First of all: Good concept. A day in the life. Isherwood's stream of consciousness is more readable than James Joyce's, whom I love for a different set of reasons. Second of all: A believable blend of the mundane and the transcendent. We catch the lead character George eating poached eggs for breakfast and masturbating in order to sleep at night. Before our eyes, he farts, fantasizes, converses with friends and co-workers, and generally just goes through his work day as an English professor at a state college in Los Angeles and his evening as a man seeking company.

If he's seeking company with special ardor, it's because he's lost his male companion, Jim, to an auto accident, something the dreary late autumn approach to Christmas makes even harder to bear. The ghost of Jim flits in and out of so many of the novel's passages. George makes connections throughout his day, but we see one by one how they fall short of the intimacy he shared with Jim. His best friend Charlotte "Charley" and he have the kind of witty, boozy conversation longtime pals might have, but Charley's efforts to turn things romantic crash into George's homosexuality. George has friends on his school's faculty who kibbitz with him over lunch about their shared left-leaning politics, but these are hardly deep bonds. Also, George has a sickening feeling that, despite his oratorial brilliance as a teacher, he's not really reaching his students.

George visits a dying woman, also involved in the Ohio car crash that killed Jim. Once upon a time, Doris was a rival for Jim's affection. George's ambivalent reaction to her sad condition, somewhere between grieving and vanquishing a foe, testifies to the unflinching honesty of this portrait.

George raves about the hour he spends at his health club, entering a lively sit-up competition with a 14-year-old he finds incipiently attractive. "How delightful it is to be here," Isherwood writes, "If only one could spend one's entire life in this state of easygoing physical democracy."

George's only hope for a full communion with another person comes with a happenstance nighttime meeting with one of his students, Kenny, at a beachside bar. The 60-year-old man and the 19-year-old youth enjoy smart, witty, and flirtateous conversation, which culminates in a Pacific Ocean skinny-dip and a visit to George's place. The visit is sensual but not sexual, leaving George short of the Jim standard again--but not without hope.

A ordinary day of an ordinary (but for his intellect) man. Why then is this book so spectacular? The prose flows. Check out these stunning sentences: (Of Doris dying in a hospital room) "Here on the table...is a little paper book, gaudy and cute as a Chrstmas card: The Stations of the Cross. Ah, but when the road narrows to the width of this bed, when there is nothing in front of you that is known, dare you disdain any guide?" (Of George diving into the ocean nude with Kenny) "He washes away thought, speech, mood, desire, whole selves, entire lifetimes, again and again he returns, becoming always cleaner, freer, less."

Isherwood's warts-and-all approach to his semi-autobiographical lead character is so refreshing! And the novel makes the most of its beautiful, decadent SoCal setting. Who would have thought that one of the greatest novels of the 20th century could be so simple and honest? I'll always love this book. It is my crystal ball, since I may be very much like George one day. Don't ask me in what ways!

This is the first Isherwood novel I have read and now I wonder why I waited so long. This is remarkably still fresh novel (despite some 60's historical references) about a gay man who has trajically lost his partner and is trying to move on with his life. A man who through it all loves life and see the humor and irony in daily living. As saying goes, "everything changes but still remains the same." Some readers see this book as "depressing" and a "downer" I see it as a all-too-ultra-real tale of a modern day gay male. While gay literature readers can sometimes get lost in the "fluff and buff gym boys at the beach reads", it is wonderful to see a novel that is a renewal of how gay literature can move and inspire generations of readers.

This was my fourth reading of this brilliantly perfect novel. I am deeply moved each time I reach this book; I cannot imagine how it would have affected me had I read it in 1964 when it was first published. This novel covers one day in the life of George, an English professor at a nondiscript college in California. The time is just before the Christmas season, that time in America dreaded by many of us who live alone. His lover Jim has recently died in a traffic accident. George is an outsider on many levels. He is British living in America, he is gay living in a heterosexual world, he is brillliant among mostly dull, uninteresting and uninterested college students, he is a man of good taste surrounded by tasteless neighbors.

Isherwood makes brillilant observations about people: that straight women friends often refuse to give up on making their gay male friends. "Do women ever stop trying? No. But, because they never stop, they learn to be good losers." And George says what I have been saying for years, that all too often minorities hate all other minorites. Another observation is that middle-aged gay men look better than their straight counterparts: "What's wrong with them [straight men] is their fatalistic acceptance of middle age, their ignoble resignation to grandfatherhood, impending retirement and golf. George is different from them because. . . he hasn't given up." Finally, Isherwood describes poignantly the unawareness of friends: "How many times, when Jim and I had been quarreling and came to visit you--sullking, avoiding each other's eyes, talking to each other only through you [haven't we all been in that awkward position]-- did you somehow bring us together again by the sheer power of your unawareness that anything was wrong?" There are countless gems like these through out this wonderful book.

A perfect novel about loss and loneliness, A SINGLE MAN constantly gets named near the top of "best gay" lists of books as well as one of the great novels of the 20th Century, both distinctions it richly deserves.

Arnold's book begins: "Are you afraid of dying? Have you ever worried about growing old, about becoming a burden to your children? Do you wonder how you would survive the loss of your spouse, a parent, a child? Is someone you love facing illness or death? Whether consciously or subconciously, every person inevitably faces these questions at one point or another. It is in search of answers to them that I have written this book."

Arnold searches for these answers in the stories of ordinary people he's known who have faced death. He tells each story well in that he doesn't over dramatize the circumstances or struggle to justify God's ways. Instead, he lets each life speak for itself and allows that death is a great mystery indeed.

After losing my father, I read several books about pain, loss, grieving, and death. I enjoyed this work because it featured many perspectives, allowing that death is very much an individual experience, shaped by upbringing and personality. It was instructive and comforting to read about how other Christians have faced tragedy and illness. I also like the way he included photographs of the people because it made me feel closer to them.

This is a quiet little book that you can read in a few sittings or savor bit by bit. It will leave you pondering life, death, and God's plan for creation. I appreciate Arnold's perspective because his sadness is tempered by his knowledge that the universe is ruled by a loving and merciful God who has not left death as the final word.

Sometimes it is hard to know what words to say when a friend is suddenly facing terminal illness or the loss of a loved one. A gift of this book is one way of saying 'I care'. We will all face tough things in life and eventually the end of our life, the stories in this book are about ordinary people who faced these moments with faith and courage.

I Tell you a Mystery; Life, Death, Eternity" with a foreword by Madeleine L'Engle is the best book that I found on the market dealing with Death, Dying and Bereavement. My family experienced a lot of death and we were hurting. We did not know how to deal with it. It seems like death and bereavement is something no one wants to talk about it. And even when one looses a beloved one like a parent or brother and sister one is expected in our Society to act normal within a few days. This all changed when we got a copy of "I Tell you a Mystery." The stories contained in this book everyone and anyone young and old can have real empathy with. I highly recommend this book to all ages. Even little children just love to read the stories which this book contains. Paul and Betty Winter

It is very good reference for all analyst to have this book. It explain the detail configuration to achieve optimum supply chain effectiveness. At the end of this book, it introduces also solutions for advance planning by several high-end vendors such as J.D. Edwards etc.

This book will give every reader a very good view of the Supply Chain Management concepts. It will take the reader from the Strategic point of view, through the Demand Planning Systems to the Advance Planning Systems. A very good book to put every concept into a global perspective, with some case studies that will help the reader to make the transition from the theory to the pratical aspect of Supply Chain Information Systems.

I was pleasantly surprised and impressed with the high quality and standard of the book, Supply Chain Management and Advanced Planning. It reflects state-of-the-art thinking as well as current views, and contains up-to-date case studies of supply chain management and advanced planning systems. There is no doubt that the authors are working at the cutting edge of the supply chain management field. They show intimate knowledge of practical advanced planning applications as well as implementation issues around a variety of commercially available software systems.

Recent information technology developments have changed modern manufacturing organizations dramatically. We have witnessed the introduction of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, such as SAP and BAAN, aimed at integrating internal processes in an organization. These systems cut across multiple functional areas and provide a corporate wide database with all the relevant data of an organization. Many believed that these systems would address all the problems and lead to drastic improvements of business performance. This focus on internal processes, however, was not sufficient since, in a sense, it was not able to cope with the exceptions and with the variability that confront organizations on a daily basis. State-of-the-art planning procedures, provided by Advanced Planning Systems (APS), are required to allow organizations to reduce the amount of exceptional situations. An APS exploits the environment created by ERP systems and this has created major breakthroughs in enterprise wide planning. The impact has spread wider to collaborative planning amongst supply chain partners. This book is devoted to Advanced Planning Systems, the concepts underlying these, the current limitations of APS, how it links and interacts with ERP systems, what is required for successful implementation, etc. Through using, testing and implementing APS modules developed by companies such as i2 Technologies, J.D. Edwards and SAP A.G., the authors gained many insights. Practical real-world experiences are captured in the various chapters of the book.

This book covers an immense quantity of Supply Chain Management material. It is presented in a logical and easily understandable way. Here and there it is obvious that the authors are not fully comfortable with English but it is not very distracting. The book is comprehensive and the different aspects of supply chain management are outlined in great detail. I found the book a real pleasure to work through. What impressed me most was the ease with which the authors of the various chapters dealt with complex and sometimes very interrelated supply chain aspects. From a personal point of view, the emphasis on quantitative tools to assist and improve planning was very encouraging. This is something that is not recognized and appreciated enough. This book is a must for every logistics professional. Buying this book will be a worthwhile investment!

by now it's presumably common knowledge that the nazi's had very firm ideas on art. Other than pictures of heroic nazis, grandiose mountain views and happy peasants, all modern art was considered degenerate, especially if it was painted by a jew. It's not enough just to know this, however, one wants to see what the fuss was all about. This book brings the reader reproductions of the censured works in question and provides excellent essays that discuss the painters, their work and what happened to them under the nazis. This is a work which is essentially an excellent idea. It's a fascinating period for anyone interested in the role of the state in the production of art. What is perhaps even more fascinating is that the "modern" art which was the main target of the nazis, is so often the subject, to this day, of layperson's attacks on art. Think of the classic cliche remark, "oh, my three year old could have done that". This link raises many questions about the link between the fascist outlook and many commonly held views. We are appalled by the nazis and yet their views on art are not neccessarily radical in comparison to many commonly held views. What does that mean about our political leanings? what does that have to say about democracy? Can people truly handle freedom? Or at heart do they want somebody just to step in and take care of things for them? Why is it that people find it so hard to deal with the strange, disturbing and indeed, occasionally absurd images that artists come up with when they are truly are free to express their visions? I have nothing bad to say about this book on any technical level. The essays are uniformly brilliant and useful and the art speaks for itself. the book serves not only as an excellent resource for all those interested in art history, but as a beautiful and necessary tribute to the memory of so many persecuted artists. It reminds us of the importance of artistic freedom, particularly when the results are not to our liking, or are unsettling, or disturbing. It also happens to serve as a useful primer and introduction to a lot of the great art of that time period. I salute the authors and highly recommend this book.

If the Barron/Guenther book were only about the pictures, it would still rate five stars. It has to catalog "degenerate art" (a weak translation of "entartete Kunst", but the one that has become standard) better than most of its competitors.

But Barron and Guenther were not content to stop with a catalog. Even without the pictures, this book would rate five stars. Guenther for one writes about having viewed this exhibit as a 17-year-old, giving true historical context for the gallery.

From an essay on music (which tackles the sticky wicket of Wilhelm Furtwaengler) to an explanation of the structure of the Nazi art and culture hierarchy, "Degenerate Art" provides literate and precise insight to the cultural philosophy of the Third Reich. It remains as objective as you can be about that era, refusing to stoop to shouting "rabid Nazi idiots" -- Barron and Guenther allow their readers to come to that conclusion all on their own.

The unsolved riddle, however, is one we have yet to resolve for ourselves. Witness Rudy G., and the dung-laden Virgin. How can art and government live side by side? One is empty without the other, but how do we define fine lines?

Barron and Guenther's book does not answer that question, but it certainly gives both sides of the debate a ton of ammunition.

This is an excellent book covering the latest thinking in credit risk modeling. It could have used more on documentation and structuring risk, so I only gave it four stars, but it is five stars in model review.

For more on product descriptions and structuring risk, I highly recommend Tavakoli's "Credit Derivatives" 2nd Edition.

This is an excellent treatise on the near state-of-the-art in credit risk management. Although the focus is on sell-side risk management, many (if not all) of the techniques described can be used on the buy-side also.

This is the first book that really focusses on the portfolio problem of credit risk - many books have touched on vendor-provided models and their shortcomings but Bluhm et al. take it further into the practitioner's world.

The reader does not need a very strong background in math or physics but some understanding of finance and stochastic calculus would help to get the most out of it.

I recommend to everyone who is either in or thinking of getting into credit risk as a career - enjoy....

People practicing historical martial arts come in two varieties. One group can read. The other not. The amazon collection of reviews of Amberger's Secret History makes my case. I bought Amberger's book two years ago and I still find new things in it I didn't know. Okay, I grant you that Amberger's choice of format is not easy to follow. His style is eclectic and his writing distinctive. (On the other hand he's a native German writing in English but he does that better than most native English speakers I've known.) And I find that the lack of an index puts undue stress on someone looking for particular information on a particular subject. But only a person with blinders (or someone with a personal agenda or feelings of personal iniquity?) could call his writing bad. In fact, it is better than most other martial arts books. Only a complete dolt would not be able to see the incredible amount of information spread out. And I'm not talking anecdotes here but hundreds and hundreds of first-hand sources - French, German, English, Latin, Greek - which are quoted in the original, translated into understandable English and brought into proper context. I looked for published reviews of the book and found very positive ones, one even by Robert W Smith (known to most martial artists as John Glibey) and Diane Skoss. Believe me, you're better off taking their word regarding Amberger's book.

This book appears to have been targeted by at least one "assassination review" which almost stopped me from buying it. I am not a fencer and couldn't care less about fencing politics but the criticisms about The Secret History of the Sword are so misplaced and egregious that they must not go unanswered.

The assassins claim this books is: 1) dull, 2) not about the sword or European martial arts, 3) over intellectual and condescending, 4) so one-sided it "brooks no dissent", 5) for people who believe sword fighting began with the foil and rapier. Dullness is mostly a matter of personal taste, but since this book arrived at my doorstep I have barely been able to put it down. It is full of thought provoking facts and analysis fascinating to students of the combat arts. Is it about the sword or European combat arts? Well, I think the ambush-reviewer would be hard-put to find a page that doesn't mention the word "sword" at least once, and most of the essays refer to European (as opposed to, say, Asian) history. However, it is mostly about the use of the sword; if you want a 200 page book on metallurgy, this is not it.

Is The Secret History of the Sword over intellectual and condescending? Well, it does make readers work. The arguments and the humor are often subtle and ironic, so the essays may at first appear disjointed. It is a book that speaks on many levels, and is as much about the mental attitudes that make great martial artists as about the use of the sword per se. As such, it also makes a self-referential argument about how we might think about history and swordsmanship. Is this over intellectual? For some people, sure. But given how few martial arts books are written this way, Amberger's work is a breath of fresh air. As for whether it is condescending, the author's subtlety and ironic humor are if anything a mark of his respect for his readers. He does not browbeat us with repeated statements of his position, and provides us with richly textured arguments that reward many rereadings.

Finally, Amberger not only goes out of his way to show many sides of the key debates he addresses (e.g., the issue of whether horses and legs were legitimate targets), but he also shows how the evidence for any argument is ultimately less than 100% convincing - and therefore that there is room for fruitful debate. This hardly strikes me as brooking "no dissent" or favoring the foil and rapier.

This is one of the best, most thoughtful martial arts books I have read, and I have only scratched the surface. It may not suit everyone, but it does not deserve to be dismissed as "dull" or "condescending".

First, a little about what Mr. Amberger's book is not. It is not a practical guide to fencing and swordsmanship. Neither is it intended to be a complete treatise dealing with the history of the sword throughout the course of world civilization. The book is an extremely well-researched series of individual essays which largely serve to debunk many of the myths now prevalent about swords, swordsmanship, and armed combat in general. His scope is largely confined to the West.

What makes the book special is Mr. Amberger himself. First, he is a thorough and careful scholar, working in a field where there are few serious scholars. Second, he has a crystal-clear writing style, good sense of humor, and a great deal of common sense. These qualities are rare indeed in modern scholarship, where what passes for erudtion is to be as unintelligible as possible, and to quote Derrida and Deleuze a lot.

I am not a fencer, but I did not find that his use of some technical fencing terminology interfered with my understanding. I would wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone interested in this subject. Very enjoyable reading and extremely informative.

Cries from the Heart was my first introduction to the writings of Johann Christoph Arnold. Arnold has a deep faith, which probably comes somewhat naturally to him. His father was in ministry and his grandfather began a Christian community that stood up to the Nazi regime and had to flee Germany. By training, Arnold is a pastoral counselor, but in truth he is a more than simply a therapist, he is also a believer. He shares both his ministry and faith in this wonderful book. Arnold talks about the reality of pain in our world and offers stories of people who have had to cope in the midst of great tragedy and loss. His book also offers examples of people who suffer with everyday losses and tragedy. Arnold offers hope to people whose lives have been touched by pain, suffering, and hardship, but the hope he offers is not a feel good sort of hope but the assurance that in even life's most tragic and difficult times, people can live with hope.

I began to read this book early in 2002, when the priest sex abuse scandal was first rearing its ugly head in Boston. This was a time when many people of faith had more questions than answers. Even those who are not survivors of child sexual abuse felt hurt and betrayed by all that has happened. While this book did not give answers to the crisis, it did highlight the role of faith and belief when facing life's challenges.

Cries from the Heart was my first introduction to the writings of Johann Christoph Arnold. Arnold has a deep faith, which probably comes somewhat naturally to him. His father was in ministry and his grandfather began a Christian community that stood up to the Nazi regime and had to flee Germany. By training, Arnold is a pastoral counselor, but in truth he is a more than simply a therapist, he is also a believer. He shares both his ministry and faith in this wonderful book. Arnold talks about the reality of pain in our world and offers stories of people who have had to cope in the midst of great tragedy and loss. His book also offers examples of people who suffer with everyday losses and tragedy. Arnold offers hope to people whose lives have been touched by pain, suffering, and hardship, but the hope he offers is not a feel good sort of hope but the assurance that in even life's most tragic and difficult times, people can live with hope.Arnold's suggestions are both practical and helpful and can easily lead a person to prayer and reflection.

I began to read this book early in 2002, when the priest sex abuse scandal was first rearing its ugly head in Boston. This was a time when many people of faith had more questions than answers. Even those who are not survivors of child sexual abuse felt hurt and betrayed by all that has happened. While this book did not give answers to the crisis, it did highlight the role of faith and belief when facing life's challenges which I found to be very helpful.

This book is one of my favorites by J. Christoph Arnold. The stories are all about real people that suffered extreme pain and heartache. It helped me reflect on the heartaches in my own life that I never thought I would overcome. Christoph Arnold has an uncanny way of reaching people through his books in such a simple and profound way, that he reaches our souls with his words. I have recommended this book to everyone I know!

Really It's my easy gate to ASP Web scripting, the Active Server Pages help me to understanding the basic mechanism of ASP I can rate this book by give it five star (5), but in Visual InterDev 6™ not power as ASP book, it's explain in description more than technical!

When you want start with ASP and related Development Tools (Visual InterDev 6.0™), I can said that take this Training Kit to start! :o)!

This book concentrates on the common day-to-day issues that programmers face when writing ASP pages. If you are not an accomplished ASP programmer, and need to quickly learn the essentials and deliver a product in a short time, then this book will come in handy, especially at times when you get stuck on a specific problem while in the midst of writing the code. I have been through such situations and have had a good hit-rate coming out successful with this book by my side.

This book keeps the pace with ASP, but you're going to want ASP.net instead.

("Hi. I'm writing from Austria, and I hope my English will be not too bad!")

Indeed, Ch. Ransmayer ist one of the best writers in German-language in the time after 1945!
He is also one of the most important writers 1945. Because there are not so many who write what the Austrians had done to the Jews. It must be said: The Austrian Nazi were the "better" Nazis. For example: Adolf Hitler was born in Austria, ...
But too less of us will declare what our land had done in the second world war.
So the "dog king" (Morbus Kitahara, orig.) is a necessary document of Austrian history!!!
(Austria is not Germany)

I thought this book was great. I could not put it down after the third chapter. The book tells you how people lived and how they where treaded during the war and after the war ended. I would recomednd this book for any one who it a advance reader and likes a little adventure

yes, i agree. one of the weaknesses of this book is the development of its characters. but maybe that is the point here: the novel focuses on people that cannot escape from their parents' past, the situation it depicts is completely static.still i think ransmayr deals better than anyone before him with the holocaust by taking a more or less objective point of view. the horrible scenes of the torture of an allegedly former SS-soldier are unforgettable. and maybe that's the message of the book: violence whenever it happens cannot be undone und remains in our memories. yet the major strengths of this book are its language and inventiveness. having read morbus kitahara (original title)in german, i think ransmayr's name can be added to the greatest authors in the second part of the 20th century. at the moment there isn't really anybody who surpasses the beauty of ransmayr's language.

This is a very detailed book covering a great deal about the life of Bach. A great deal of insight is on offer regarding the great man's life and times as well as the likely basis under which he produced his work. I have found that reading and re-reading this book has significantly enahnced my understanding of Bach's world - Thuringia in the first half of the 18th century.

There is more detail here in terms of how Bach lived and his day to day relations, both personal and professional, than anyone could possibly need. In terms of factual aspects concerning Bach and his life one could not expect or need anything more that this book and in this regard the book is successful; Christolph Wolff has been more than thorough in his research. So many points of detail are listed that I thought that I would come across one of Bach's laundry lists if I read for long enough. It could be said that there is actually too much detail here which doesn't significantly more forward one's understanding of Bach the man or Bach the musician. However, in an academic book such as this it is generally accepted that a surfeit of information does not constitute a lapse of quality. Concise is not an adjective which could be applied to the author.

However, there are two drawbacks for me in this book. The first is a relatively minor point but the second is very significant.

The first drawback is that the content of the book is, at times, meandering. Wolff seems to move around subjects and themes within a single chapter leaving the reader confused and unsatisfied. While there is plenty of information - sometimes too much even - the underlying structure is confused and confusing. This can appear as a meandering text which sometimes seems to lose the idea of the point it is pursuing. This is more a matter of style than an outright criticim however.

The second drawback is far more significant for me. Most people who would go to the extent of buying and reading this book would have a specific interest in Bach; that is his music represents something special to them. Many such readers will view Bach as a great genius; I am in that camp myself, no doubt so is Christolph Wolff. The main point about Bach is his musical, expecially compositorial skill. Why then is there no analysis of Bach's genius? How and where did it originate and how did it develop in his lifetime? How, in the view of the author, does Bach's genius manifest itself in his works. What is it about Bach which has raised his work to such an exalted level - how is this different to his contemporaries? The author scant regard to where Bach's creativity ebb and flow and how this manifested itself in his work. Little effort seems to be made in this book to consider the work of Bach in terms of how it could be analysed and contrasted - surely this is of primary importance in understanding Bach and his music.

I'm afraid that the dry factual/quantative approach which Wolff takes with regard to Bach's creative process is ultimately unrewarding for me. Most people who listen to Bach would be interested to hear the different musical aspects of, say the Masses. Why is the B Minor Mass considered great and how could it be compared in musical terms to the Mass in F for instance.
Which of Bach's cantatas are the ones to focus on when trying to expand one's understanding of his oeuvre? Merely listing the various Cantata cycles is not sufficient in terms of understanding the qualitative aspects of the music.

While this book gets behind the day to day Bach it does not give any insight into the creative core of Bach. This is certainly not easy given the essentially unknowable aspects of creative genius and the elapsed time since Bach's life - however I would have appreciated some effort on this front.

No book can serve the purposes of all potential readers and what this book covers it does in quality and detail. However an analysis of Bach's life should never be divorced from an analysis of his genius which the author seems to have done here.

Christolph Wolff is clearly a man who understands the life and times of Bach in great detail but I would have preferred to see more focus on the qualitative aspects of Bachs music.

In summary, then an informative and useful factual book but one which misses the opportunity to inform the reader as to the practicalities of the works of the great genius Bach.

J.S. Bach has been my longtime favorite classical composer, but while I knew he was one of the most influential composers in history, I never quite knew why. Moreover, he always seemed to have a tacit reputation as being rule-bound and stern, unlike the more dynamic, perhaps more charismatic, figures of Mozart and Beethoven (the latter's horrible temper notwithstanding). Cristoph Wolff's book has at last provided me with a fuller picture of Bach and his influence.

The subtitle "The Learned Musician" sets a primary theme for the work, namely Bach as the scholar-musician, who was able to pass rigorous theology exams in Latin and whose mastery of organ building was a significant achievement of engineering, math and acoustics, to say nothing of raw musical genius. A motif that crops up in this book is the comparison between Bach and Newton (which was made in Bach's time). Bach thought that there were rules of causality in canons just like there is causality in Nature, and used other musical pieces to explore theological concepts. Musical science is no mere metaphor applied by Wolff to Bach, but is something that the composer himself took very serious, and this was realized even by some of his contemporaries. Likewise Wolff also points out that this does not mean that Bach was some soulless theoretician either. Rather, Bach's work worked within rules of composition, but also broke and surpassed them when necessary. Bach refused to divorce theory from practice, so his collections of music like the Well-Tempered Clavier and the Art of the Fugue served to show how a particular form of music (e.g., the keyboard or the fugue) could be applied in just about any combination imaginable. These compositions were theoretical statements, albeit ones without words. Wolff does not get too bogged down in musical terms: this layman did struggle periodically, and I would understand more if I were a musician, but a lack of music theory would not destroy this books value to you.

Throughout the book Wolff shows how Bach's methodical perfectionism formed a powerful combination when joined with Bach's surprisingly passionate, joyful life. Just as his music was rigorous, Wolff also points out the profound, genuine emotion that goes into them. He also writes about some of Bach's comic cantatas--one in particular was written for a coffeehouse, and was written on coffee addiction. This did much to endear Bach to this college graduate's heart!

Just as important, Wolff presents Bach's musical odysseys within the context of his personal life. Troubles and triumphs with jobs, Bach's family life and personal anecdotes appear throughout the book with a special chapter at the end also dedicated to Bach's later home life. We learn of a man who always entertained guests despite a brutal work schedule, and who also managed to find time to buy his wife singing birds and flowers. Much of his life would sound quite familiar in America (e.g., rebellious sons, moving to a city with a better-paying job, etc.), and does much to remind us that Bach is a man, not some musical force of nature.

In the end, we have a picture of a man who used his art to explore nature and God, but did so with joy and while surrounded with a family to support and superiors to placate in the workplace. Now I have a foundation for appreciating some of his works that I never studied before, namely Bach's Masses and cantatata, and my appreciation for other works. I had previously read and enjoyed Douglas Hofstadter's _Godel, Escher, Bach_ (which I also recommend), and now I can why Hofstadter chose Bach to help him explore the nature of intelligence in both man and computers. Bach was truly a sort of scientist or natural philosopher, and Wolff lets you appreciate how Bach was both a philosopher and composer of beautiful music.

This is unquestionably the single volume Bach biography for non-specialists, although musicologists will find it invaluable as well. Wolff has done a lot of debunking of various Bach myths (i.e., "Bach died while writing the final fugue in Art of Fugue, and dictated the chorale in his last breath"), but stilll has never lost his sense of wonder about this giant. Wolff also does a better job than most of placing Bach in European intellectual history as a whole, not just musical history. His comparison of Bach to Newton, while not original, is apt and insightful. The best thing about this book, however, is that it led me back to the music with several new insights. For example, Wolff's analysis of the famous d minor tocatta (BWV 565) led me to realize just how advanced this very early work is. Highly reccomended.