OK, I'll admit up front that I only made it through 450 of this 800 page monster. As I was reading this, I saw the pile of unread books mounting alarmingly, and as I had more or less gotten the gist of it, I tucked the ribbon twixt the pages and set it aside. These (never-ending) stories of the Czech WW I soldier Svejk are considered a modern "must read." as they depict the trials and travails of a well-intentioned soldier muddling through the army beauracacy. The book functions as a satire of the war, the leaders, and the army. The problem is, these stories were written as serials, and as such, tend to go on and on and on.... so that Hasek could milk more money from them. In fact, they are unfinished, as the author died before he could dictate the end! So, I suggest dipping in to it, but not soaking too long as the antics don't vary much as the book moves along. Those with an particular interest in Czech culture or World War I might have greater reason to finish it than the general reader.

I first read Hasek's masterpiece almost 30 years ago in a shorter and more Bowdlerized translation. The Cecil Parrot edition is, needless to say, far preferable (it even contains a wonderful introduction including a discussion of Czech profanity as compared to that in English) and I've read it again and again since it came out in 1974. Shelby Foote said somewhere that every year he reads Proust as a sort of literary vacation. About ever 2 or 3 years I reread Svejk to cleanse my literary palate and it's always as fresh and as enjoyable as it was the first time. The dialogue, the characters and the situations in Svejk are, stated simply, the funniest I've ever read. Many other books have many merits in this regard, but none has approached Hasek in the sustained hilarity over 500 pages or more. The secret policeman, Bretschneider, Chaplain Katz, Sergeant Major Vanek, Cadet Biegler, Balloun and Lt. Dub are all memorable characters in their own right, but when they interact the result surpasses anything I have ever read for comedy. The episode involving a character with writer's block during his drafting of a prayer to be recited while administering Mr. Kokoska's pharmaceutical powders for cow flatulence is a classic rivalling Aristophanes or Rabelais. [I realize that sentence is confusingly prolix, so please read the book; it will be worth your while.] The term "laugh out loud" is overused and abused these days, but The Good Soldier Svejk will have you disturbing family and friends with repeated guffawing any time you are reading it nearby. I can't give a text any higher recommendation.

Both of the best books on the First World War were written by the losing side...ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT and THE GOOD SOLDIER SCHWEIK tell the same story, but from different viewpoints. Schweik is a wise fool whose main goal is to avoid the greater foolishness around him. Hasek was a modern day Cervantes and this modern day Don Quixote interacts with a gallery of hilarious characters and their stories. I only regret that Hasek died before the book could be finished. Josef Lada's illustrations are a wonderful addition to the book, and it's a pleasure getting Cecil Parrott's translation in hardcover. Note: The earlier translations are not the complete book.

First a warning: I advice you to skip the very first part of the book, in which is the author tries to give the reader a feeling on the Polish background of the pope. It's unbalanced, emotional, somewhat chaotic, and very little to the point. I almost stopped reading the book because of this.

But when you start reading where the chronological description of the pope's life starts, you'll find a thorough biography, without exaltation, and not without some critical points of view. The first half of the book deals with the years before Karol became pope, and show how he was trained, coached, and grew as a actor, priest, play write, bishop, mystic poet and cardinal, in the often hard conditions in Poland. The second half deals with his policies as pope. Here is also a special focus on the Polish situation and how the pope exercised influence there. The book helps understanding the motivations of John Paul, even though one doesn't have to agree with him on all accounts.

An interesting, insightful book.

This book is an excellent resource for anyone interested in the life of one of the greatest and most influential popes ever, John Paul II. Through the author's exceptional work, we get to know the man who became John Paul II, and relive his early heartbreaks and triumphs. From Nazi occupied Poland to the modern day Vatican, all significant events are detailed and discussed. This is a biography to be reread time and again.

Pope John Paul II has revolutionized the Papacy, stripping away much of the secrecy and making the Pope, for the first time in history, a Shepherd available to his flock. Although I thought this book leaned a little too heavily on Poland and Polish history, I will give in and say it enhanced my understanding of this complex and charismatic Pope. A very thorough biolgraphy with fascinating looks at behind-the-scenes-politics in Vatican City. Because of John Paul II's impact, he gets my vote as Man of the Century and I recommend this book as a must read for people of any faith.

The nice thing about the Pantheon edition is that the translation tends to be quite literal, so it's a very good one for someone learning German to use side-by-side with the original. (Plus the stories are great!)

Oh, and by the way: The Brothers Grimm were not folklorists, but linguists (besides making a huuuge German dictionary, they were the ones showed that German, English, Dutch, etc. are related to Greek and Latin). The reason they collected folktales is because they were looking for dialect-specimens and this is an old linguists' trick--you get a much purer version of speech in the (linguistically) relaxed folktales than you do in interviews.

Much has been written about the content of the stories and comments regarding violence and harshness have been discussed. Today's "wordly-wise" young people see this sort of thing on television and in the movies. Reading classics written years ago, as fairy tales is both educational and enlightening. Not for the very young, but certainly stories pre-teens and young teens can find interesting. I read them as a pre-teen and they still linger on today. Don't be afraid of Grimm's Fairy Tales. They are enduring classics through the ages!
Evelyn Horan - author
Jeannie, A Texas Frontier Girl Books One - Three

Standing in a children's book store, I read my first Grimm's fairy tale and I was hooked. I was attracted by how odd the stories were to my modern eyes - I never knew that the wicked sisters' feet were cut up, and their eyes pecked out in the real Cinderella! Obviously the tales can be violent and gory, some of them have also been marked anti-semetic. This may not be a book for small children, but it is over 800 pages of wonderful storytelling. These are fairy tales that will live on forever in your heart.

This book is a great reference for residents in surgery. The subject matter is relevant, easy to read, and emphasizes salient points. This is a great book when you don't have time to read!!

Excelent book. A must have for all General Surgery resident. Covers all areas of General Surgery and OB/GYN, Urology.

This book is a "must have" for all surgery resident.

I was slightly disappointed in this book. I did not feel that I learned very much that I didn't already know. There were a few
answers to some problems that I have been experiencing on the piano, however, for the most part the answers to the questions were rather simple and common sense.
I also felt that this book, written in the early 1900's, was outdated. I did get a good chuckle though from some of the advice.
I felt that a beginner may have gleaned more usefull information from this book than I did.If you are looking for in depth answers, and advice on piano playing, etc. this didn't do it for me.

Probably the greatest pianist of our time tells us the secret of his success: how one should approach the piano and music, how Rubinstein taught him, what music to start with, the advantage and disadvantage of having an absolute pitch... a lot more. Most amusing as well as informative. It deserves more than 5 stars.

I can't begin to tell you how many people make a poor attempt at learning very difficult piano pieces just so they can say "I can play this, and I can play that". However, if they're serious about piano, they will come to a point where they realize that, sure, they can "get through" the piece, but they can't actually "play" it. There is so much more to the piano that so many people are missing out on these days. Technique, dynamics, tempo, and even simple things such as how you are seated at the bench. Most teachers skip over teaching these key aspects of music because most students just want to be able to play what they want as fast as they want. This book covers all the things that many have missed out on. It covers nearly everything you need to know on how to be a great piano player. Combine this book with natural talent, and a desire to bring the piano to life, and you're set. Theres even over 160 pages of frequently asked questions that amatures sent to Hoffman over the years (and answers of couse).

If you're serious about playing the piano, get this book before your poor playing habbits are implanted in your head even further. If you're not serious, or just like to mess around... then skip it. It would be a waste of your money.

This book was so different from what I thought it was about when I ordered it. It still was knowledgeable. It is hard to grasp as you must actually do the experimentation. I also thought the illustrations should be in color since that is what the book is about. It has some examples in the beginning of the book but I hate to keep looking around in books I personally like it to appear in front of me as I read. It was a very interesting book to say the least.

Josef Albers was the Johannes Kepler of color. Kepler spent his life observing planetary motion, and distilling his observations down to simple laws of gravity. Change planets to color, and gravity to human vision, and you have Josef Albers. This book describes the gravitational laws of color. It has the whiff of simple perfection: you can't change one word without diminishing it. It is the bible of color interaction, and will remain so until an Isaac Newton comes along and explains these laws further.

In the rare book collection, I had a look at the first edition, from 1963. It's this enormous book with lots of colored paper and plates for you to experiment with. I really wish it were still in print... I'd buy it at once.

I really liked the book, but it is more of a teachers manual than a book you can just pick up a read. You must do the experimentation yourself and so you must have time. The book did give me numerous new ideas to think about.

The Malsbary translation may be the problem to this otherwise respected work. His syntatical structures, often omitting verbs, makes for difficult reading. Maybe it just German philosophical writing, which tends to the obtruse.

The exposition is not clear. Many passages have to be re-read for comprehension. The message does not flow, but spurts and starts in a jarring manner.

Pieper has many salient points to make, all of which should be used in dialogue with Veblen's "Theory of the Leisure Class." It's not that they are the same wavelength, but the differences are telling all the same.

This isn't a book I'd buy (but I did), but get through a library. It's not a book florid with gems of wisdom.

Pieper begins with a common (and ironically ancient) human insight that people today have lost touch with their inner, spiritual lives, and something must be done before we become soulless drones. His solution is leisure, that contemplative and calm state that produces joy in the greatness of a full life. The highest expression of this leisure is the religious festival. I won't divulge any more of Pieper's philosophy; it is much better understood and appreciated by reading his well-written text. Sometimes Pieper soars and takes the reader with him into the loftiest reaches of man's soul and intellect, other times it seems like nothing more than the intellectual masturbation of a prentious, old-school European academic. Still, it is beautifully and succinctly written, which is very refreshing, and you could easily read it in a week. Especially recommended for the Catholic intellectual.

The excellent Malsbury translation of Pieper's famous work brings together many of the themes found in other works of the author. For instance, leisure or stillness, is not to be thought of as leisure in the contemporary sense. Leisure is to be thought of in a framework of an teleology which is a contemplation of ends, or last things. Since man is made for union with God, human work is not seperate from this end. Today, the work of man is an end in itself, and philsophical anthropology and culture suffers. Pieper shows how this is a reorientation from the classical and scholastic world view which shared a common vision of anthropology as man seeking those things which are above. This book is a must read for all those who think modern culture is suffering from an identity crisis.

This is Josef Skvorecky's best novel, a fairly strong statement since much of his other work, such as the novel The Engineer of Human Souls and some of his short stories, is excellent. Like a number of his other works, this book is semi-autobiographical and covers a good slice of modern Czech history. At its core is an analysis of the false promises of Communism, which is shown to be triumphant only by a combination of repression and chicanery. Written with his usual humor and deft characterization, this is simultaneously an ironic and tragic view of modern history.

Skvorecky has done an interesting thing here, he has intertwined a serious story of the horrors of living in Czecheslovakia with a bawdy romp about a young oversexed man who teaches in a all girls high school. We follow Danny as he grows into an oversexed middle aged man. The story is funny and well-written for the most part. My only complaints are he jumps around in time a little too much and the translation got a little borderline obscene. All in all I enjoyed reading it and think anyone with an interest is Czech history will as well

This is the one. This novel better than any other explains the imprint left on the Czech consciousness by the Soviet invasion of August 1968, described so vividly by Skvorecky.

This is not a helpful book. It says nothing new and offers very little in the way of practical advice. It tells us that we should concentrate on touch and on producing a singing tone. Did I need to buy a book to find that out? How exactly does one produce a singing tone? Well Mr. Lhevinne had it (as his sister continually reminds us) and basically one must spend hours developing touch and listening carefully to the sounds you produce. How novel! I'm sure no one thought of that before. Need any more specific advice than that? Sorry, this book won't give it to you. Why not enrol at the Juillard School where the fabulous, marvellous Mr. Lhevinne taught?

Why didn't Mr. Lhevinne and his sister write out some practical examples? They could have taken, say, an extract from a Chopin study or from a Beethoven sonata or from a Liszt transcription and talked us through some suggested phrasing, perhaps discussed different ways of using touch to bring out certain notes in the extract. (See for example Joan Last's excellent little book on piano playing which does exactly this). No, Mr. Lhevinne guarded his secrets a little more jealously than that.

What of pedalling? What insights are offered there? Well, to be frank, very little. Now, Joseph Banowetz's book on pedalling, there's a useful book full of practical information and suggestions. But this Lhevinne book..? No, nothing to be learned there, just the usual exhortation to practice and the constant reminder that Mr. Lhevinne knew how to pedal, Mr. Lhevinne knew how to play the piano. Funny that Mr. Lhevinne's recordings aren't as stupendous as one might expect. His playing sounds a little cold and yes his rendition of the Chopin study in thirds is technically very proficient (the book tells us ad nauseam about how well he played this piece) but musically uninteresting.

I didn't even bother finishing this book. If I had never read any other piano books in my life, maybe I would have found this interesting. But there are so many better books on offer out there, why bother with this pompous, uninformative little volume?

A book which is very simple and brief.

In a nutshell: (1) the musician is the horse and pianist the cart; (2) mind the sound one coaxs from the piano-- touch being the key-- and always seek for a singing tone; (3) how to do it? It varies from individual to individual, full stop.

Nonetheless, one would expect most readers could benefit from reading it.

Josef Lhevinne has done an oustanding job in BASIC PRINCIPLES IN PIANOFORTE PLAYING. He covers many useful topics such as sight-reading, rhythm, practice, using the pedal, legato, but the majority of this book is devoted to the secret of a beautiful tone.

Although this book is very short (the material is supposed to be basic, after all), Lhevinne manages to effectively illustrate everything he presents by applying each principle to excerpts from well-known classical pieces.

As a pianist who is trying to improve his technique, I would highly recommend this to anyone who is seeking to do the same.

A nice collection of artists, with some great examples of what they can do. But....
Paper stock is poor and some prints are a bit blurry.

This is a great artbook, featuring many famous furry artists. I love the art, and look at it regularly. If you're a fan of Michele Light, I recommend it.

This book started my physical collection of furry publishings, and still remains the best singal pice I have. Not only is it perfectaly published, but contains excellent examples of anthropomorphic artwork. Its my personal bible.