This is a very interesting read about the author's experience in learning more about his religion, as well as the dilemnas and frustration he sometimes felt.

I remember hugely enjoying this book while I was reading it, but probably would not read it again.

A slightly non-musician outlook on musicians, but the book's incredibly funny to anyone who's ever worked in a musical capacity nonetheless. It's rather too bad that it's been out of print for so long.

The plot's sort of complicated, for all that takes place over two days. Donald, the ex-child-prodigy-turned-choral-conductor, apparently discovered a lost Mozart Mass. His track record for conducting orchestras is extremely poor, so they ask someone else to conduct the premiere: his ex-best friend from conservatory, who also happens to be married to Donald's ex-fiancee. Add to this mix the ex-best friend's ex-fiancee, a mint-green tuxedo, security problems, and Leonard Bernstein, and you get some interesting reading.

The stereotypes about musicians are fairly . . . well, fairly stereotypical, but the author contrives to explain everything that it makes sense. Honestly, most of the stereotypes are those that non-musicians are somewhat familiar with: the soprano who's trying to sleep her way to the top, the fruity choir director . . . just the usual.

It's worth it for the first chapter of the book (a choral rehearsal) alone.

This book presents itself as a "biting novel about law school". Well, I found parts of it interesting and amusing - especially the petty politicking amongst faculty (I'm a grad student, not a law student, and I see some of that). But the ending - where everything one could "hope" to happen in a "happy ending" seemed unrealistic and trite. Also, I found Levin's alternation of verb tenses - going from long passages in past tense to digressions in present tense - distracting. And I got sick of the exposition of "this is what law students do....this is what they have to put up with". It seemed a little "bald" to me to explain so obviously the milieu of law school. The book was a moderately entertaining "lunchtime" read, but it's not a particularly well-written or meaningful one.