The greatest thing to come out since the Musical itself, Wonderful, educational, fantastic reproductions of the 19th century musicals!

Richard Fawkes' The History Of The Musical is a flawlessly recorded, 4 cassette, unabridged audiobook showcasing the development of the musical, from its origins in European light opera and operetta to its it's golden age in the American theater. The great song composers and lyricists are presented including Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Lerner and Loewe, Lloyd Webber, and Sondheim. The wonderfully narrated text by the award-winning Broadway singer Kim Criswell is enhanced with almost one hundred famous musical extracts. The History Of The Musical is a "must" for personal, academic, and community library music history and audiobook collections.

Surely there must be a medal somewhere out there for Naxos records and for author Richard Fawkes. After two superb sets of tapes and CDs titled "The History of Classical Music" and "The History of Opera," there is now available Mr. Fawkes' "The History of the Musical" (NA422712). Here we have singer/actress Kim Criswell narrating on 4 CDs or tapes just under 320 minutes of exactly what the title promises.

Starting with "The Beggar's Opera" of 1728, the history of the genre is traced up to the time of writing, meaning "Les Miserables." Along the way, we consider operetta, the English Music Hall, American vaudeville, the review, the book show, the familiar, the off-beat, the dead ends, the highly influential. And the London stage gets a good deal of attention also, thereby introducing a lot of material not very well known to those better versed in the American musical.

As with any good effort of this sort, a strong connection is drawn between the changing times and the changing concepts of what a musical should be. The importance of "Show Boat" is not glossed over, for example, nor is the other shock caused by "Pal Joey." The reliance of Lloyd Webber on staging is mentioned but not his lack of more than one fairly memorable melody per show. In general, the tone is upbeat and positive.

But this is a recording. While it could never include all the information found in a book, its dozens of recorded examples are what makes this set priceless. Where possible, the oldest "original cast" recordings are used. On the other hand, there are some strange exceptions such as "Hey there" from "Pajama Game" being sung not by John Raitt but by Ron Raines on the Jay recording. I suspect this is because Criswell is in the cast of that set.

Again, this set is in tape and CD formats. For educational purposes, the CDs offer direct access to any show under discussion--and the CDs are very generously divided into nearly 200 tracks! Very considerate of the producers. The booklet offers a nice little personal essay by Criswell. So if I have any complaint about this set, it is that I wish it were twice as long.

Set in southern Wisconsin, Andrew Oliver's novel, Beyond The Enchanted Bridge: A Visit To Scarecrow Land is the story of ten year old Martha who searches for her brother who disappears on a rocking horse when it turns into a real horse! Martha journeys into Scarecrow Land, a place where the past blends with the present, strange and memorable characters are encountered, and courage is needed to overcome obstacles. The text is superbly crafted and told in verse. Black and white photographs enhance the reading experience. Beyond The Enchanted Bridge is very highly recommended reading for middle school boys and girls and would make a highly popular addition to any school or public library collection.

This is an excellent read for doctors and patients alike. The challenge of the patient - doctor relationship is very well examined from diverse angles. Well done Uncle Oliver!

Al Oliver is obviously misunderstood by the media. During his career, he was largely ignored by the media; perhaps this is inevitable as the man who played in between legends Roberto Clemente and Willie Stargell. Yet Oliver excelled in his career. Vada Pinson (with 14 more career hits than Oliver) is the only player with more career hits than Oliver who is NOT in the Cooperstown. In fact, he drew only 19 votes for induction in his first year of eligibility.

Al was the consummate team player; he was always upbeat and positive. Perhaps the media saw this as "too good to be true" and therefore, in their minds, it wasn't true. But the facts show that it is.

"Baseball's Best Kept Secret" is Al's story. He is a confident, proud man who cannot to this day comprehend just how little attention the media paid to him in spite of playing on a World Series winner in '71 and winning the batting title in '82. Read this book and then shake you head about how such a successful, positive team player can have a shadow unjustly thrust over him.

IN TODAYS SOCIETY, IT IS TO EASY TO SIT BACK AND JUDGE A PERSON, WITHOUT GETTING TO KNOW THEM. DOES ANYONE REALLY KNOW THE REAL AL OLIVER? SPORTS WRITERS, AS WE KNOW THEM, ARE THE ONES WHO VOTE FOR ENTRANTS INTO THE HALL OF FAME....YOU CAN'T TELL ME THAT THERE ARE NOT BIASED OPINIONS OUT THERE, AM I BIASED BECAUSE AL OLIVER IS MY BROTHER-IN-LAW? NOT ON YOUR LIFE...HE WAS AND IS A LEGEND LONG BEFORE I CAME IN TO THE FAMILY...BASEBALL'S BEST KEPT SECRET TELLS LIFE IN BASEBALL THE WAY IT TRULY IS. HAD AL NOT BEEN MADE TO LEAVE THE GAME HE TRULY LOVED, HE COULD AND WOULD HAVE MADE THE HALL OF FAME, AND IF YOU DON'T WANT TO TAKE MY WORD FOR IT, LOOK AT HIS STATS, THEY SPEAK FOR THEMSELF. AL IS AN OUTSPOKEN MAN, WHO TALKED TO THE PRESS FREELY ABOUT HOW HE FELT HE SHOULD PLAY EVERY GAME, AND WHY NOT SPEAK UP, THAT'S WHAT HE WAS PAID TO DO, PLAY. IF YOU ARE A TRUE BASEBALL FAN, YOU NEED TO READ THIS BOOK. I PERSONALLY HAVE NOTHING TO GAIN BY DIRECTING YOU TO THIS BOOK, ONLY TO LET YOU HAVE AN INSIGHT ON HOW THE SYSTEM WORKS, AND IT WORKS FOR THOSE WHO CAN AND WILL PULL STRINGS FOR SOME OF THE FAVORITES. FACTS, THAT'S WHAT STATS ARE ALL ABOUT....SEE FOR YOURSELF....AL OLIVER SHOULD BE IN THE HALL OF FAME!

I travel a lot and compare guides a lot. I have used and enjoyed other Lonely Planet guides for other countries successfully. This one was a real disappointment. It is thorough, but does not really teach you to prioritize your time, or compare routes. It is intensely geared towards rail and bus travelers, but many things in Germany are worth renting a car to see--in which case the book will not cover those areas at all. Hotels chosen by the book will be in relation to train stations--which aren't always either a good deal or a restful place to stay. Add that to the fact it's heavy, and you'll be shlepping a lot of useless information unless you're spending the whole year there...

Great book. Lots of nice information. Compact design so you can actually travel with it. The Frommer's book I just bought is already falling apart! A nice bonus is the history section at the start.

I have read this book and it offers a thorough and helpful view over germany. Its advices are good and mistakes from previous lonely planet guides have been corrected. Its maps are impressive and its hints, sincere and advantegeous

This book is only useful if you have PSP and no experience in graphics whatsoever, and need a "How-To" on PSP. There is really only 80-100 pages of real text, the rest being filler and cliches like "Colors make web sites more intereting", only for several paragraphs. This book will get you started with PSP, but not much else. For example, he does not explain how to correct "red-eye" in a photo or how to set the magic wand's sensitivity. Unless you are a complete neophyte to graphics and have PSP, best look elsewhere.

"Creating Your Own Web Graphics with Paint Shop Pro" is an excellent addition to any graphics library. Andy Shafran and Dick Oliver work well together as they tell you which graphics to use on your web page, how to create them from scratch, how to work with existing graphics and more. If you have ever wanted to create or rework existing graphics but didn't know where to start, this book is for you. If you are already comfortable with manipulating graphics, get this to learn stuff you may not even know. The CD-ROM that is included gives you all the software you need to get started. It's a great addition to your library!

For those of us who are most concerned with content and cost on Web Pages, and don't have any kind of graphics background, Paint Shop Pro offers an inexpensive image manipulation package that is hard to beat. This book gives you a running head start on learning its capabilities.

Let's say you have already experimented with a few of the features in PSP, but don't really know what a lot of the filters, deformations, special tools and color adjustments can do for you. Shafran and Oliver show you through every feature, step by step, with "original" and "result" side by side for each process. Better yet, the CD provides the sample images they use for demonstration, so you can follow along, perform the same steps, and even experiment a little on your own as you go along. As one who "learns by doing", this was an invaluable part of this book's design from my perspective. I especially liked learning how to make a "seam-free" background tile "the hard way".

For those of us who really haven't begun to tap the resources on the web yet, the authors also discuss pre-existing graphics -- how to find them, and how to use them (and the legal ramifications thereof); newsgroup resources, websites with information, tutorials, plugins, and the like; and aspects such as dither-free color palettes and how to use them. There are plenty of "plug-n-play" graphics on the CD as well, in case you are lazy or in a big hurry. If you are neither, you can wax creative and come up with your own combinations and aberrations.

Of course there are bigger, fancier graphics packages and bigger, fancier books about them, but if you want to concentrate on "lite" Web Graphics ("look great, less load time") for your "poor man's web page", you can do much worse. The pros can have their "Adobe Mansions" -- I'll keep this book and PSP.

The good news is that this is probably the best book available on the materials of sculpture. The bad new is that it was written twenty years ago. (This paperback edition may have been published in 1988, but AFAIK, the text was unchanged from the original 1983 version.)

If you are interested in traditional forms, then this book probably covers everything you need. But if you want information on any materials and/or techniques that came into use post-1970's, you're out of luck. Plastics are a good example: urethane and silicone molding rubbers are given a cursory mention, even though they are quite common now. I don't think polyurethane casting resins (Por-a-kast, Poly 15, etc.) or polyurethane glues (Gorilla Glue, ProBond, etc.) are mentioned at all.

The wood section is surprisingly thin, with a bias toward subtractive methods (carving), even though wood construction is as common--if not more common--in contemporary work.

While there are plenty of photos (all black and white) of classic sculptures, there are a lot of unbelievably bad pieces illustrated--probably chosen for their materials rather than quality. Some are downright hideous.

This is a good resource, but be aware that it is no longer comprehensive.

This is a supurb reference book for a working sculptor. It covers stone and wood carving, as well as most major 20th century materials, from plastics to masonry to metal fabrication techniques. Nothing on fabrics or paper though. The illustrations are exciting and fairly thorough, with an emphasis is on innovative work. This is the one book I would want to take with me if shipwrecked on a desert island!

During an expat job in the UK, I would wonder how the countryside there got many of the features you see there. This book did a very good job of explaining the origins of roads, walls, forests, woods, pastures, hedges, etc in the UK. I look forward to tracking down a few more of Rackham's books on other parts of the world.

This is a very pretty looking book that introduces young readers to the world of Ludwig Van Beethoven. The idea of this series is to look at the influences and historical events that shaped the lives of great composers. Roland Vernon describes how Beethoven was born into a changing world of revolutions that transformed America and France, and shows how Beethoven's music mirrored those turbulent times. But Vernon also explores how Beethoven's music reflected a deeply personal exploration of human nature and emphasizes how the composer profoundly changed every form of music in which he work. The book has sidebars devoted to Beethoven's musical contemporaries like Mozart, revolutionary thinkers like Thomas Paine, instruments like the harpsichord, and events like the fall of Napoleon. As I said above, the book is illustrated quite impressively, with historic paintings and artifacts. Vernon focuses most on the details of Beethoven's life and the history of the time, somewhat at the expense of his music, which matters here because the thesis is that Beethoven is a musical revolutionary. That is difficult to do in a book, granted, but if that is the contract with the reader then it needs to be followed up on more explicitly. Other titles in the series introduce young readers to Bach, Chopin, Gershwin, Mozart, Starvinsky, Verdi, and Vivaldi.

Few works of adult literature are so well known that they become embedded in our cultural fabric the way that Oliver Twist has. Perhaps it is because the title character is a loveable, sympathetic, young boy that the story, over time, has come to be mistaken by some for a children's tale. And perhaps it is because I feel like I have known the story all my life that I only recently realized that I had never, in fact, read the novel. So as I sat down to (finally) read this book, it was with a sense that I was simply revisiting a cherished story from my youth. But as I quickly realized after a very few pages, this is adult literature in all respects - in its sophisticated, intelligent prose, its rich plot, its elaborate cast of characters, and, yes, the occasional depiction of gruesome violence.

Surely even those who have never read this Charles Dickens' classic could recite the basic elements of its plot. Who among us is unfamiliar with the story of the young orphan who musters up the courage to ask, "Please, sir, I want some more." And yet this novel is so much more than a mere rags-to-riches story. It is also the heartwarming story of the triumph of good versus evil and of the human spirit's ability to face down adversity. Dickens pits an innocent child against the dangers of an uncaring world, and the story's happy ending is at once a celebration of Oliver's innocence and an affirmation of all that is right and just in society.

Though the prose can be tedious at times, Dickens' mastery of the English language is difficult not to appreciate. And while some may find the plot cliché, there is sufficient tension throughout the novel to maintain the reader's interest. For myself, I was continually surprised, as the chapters unfolded, to realize how much more there was to this classic than simply a story about an orphan who falls in with a gang of unruly pickpockets. This is definitely worth reading, even if you feel like you have already read it as a child.

The creative novel Oliver Twist, written by Charles Dickens in 1838, defines a classic of all times. This intense story reflects a young boy's life in London with no family or place to go. The novel begins with Oliver's mother dying, while giving birth to her son and the father remains unknown. Throughout the novel we learn about Oliver's struggles on living on his own. The young boy is befriended on the way and taken in my Fagin. Fagin along with the Artful Dodger invite Oliver to stay with them and become one of them, a thief. While going on one of the adventures of pick pocketing Oliver is caught by Mr.Brownlow who instead of reprimanding the young lad, decides to rise him. Throughout the book Oliver searches for the answers to his past while trying to stay alive on the streets of London. Miraculously, Oliver's family lay right under his nose the whole time. The theme of Oliver Twist examines the importance of a family. Oliver plays a forsaken child, abandoned by all-parental support and thrown into the cruel world at a very young age to live on his own. Oliver's early years taught him to fend for himself and he suffers from never experiencing a loving and nurturing childhood. The tone throughout the novel focused on abandonment and how to live and survive on your own. The setting of the book plays a powerful part as the story unfolded. Dickens describes the setting of London and all the places that Oliver stays very descriptively. "The street was very narrow and muddy, and the air was impregnated with filthy order. The walls and ceiling of the room were perfectly black with age and dirt..." (page. 56). Dickens explains the facilities that were available to poor Oliver, and makes them sound unbearable. He does an excellent job making the setting come alive and feel the characters thoughts. I would recommend this novel because I found it very moving and towards the end you are only hoping for the best for poor Oliver.

The creative novel Oliver Twist, written by Charles Dickens in 1838, defines a classic of all times. This intense story reflects a young boy's life in London with no family or place to go. Oliver's mother dies while giving birth to her son in the beginning of the book. Oliver's father remains unknown. Throughout the book the reader sees constant struggles. Oliver is befriended by Fagin and his company. Fagin, along with the Artful Dodger, invite Oliver to stay with them and become a thief. During one of Oliver's pick pocketing adventures; he is caught by Mr. Brownlow. Instead of reprimanding the young lad, Mr. Brownlow decides to raise him. Oliver desperately searches for the answer to his past while trying to stay alive on the streets of London. Ironically, Mr. Brownlow is Oliver's grandfather. A dominate theme of Oliver Twist examines the importance of family. Oliver's early years taught him to fend for himself and he suffers from never experiencing a loving and nurturing childhood. The setting of the book plays a powerful role as the story unfolds. Dickens describes the setting of London and all the places that Oliver stays very descriptively. "The street was very narrow and muddy, and the air was impregnated with filthy odor. The walls and ceiling of the room were perfectly black with age and dirt..." (page. 56). Dickens explains the facilities that were available to poor Oliver and makes them sound unbearable. He does an excellent job making the setting come alive and allows the reader to plight. I would recommend all readers at some point in life to delve into this classic. I found Oliver Twist very moving and towards the end hoping only the best for poor Oliver.