certainly found this book inspired me to explore works that I did not already know and much enriched my view of those I did know, especially the intensely powerful opera 'Die tote Stadt'. My opinion is that this writer has a tremendous empathy for Korngold, his music and the eras through which he lived - fin-de-siecle Vienna, 1940s Hollywood and the devastated, artistically rigid post-war Europe of the 1950s. Furthermore, she is able to bring him to life with a delightfully light touch, looking at not only his complicated and crucially influential relationship with his father but also his famously sharp wit and his love of good food - especially chocolate! While the book is evidently shorter and less detailed than Brendan Carroll's tour de force 'The Last Prodigy', it provides a superb introduction to this endearing composer and his warm, open-hearted music. What's more, it kept me reading, from cover to cover - on the beach!