This exceptional book on Miles is THE one to read if you want to know about the man and his music. All jazz biographies should be like that. I'm surprised to see it out-of-stock. Hopefully, it's because Mr Chambers is working on an updated version.

For anyone who enjoys the work of Miles Davis, this book is an indispensible resource. Chambers' track-by-track analysis of each session invariable has me digging out all of my Miles Davis CDs. I am astounded that this book is out of print; I would think that it would have been popular among Miles Davis fans for years to come (and I was hoping that a later edition would cover the last five years of Miles' life). My copy of this book is dog-eared and losing pages; I would certainly buy another copy if it were available.

A well-written and unbiased account of Miles Davis, the controversial jazz superstar. Davis stayed at the forefront of his art for so long that his biography reads like a history of jazz from bebop to fusion. A thoroughly annotated discography is woven through the text. Eric Nisenson, author of another book on Davis, says that Milestones is not just the best book on the subject, but perhaps the best biography of a jazz musician *ever*.

This is probably the best book about the life of Miles Davis I have found. I have read his autobiography, the biography by Carr, and So What along with a couple of other Miles books. This one simply gives the best detail and most interesting about the artists life. If you want to read a book about Miles Davis start with this one. It is quite lenghty but there weren't many dull moments in Davis's life.

Jack Chambers has done a very hard task and that is to present the life of the legendary Miles Davis to readers in a very interesting, yet complex style which was reflective of the way Miles Davis led his life and music.

Miles Davis was the premiere jazz musician of his time along with John Coltrane, Charlie "Bird" Parker, Herbie Hancock, etc, yet while you can love Davis's music, to know the man was very hard to do, since Miles Davis was a standoffish and sullen individual. Chambers describes Davis's behavior as being sullen and hard to know because Davis's was a very shy man. I am sure that Davis lived a tough life because of injustice, yet it is sad that he didn't trust his fans and those who cared for him. Davis certainly lived the life of a "star", he over-indulged in sex, was an abuser of drugs, and had split personalities later on in life, yet his musical vision was almost always focused and clear, whether it be in the pinnacle of his talent (1950-1962), or his creating fusion (1967-1973), or the later part of his life.

Chambers does an excellent job of detailing the relationship Miles had with his fellow musicians such as the love-hate relationship with Theolonius Monk, the admiration and jealousy between Coltrane and Miles, as well as Miles being a mentor to such jazz greats as Herbie Hancock, John McGlaughlin, Chick Corea, etc.

I am a tremendous fan of Miles Davis jazz visions, I love his music and his musical style, yet after reading this book I feel sadness because I don't know if I pity Davis or just not liking him altogether, or admiring him no matter what, his final years were spent in paranoia, suspicion and feeding his ego, that is sad because if he would of just relaxed and enjoy his fans admiration I believe he might have lived longer. Anyways, this is an outstanding book and is highly recommended to all jazz lovers and fans of the immortal Miles Davis.

By the time I found out about Jack Chambers' Miles biographies (two volumes, originally) they had been combined into this single book with some new material that brings the original manuscripts from the 1980's up to date. Despite the heading on this site, this is the complete 800-odd page monster bio, not an "introduction"!

This is a fantastic bio. Like many other critics and older fans who were raised on jazz, Chambers can't really relate to Miles' work from the late 1960's onwards, but he does give it comprehensive coverage, rather than pretend that it all ended with "The Quintet". I'm not sure that criticisms about his quoting reviews are justified. I saw it as just being thorough - giving details of the critics' reactions to recordings rather than just his own. I learned much from his chronicling of events, right through to the seventies, that I did not know.

If you are a fan of Miles' final period (1981 comeback to his death in 1991), then you're probably the only one who will feel short-changed. As this was not a period that interested me greatly, I was not particularly bothered (probably exhausted by then!).

A really professional effort.

The Monk and the Philosopher Gautama Buddha like Socrates used dialogue as his favorite method of teaching. This book also follows the Buddhas footsteps in being a dialogue between two highly intelligent individuals who happen to be father and son. The father is Jean-Francois Revel a leading French philosopher and Mathieu Ricard, a scientist turned Buddhist monk. Their conversation lasted for 10 days and covered a very wide range of Buddhist issues. Initially, the discussion focused on the controversial subject of whether Buddhism is a religion or a philosophy. The monk explained that it is more a philosophy than a religion, because it is not a dogma and allows flexibility of ideas. Moreover, it is a product of human mind who never made any claims to divinity. In fact the Buddha emphasized that his teachings be not accepted if wanting in logic and rationality. The acceptance of ideas should be like purchasing gold, the Buddha said. Before purchasing gold, "we rub it on a flat stone pound it with hammer and melt it in fire", so also every doctrine must be thoroughly examined for its validity and truthfulness. The collected sayings of Buddha (known as Sutras) cover one hundred and three volumes of the Tibetan canon, the Kangur. This is accompanied by another two hundred and thirteen volumes of commentaries written by eminent teachers and scholars. The reason for such a huge collection is the length of the time the Buddha taught without break from the age of thirty until his death at eighty. Although vast in its totality the core teachings are quiet concise. They analyze the most important problem faced by mankind - that of suffering. By suffering the Buddha meant mental anguish or agony, which is a translation of the word Dukha in Pali. According to the Buddha suffering arises when the self or the 'me' that we cherish is threatened and denied its wishes. The usual goals in life of power, wealth, fame and sensual pleasure, give only temporary satisfaction. One day or another they turn into sources of unhappiness. Pursuing purely earthly goals we have no more chance of attaining true happiness, "than a fisherman has of catching fish, by throwing his net into a dry riverbed." The Buddha warns that, "if you keep your hand in fire, it is no use hoping that you won't get burnt." The only way to save your hand is to take it out of the fire. The book briefly covers the remedy, which the Buddha advocates to overcome suffering. As suffering is born out of greed, ignorance, attachment, hatred, pride and jealousy they should be discarded and replaced by thoughts of virtue, loving kindness and compassion. The book does not describe the techniques of meditation in any detail, as this was not very appropriate for the purpose of discussion, but the basic principle is explained, which is to maintain awareness of the present moment, free of any discursive thoughts. Gradually, the meditator becomes better and better in the process and the negative thoughts become weaker and weaker and loose their confining solidity. Eventually, the process of 'liberation' occurs, when even if the negative thoughts arise, they pass through the mind without effect, "like drawing made on the surface of water". The mastery of the mind gives patience, and patience gives strength to act correctly, without being blinded by anger, revenge and aggression. A spiritually developed mind is also able to see reality as it exists, whether good or bad, without getting overwhelmed by emotion. To illustrate this a Zen poem is quoted which reads, "To her lover, a beautiful women is a source of delight; to an ascetic a distraction; to a wolf a good meal." A brief section concerns the most esoteric of Buddhist doctrines, which in Sunyata or emptiness. In it, it is claimed that visible world does not have any concrete existence or form. The concerned sutra states, "Emptiness is form and form is emptiness", implying that in final analysis the world does not have any intrinsic reality. If atoms are not "things", as Heisenberg states, then how can their accumulation in form of visible objects, become things? The closest modern physics comes to Sunyata is that, "Matter is energy and energy is matter". If all matter turns into energy then that would be emptiness in the physical sense. Buddha did not try to 'convert' anyone, as in reality there is nothing to convert to! The contemplative aspects of Buddhism are common to all religious. Its analytical approach leads to the understanding of the mind - useful for person of any denomination. The philosopher sums up his impressions by stating the west has trimphed in science, but wisdom is not based on scientific certitude, and scientific certitude does not lead to wisdom. Both are separate but indispensable for the welfare and well being of mankind. The monk sums up by stating that such a dialogue is useful, but can never be a substitute for the silence of personal experience, as Goethe had aptly stated, "silence allows nature to whisper to us". Through those whispers we learn the purpose of life. DR. VIQAR ZAMAN

It's hard to find a good intellectual book on Buddhism. Many of the books out there are either written in the lighter "self help" style, are tartgeted at more serious practitioners or are a little too Zen for me to grasp without building some context first. For someone like myself, exploring Buddhism as an alternative or supplement to my traditonal protestant upbringing, I've been looking for a book that both (i) presents Buddhist philosophy in a Western context that I can relate to and (ii) keeps the discussion on a more intellectual/philosophical level. This book delievers. Make no mistake, the subject matter is pretty dense. However, the book delighfully readable due largely to it's "dialogue" format. Both father and son and eloquent, thoughtful and respectful communicators and tend to get right into the issues of interest to me just as I begin to wonder if they are going to touch on them. As a result, I felt a definite affinity with the authors. After reading several other books on Buddhism, I finally feel as though I have a foundation for understanding it. I have built my context and now I want to learn more. For that I am grateful and highly recommend this book.

This is a dialogue between father and son, father a prominent journalist and philosopher and son a scientist, who renounced his promising career and became a Buddhist monk,it is East and West getting together. They are two brilliant minds discussing a wide range of topics with an honest and unbiased approach, in a very accessible and elucidating style. Since the book has been written from a Western perspective and maily for Western readers, Buddhism is highly questioned and as a result the reader is presented with an excellent introduction to Buddhism as a religion and philosophy as well. The main point here is not a confrontation between East and West, between Reason and Faith; it is an excellent exchange of ideas with the purpose of finding what is best from both approaches and what would best serve future generations. Excellent, fascinating, enlightening, highly recommended!

I thought this book was a very readable overview of Jack Kerouac's life. It helped me gain some kind of overview which I had found elusive reading Gerald Nicosia's more detailed book. However what marred the book for me was Miles's intrusive and over-bearing judgements. Surely it's better to present the facts and let them speak for themselves? In chapter 8 (just over half way through the book) he launches into a tirade ....'How can a man deny his own child?... Where was Kerouac when he should have been reading his daughter bedtime stories, sharing with her his love for words?...' and so on. Unfortunately once he's in this mode he doesn't let up. I appreciate the sentiment and it's difficult not to judge Kerouac harshly over this - but I felt Miles should have made more of an effort to understand his subject. I almost felt I leant more about Barry Miles than Kerouac in this section of the book and it's commendable that Miles feels so strongly about family loyalties but is that really the issue here?

Miles does an incredible job of putting together the jaded intricate life of an insanely selfish man. Kerouac was an incredible writer, yes, because he scrounged off everyone around him to better his skill. Funny when our heros turn into humans and we begin to feel our own inspiration from it.

This biography is part of an unceasing flow of writings about Kerouac and about the Beat movement which he helped to inspire. Miles's book is valuable because it explains why people continue to read Kerouac and the beats and also focuses on the limitations of the movement, I think, through discussion of Kerouac as a person.

Kerouac was first and foremost a writer. Miles' book emphasizes this. It discusses virtually each of Kerouac's major works, and minor works as well, in the context of his life -- when, precisely, they were written, what they are about, and where each book fits, in Miles's usually well-considered opinion, in Kedrouac's work as a whole. Such writing is more the purview of literary criticism than biography but Miles does it well and it is needed in a consideration of Kerouac's life and work. He focuses on the spritual side of the beats, their quarrel with conformity, materialism, and repressed sexuality, and their emphasis on feeling and the expression of feeling. Miles properly places Kerouac in the romantic tradition of literature and within American Romanticism in particular as a follower, most immediately, of Thomas Wolfe.

Miles does not spare Kerouac the man, in a discussion that should discourage any tendendy to hero-worship or mystification. Kerouac was selfish and inconsiderate of others, adolescent at the core, unduly attached to his mother, on the far fringes of the American right (although he probably deserves to be praised for not adopting the hippie, ultra-left, anti United States attitude of his followers and colleagues), and lead a destructive life, to his own talents and to the lives of people who loved him and had a right to depend upon him, such as his daughter.

As a writer, Kerouac emerges in the book as a person of talent with a vision of American life that is valuable (though hardly unique, I think). He wrote well but too much and too carelessly and too much under the influence of drugs. He also, as Miles suggests was overly dogmatic and rigid in his use of spontaneous prose.

The beats were a unique literary movement and Kerouac was an integral part of it. His books, I think will continue to be read and valued not for the most part as literary masterpieces, but as expressing the mood of a generation. There is much in them that is worthwhile. Miles' portrait of Kerouac and his work is judicious. It also encourages the reader to explore Kerouac's writings for his or herself, which is the goal of any good biography or a writer.

This volume looks at the Hebrew Bible as a book with God as its protagonist and comments on character development as the story unfolds. It is not a book for the light-hearted, either religious or academic. It is a difficult volume that requires a certain level of sophistication in literay review and Judeo Christian history. It also requires endurance. The author chose to examine the storyline of the Hebrew Bible in which the order of the books is laid out differently from Bibles containing both the Old and the New Testaments. Although rich in insight, perspective and novelty, this Pultizer Prize winning work has a tremendous flaw. The author, in his discussion of the book of Job and Gods and Jobs experience with one another, fails to cite Carl Jung as a commentator while obviously being aware of Jung and ultimately reaching Jungs conclusion. How Jungs perspective cannot be mentioned in this volume is both academically and historically disingenuous. Also, the aut! hor chooses to end his biography of God with the end of the Hebrew Bible, as though God, the character, had no further development. I recommend this book because of wealth of information included, but I strongly recommend that it be read in conjunction with Carl Jung¹s Answer to Job (1952) - and for the really studious, along with Edward Edingers Transformation of the God Image ‹ An Elucidation of Jung¹s Answer to Job.

Jack Miles achieved his stated intent to write a biography of the character God based on the Tanakh, a literary work. The result is a fascinating study of the evolution of the Judean notion of a monotheistic God, the linchpin for the Jewish, Christian and Muslin religions. Some reviews here either entirely shun Miles work or nit-pick at one of his arguments with certain shrillness, as if Miles had stepped on sacred toes. Unless you can accept, at least temporarily, that man created God and not the other way around, you are liable to suffer a similar upset.

Miles is a scholar. He has devoted his life to the study of religion, literature and language, and his writing is rich with insightful analogies. This is not an easy read, however. I had to look up more words while reading this work than with any other book in memory, and some required delving into the cognate, but it was unquestionably worth the effort.

The brillance of this work lays in its incredible ability to bring the ancient and uncontemplatable Hebrew God to a level that makes Him both personal and understandable. As a faithful Catholic I found many of the presented ideas both challenging and perplexing, but have ultimately derived a deeper understanding of the faith of the ancient Jews and that of my own religion from the beautiful ideas captured in these pages. This book allows the faithful, or the unfaithful who are simply looking to learn more about the Hebrew God, to develop a new and possibly more thorough understanding of who God is and what His relationship with us means. Another treat is that the human characters of the Old Testement jump off the page and gain an identity that I did not feel simply from reading the Old Testement. Whether this work was guided by the Almighty or not will never be known, but I have no doubt that Miles has had a thorough and beautiful vision.

Jack Miles, author of the Pulitzer Prize - winning *God -a Biogaphy* has written an excellent literary analysis of Christ in the New Testament.

What is the "crisis" referred to in the title? The crisis is that God has not delivered his Chosen People from 500 years of oppression. How does God solve this problem? Answer: God/Christ commits sacred suicide. This is Miles' provocative conclusion from his stirictly literary analysis the Christian Bible. How does Miles arrive at the conclusion? You, dear reader, should read the book in order to appreciate how he develops his plot and arrives at his conclusion. And believe me, there is a plot!

A caution is in order. Miles writes and studies Christ from a strictly literary point of view. He is not interested in the historical Jesus. If one reads this only to learn about the fundamentalist Jesus, the traditional Christian Jesus, or the historical Jesus, then this book will not satisfy! If on the other hand, you want to experience a great Biblical reading adventure, then buy and read this book!

I also would recommend that a reader, who is unfamiliar with literary critism and postmodernism, study and read Miles' appendices. "Appendix I" deals with the biblical canon and "Appendix II" deals with the history of critcal analysis of the Bible (e.g. historical criticism, canonical criticism, literary critcism)and how to appreciate the Bible as art.

I did not always agree with the author, but I enjoyed how he told the story of Christ. As a postmodern Christian, I will not privilege my reading over his.

Have fun reading *Christ: a Crisis in the Life of God*!

This is a brave write, most people who trully believe in Christ would never think of crossing the lines so boldly. The fact that God could be imperfect and admit imperfection has caused us to fail, needing the sacrifice of the Lamb of God. This book covers the bases quite extensively, Jack is more than well versed, from the way he writes, he has a super clear understanding of the way each book in the Bible was meant to be interpreted by it's original writers. That was accomplished by a great deal of research, very evident in this very strongly supported book. I am happy with it, brings a new twist of reality that is faith strengthening.

I want to recommend another good book that uses finger print writing style (Of Moses ect.) to get the crisis straight, also of Christ's true purpose, SB 1 or God By Karl Mark Maddox

For anyone interested in the life of Christ (God Incarnate), whether Born-Again Christian, Muslim, Mormon, or Catholic this book should be read for its beautiful and fascinating research into the life of this extraordinary God-man. I have read so many books that present Jesus as a figment of the author's own imagination. Jack Miles doesn't gloss over anything that Jesus said or did, he presents the gospels almost verbatim and explores his relationship to human beings courageously and boldly. His chapter on the sexuality of the Son of God was quite shocking and reads to much into the story of Jesus and the woman at the well. I felt that this chapter was brave but not insightful; whether or not Jesus had premarital sex, and if he will have a wife in the heavenly kingdom is unfounded. He was tempted in all ways as we are but without sin, this would seemt o include sexual relations outside of marriage, which Christ so highly esteemed and commanded.

This book did open my eyes and opened my heart to see Christ in a way that I had never done before. I learned many new things from this magnificent work, though I do not agree with some of his speculations, I do find his insights engaging and worth heavy consideration. This book should win a Pulitzer Prize like his first book did. A very interesting book indeed!

A positive alternative to Baudrillard's dim view of the postmodern condition can be found in Mark C. Taylor's 1997 book HIDING--a philosophical re-visoning of our contemporary Western society that instead of clinging to vestigial epistemic notions of depth and foundationalism, embraces a holistic, worldwide web view of social structures. By way of an extended, elaborate metaphor that describes our ontological condition as being intimately related to our embryonic development (we are nothing more than layers of skin upon layers of skin, ad infinitum), Taylor suggests a new epistemic outlook that no longer makes an issue of depths, but rather focuses upon the complex relationship of interactive, interacting phenomena--in his phrase, "the profundity of surface." Emergent, virtual technologies retroactively point to our own socially constructed "reality" as always-already virtual itself, and to get caught up in the trap of defining contemporary phenomena in terms of outdated analytical models will only succeed in an inescapably circular logic; as he puts it, "After (the) all has been said and done, the question that remains is not 'What is virtual reality?' but 'What is not virtual reality?' (267). This shift in focus allows us to give our undivided attention to the realm of practice, to aesthetics, to surface; like Slavoj Zizek in TARRYING WITH THE NEGATIVE, Taylor would have us interface with things-in-themselves, allowing us to become aware of our positioning within a complex web of relations between phenomena, as well as what that positioning will allow us to do.

This book provoked consumer behavior for me. I am shopping for a good coffee table on which to place it. _Hiding_ is marvellous to look at, as well as to read. Taylor offers a sequence of interrelated inquiries into perceptions of the relations between the surface and the "realities" underneath. These inquiries are concerned with phrenology and eugenics, body piercing and gold-card fashions. This book may not emerge as the most important in recent postmodern theory, but it is one of the more enjoyable reads. With it located on the coffee table, your guests will believe you're hip to the latest theoretical fashions, your children will wonder what you're thinking, and your housekeeper will quit smoking to read during breaks.

I first resisted Hiding. I wanted to disapprove of its subject matter (skin, mystery novels, fashion, Vegas, and on!). I really tried not to like it. But it's grown on me in ways that I find quite challenging. And that challenge is what's best about it.

There was a review in BookForum about Hiding that couldn't let go of the central tenet of this cunning book: surface is not to be underestimated. Surface (as opposed to depth) is not simply a dead-end but the beginnings of a new worldview. While older worryworts and curmudgeonly librarian types may protest this premise, sorry, I've got five words for all of you: Sean "Puffy" Combs, Grammy Winner.

The layout of the book is as provocative as its content: our current state of affairs. Supermodels are celebrities, COPS is reality television, Las Vegas is a family getaway, tattooing is our youth's version of long hair. All of these topics get brought up and explored in studied and thoughtful detail. Yet, Taylor doesn't dissect these cultural changes from a sterile laboratory atop an ivory tower -- he digs right into it. His section on fashion reads like it's a special pullout to W magazine (let's see that happen!) and you don't need a dictionary to make sense of the fundamental mysteries being wrestled with throughout this fast-paced tome.

It can be difficult, at times, to make sense of some of the more poetic or lyrical moments but then I also don't care much for rap or French cinema. All in all, I'd put this (quite beautiful to look at) book right up there with anything Barthes has written -- with the added bonus that this is an enthusiastically eclectic and sincerely postmodern collage.

Soon after I read this book, I tossed it out along with my retro polyester pants and orange creepers. The concept of the novel is a clever one and it starts out as being cute and funny. Even as a gay male, I could identify with Phoebe and a lot of her unwise choices in men.

Then somewhere along the line, the book loses what little bit of charm it has and suddenly you're finding yourself not liking Phoebe that much. As each man revolves his way through her life, you begin to dislike her and her choices more and more. Some of the boyfriends listed aren't even boyfriends but rather fantasy characters, penpals and in the case of Arnold Allen (the only Black guy who stereotypically appears on her list) a criminal. By the end of the novel you're thinking that she deserves everything that has happened to her. Some guys aren't good enough, others are too good and why doesn't she have any friends? One word for you Phoebe: THERAPY!!

At first I thought this was going to be a Sheila Levine for the new millenium. Whereas Sheila's self-depreciating humor and poor choices in men endeared you to her, Phoebe's self depreciating humor had you hoping she would grab a bottle of sleeping pills and end it all. I guess Mrs. Rosenfeld is a fairly talented writer as she was able to evoke such dislike for her protagonist from me, but overall this novel went absolutely nowhere and was a complete waste of my time. I liked Bridget Jones better and that's a stretch. I wouldn't really recommend this to book anyone. If you can find a copy, check out Gail Parent's 'Sheila Levine is Dead and Living in New York'. Although it's well over trhity years old now, it still maintains a crisp, hip, cutting edge feel to it unsurpassed by any other writer writing in the same vein as What She Saw.

Wherein we observe the development of a girl from 5th grade to about age 27, a girl that we eventually realize is quite attractive, though she has the persistent belief that she's a Dawn Weiner. It could make a great film. While I think Lucinda Rosenfeld has a good ear for dialogue and gives us painfully well-executed visuals, to the point where I felt I had been there myself (because, what young self-involved American female hasn't?) I thought the writing tired and too desperately-trying-to-be-trendy. It's the kind of book that would've made an impression about 10-15 years ago, but now the market is just too saturated, and let's face it - descriptive language a la Confederacy of Dunces has been immitated ad nauseum. Judging by the age of the character, Rosenfeld probably did write like this 10 years ago (in college), so it's too bad she didn't try to get it published then. Now, though, I think she'd be great writing for current female TV characters -- could give them something interesting for us to watch!

dreadful and fun is the conundrum i'm put in when i begin to go back through the quite thick entanglement of the boys, boys, and men i've dated, and in the book "what she saw", i was given the chance to delve into someone else's mess.

each chapter takes a look at a different boy/man the main character dated/went with/screwed. a fun idea, but there's such a distance on the page... it's difficult to understand her convictions. i wanted to laugh, and groan in aggreeance, but was left slightly unsympathetic and befuddled. the book begs to be written in the first person, but for some bizarre-o reason lucinda rosenfeld gave us a third person story.

after reading the first chapter i thought it was clunky, and decided to shut it for good, but i was at work, with nothing elese to read, so i kept going, and somehow fell in. i still didn't really like it, but felt hooked nonetheless. weird.

i gave it four stars due to the 'it hooked me factor;' what does it all mean? i suppose it's just as confusing as what she really did see in all of those guys.