Gustav Mole's world has been infested with noise and now his children refuse to play music. In order to inspire them to play Gustav takes his family on a trip around the world, visiting many different cultures and listening to their music. In this way the reader is carried on a journey that introduces them to many different forms of music and types of musical instruments. While this is an amusing story and a great overview of some not-very-well-known musical instruments, this is definitely not a book for preschoolers. With vocabulary including words such as; foundry, urban sprawl, transmitter, lament, to name a few, this book would be inappropriate for the youngest children. I would recommend it for older children, but be prepared to do a lot of explaining about instruments carrying names like Saron Panerus and animals like macaques.

This book is a wonderful way to introduce children to the music of the world. Gustav Mole's decree at the end of the book should be a goal for all of us in this modern world. Children will surely want to pick up an instrument themselves, sing and make merry music after reading The Lost Music: Gustav Mole's war on noise.

Received a few good tips on care of orchids A good book to have handy.

After reading Susan Orlean's "The Orchid Thief" I became absolutely intrigued by orchids and their culture. Of course I wanted to run right out and buy one but I no clue as to what I would do with the darn thing once I got it home! Then, while browsing the shelves of the NY Botanical Garden's giftshop, I came across this book. I was immediately attracted to the simple cover, and the way the info was presented within: clear, easy, non-intimidating language and photos. I bought the book and a week later bought my first orchid... and my 2nd the following week... and my 3rd & 4th two weeks after that! This book put me completely at ease with orchids - obviously! And, though all 4 were cheap Home Depot purchases that I later discovered to have pretty bad root rot, I'm proud to say that 4 years later 1 of those "starter" plants is still with me and thriving.

I enjoyed Harding's insightful and profound and yet readable style and her excursions into the Jungian perspective; her historical sense was also enjoyable. However, speaking theoretically, the Jungian tendency which came ultimately from Freud and which she shares, namely to reduce psyche to a rarefied, neutralized, "psychized" form of instinct, troubles me.

Perhaps we should see through this to the heroic fantasy below: the pioneer and missionary out to colonize the wild natives. Where there was instinct, there shall consciousness be.

Given today's New Age flavor, Esther Harding's title, Psychic Energy, could easily be misleading. Psychic Energy is not a New Age book, but a serious consideration of very deep human psychological and psyche conditions and conditioning. Esther Harding was a leading psychoanalyst in the 1920s. Her knowledge, experience and perceptions rank with Marion Woodman and Eric Erickson. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to probe more deeply into the human psyche for fresh explanations of who we are and how we come to be.

I used this book for information on the religious pilgrimage for the traditional japanese voyage on the island of shikoku. The overall info I had accumalated before reading bits and pieces of this book was vague and did not help much. This book helped me a lot when it came to the traditions, motifs, stages, and goals of the pilgrimage

This volume is a selection of writings from the Collected Works of Carl Jung (1875-1961), a selection focusing on the "masculine". The contents of this book would be somewhat surprising for someone expecting a book about "men's issues". When Jung says the "masculine", he is thinking about multiple interacting levels, including (1) the consciousness of real men; (2) the "animus", or unconscious masculine, in real women; (3) the hero myth; (4) the representations of "spirit" in myth; and (5) the alchemical problem of the unification of opposites. Some of these selections focus on the role the father and the mother play in an individual's psyche. There is a whole section devoted to the animus ("The Masculine in Women"), some of Jung's few statements specifically on the psychology of women. About a quarter of the selections are from Jung's late writings, his extended psychological analysis of alchemy. Only a rare mind will understand these works on first reading; most folks will have to delve deeper in Jung's psychology and then come back to these to fully appreciate them. Nevertheless, the selections of this volume may be an excellent introduction to Jung's writings for someone already intrigued by an "expanded" understanding of the masculine.

Most Jung biographers rightfully extol the man's creative genius while paying scant attention to his moral deficiencies. Stern's portrait is more balanced, also chronicling events such as Jung's decision to accept the position as head of the German Psychoanalytic Society under the Hitler regime, after the prior Jewish head had been removed. Not the only Jung bio one should read, but an important complement to others.

The version that Dover has published is pre-discovery of the original 1st movement which is now included in most recordings.

Das Lied von der Erde typifies Mahler's genius; a genius for transposing the Wagnerian/Jungian preoccupation with mankind's myths from the Operatic stage to Symphony hall. Taken from a series of Chinese poetic meditations on man's relationship to the earth, Das Lied von der Erde is a deeply contemplative work for a large orchestra and three singers: a Soprano, a Tenor, and a Baritone. Like most Dover scores, Das Lied von der Erde is a treasure. Reprinted from an original edition, it includes a translation of all frontismatter from that edition, as well as a small glossary of German musical terms used in the score. The paper is acid free, and the binding is high quality, so this thing is going to last for a while. Also, the book itself and the printing are large enough that, contrary to complaints I've heard regarding other Dover Mahler scores, you could conduct from it. Finally, all Dover scores are so moderately priced that any devoted Mahler fan simply will not be able to resist this Das Lied von der Erde.

This is an in-depth academic study of the influence of Nietzsche on Jung. As an enthusiastic reader of both these men I found the book very interesting and thorough, but somewhat dry. It reads like a (very very good) PhD thesis. It is a shame the influence of Jung and Nietzsche on the author rarely rises to the surface!

Highly recommended to Jungians and Nietzscheans alike....

One gets the impression that while Mindell is a master at working with the dreambody, he is not quite as good at writing about it. I could well conceive that this is because the dreambody defies a certain degree of rational, verbal understanding.

Mindell's writing style is fluid, refreshingly down to earth and modest, clear and usually quite accessible. The fault I find with the book is in its focus and formatting. He sometimes seems to shy away from his primary topics, and we find ourselves reading some tangential fairy tales and a slightly muddled, repetitive explanation of the dreambody in the context of physics.

Nevertheless, the ideas that Mindell offers us here are powerful, transformative, ancient, beautiful, and accessible. His description of the dreambody is not absolutely full and clear, (p 164: "...the dreambody is composed of all the different degrees of awareness. It has both physiological and dream aspects which are easily differentiated from one another, and it possesses an inner dichotomy which I have variously described...as temporal and nontemporal..." etc.) However I think that many people will read about his concept and say to themselves, "Ah yes, I know what he's talking about!" And fill in the blanks with their own experience. It is an invaluable concept.

His final chapter "Working with the Dreambody," however, is altogether fantastic. You do not need to be chronically ill to find his methods of magnifying a feeling or illness, in order to find out its message, extremely useful. His method may sound obscure in this review, but here Mindell is at ease in his writing, and in reading this chapter I think the method becomes quite clear.

Immediately after finishing this book I read "The Shaman's Body" also by Mindell. There he writes with greater confidence and thoroughness, but the books really are quite different, so one cannot replace the other.

Overall, I am tremendously impressed, and grateful to Mindell for sharing the insights he's been given with all of us.