First of all, this is the essential text for anybody serious in developing the skills and the vocabulary to discuss the taste components of wine. Solid reference books on the subject of wine do not come along every year. Last year two titles by Remington Norman (Rhone Renaissance and his second edition of Great Domaines of Burgundy) could be added to that pantheon. But for every serious book like Emile Peynaud's or Remington Norman's, there are dozens regurgitating reviews on a 100 point scale from trade publications. A second edition of this classic text could have been a special event, but instead John Wiley & Sons chose to add a couple of paragraphs of new text and repackage it as a new edition. How could one possibly improve upon the original seminal work? We do not know because this effort seems to have been knocked off in a lazy afternoon. I read most of both and found whole chapters left intact. A true second edition may have incorporated photos (more than the four included) such as those found in the original French Le Gout du Vin. But until then the first English translation is still in print (ISBN0-932664-64-4) at a better price $39.95 vs. $54.95. This is an amazing book, but its new format is a bit disingenuous. Michael Stratton wineguild@aol.co

This 59 page manual covers the basics of sequencers and applications of sequencers. If you want to get into MIDI, it might be interesting. Overall the manual is well written and would be a good read for novices.

It is arguable that Manu Smriti is a text that is as important as it is claimed by this author. The Manu Smriti is virtually unknown in Southern India (Traditional Vedic Hinduism survived virtually intact here) and definitely not considered an integral part of Vedic Learning. The claim that Manu Smriti defines Hindu Moral law is absurd since each region and sect of Hindus have their own Smritis and traditions. The true moral code accepted by all Hindus is in the Mahabharata, the Bhagavad Gita and the Ramayana.
An earlier reviewer above seems to be under the impression that Women were "purposefully left uneducated" in India - this is a simple case of absolute ignorance of Indian history and total acceptance of the British Colonialist misrepresentation. This book is truly in the tradition of condescending colonial interpretation of Indian history and society which denies India a history, it's people a consciousness and projects the entire history of India through the narrow prism of Colonial and Jesuit misrepresentation. These Indologists have done enough damage to India in colonial times by projecting literature that suited their purposes as the soul of India. It is sad that this tradition survives to this day.

What an irony it is that a woman has translated the Law of Manu, one of history's most oppressively patriarchal works. In this religious system, women were forbidden to study the Vedas, and were purposely left uneducated, until Hanna Marshmann began girls' schools in Bengal in the early 1800s.
Had the original writers of the Law of Manu known that one day a woman would translate it, they would have had strokes and fits.
By translating this work, Doniger has, in a way, subverted patriarchy. Below is just one of many female-bashing texts in the Law of Manu (taken from an earlier translation):

9: 17. When creating them, Manu allotted to women a love of their bed, of their seat and of ornament, impure desires, wrath,
dishonesty, malice, and bad conduct.

Wendy Doniger is the doyenne of Indology today, and her translations of, and commentaries on, ancient Hindu texts testify to this. This translation is lucid and, given its subject matter, timely, displaying as it does both poetry and a variety of chauvinism that, sadly, Hindutva demagogues like to glorify (as some of the reviewers here are attempting to do).

In 880 A.D. or thereabouts an anonymous French monk took 29 lines to relate the virtuous life of Saint Eulalia. A thousand years later Zola took some 250 pages to update the story and add a wealth of naturalist and spiritual detail, which still makes it only half the usual length of his offerings. "The Dream/Le Rêve" is a fairy story written in response to outraged criticism of the "bestiality" of "The Earth/La Terre". So, it is the one Zola book that it is safe to read to children at bedtime, especially if they have trouble going to sleep. As an introduction to the legends of the saints and a guidebook to the stone carvings on church doors it is first class. Pure in heart, morally uplifting and barely a whiff of hereditary vice, the book concocts for itself only the most tenuous of links with the Rougon-Macquart family, whose doings dominate this 20-novel saga, and then promptly buries the connection for the tale's duration. If nothing else, "The Dream" proves that Zola is a versatile writer. Try reading it after "The Earth" and before tackling "The Beast In Man/La Bête Humaine" and then think about Shakespeare's famous remark about what a many-splendoured work is man (meaning human beings in general).

"Le Reve/the Dream" is the shortest novel in the Rougon-Macquart cycle; in fact, the second shortest is about 100 pages longer. In the sequence of novels it is preceded by "la Terre/the Earth" and followed by "la Bete Humain/the Beast in Man" - two very significant novels in the cycle. Therefore, one may think of "le Reve/the Dream" as some sort of respite. It is a story of tragic love of Angelique Rougon and the local bishop's son. The novel is well written, but is too imbued with religious theme and too one-dimensional to be ranked as high as other Zola's novels. It is important to point out that contacts between relatives, even though somewhat present in early Rougon-Macquart novels, are completely absent in later ones and "le Reve/the Dream" is a striking example of that. Early in the novel Angelique is adopted by a couple of church embroiderers. The husband in the family decides to find out something about Angelique's mother prior to taking care of official formalities related to adoption, but after learning that she (Sidonie Rougon from "la Cur(e')e/the Kill") does shady and precarious things to earn her living, he tells Angelique that her mother is dead. Therefore, Angelique never learned the truth about her family, which makes "le Reve/the Dream" one of the several novels in the cycle, which is only outwardly tied with the genealogical tree of the Rougon-Macquart family.

I was very disappointed when I recieved this book. It is one of the few works on this subject but is very basic and does not cover the subject in depth. The book is aimed at a young audience, ie. elementary school age, and will be of minimal help or interest to a university student or any reader who desires more than just a superficial, general knowledge of the Khoikhoi people. The language is very simple and the book contains photographs on nearly every page.

If you are interested in an accurate account of the history of Emile Berliner and/or the gramophone, the Library of Congress has created a very comprehensive site. Go there instead,this book is very limited.

The most important author of detective novels was the Frenchman Émile Gaboriau (1832-1873). Far too little known today, Gaboriau is remembered in France as the 'father of the roman policier' and indeed many believe he can lay claim to having invented the modern detective novel. Directly in the tradition of Vidocq, but further influenced by Poe and probably Eugene Sue (whose The Mysteries of Paris had been one of the sensations of 1843), Gaboriau created the police detective Monsieur Lecoq. He appeared in not one but five novels. In the first, L'Affaire Lerouge (1866) he takes rather a back seat to the consulting detective Father Tabaret, whose methods Lecoq adopts, but in the later novels he takes centre stage. In fact you can see the character evolve from book to book - Crime d'Orcival (1867), Le Dossier no.113 (1867), Les Escalves de Paris (1868) and possibly the best Monsieur Lecoq (1869). These books are less easy to find today.

Le Dossier No. 113 (1867) ("File Number 113") is the most disappointing of Gaboriau's books. It does not start out with a detailed look at a crime scene, followed by deductions. H. Douglas Thomson compared it scornfully to a Hollywood thriller. It is also slow moving. It does have a great title, and the inside look at a French bank in the opening chapters is moderately interesting. It does show some features in common with Gaboriau's other fiction: the look at young men's mistresses recalls L'Affaire Lerouge; the wily persistence of the young bank clerk in evading police investigation anticipates the murder suspect in Monsieur Lecoq; and the construction of the puzzle plot contains features that will be expanded in "Le Petit Vieux des Batignoles", which contains one of Gaboriau's most complex plots. But all in all, this is a poor book....

If you've never read Zola at all, don't start with "Fortune". Read one of two of the "masterpieces" first to get an idea of the man's true worth. Then come back to this book. Its main interest is as a "who's who" of Zola's characters, a family tree, a quick refresher when you read later novels in the Rougon-Macquart cycle. Compared to the later works, it seems to be written too much to a formula. Very much a "warm-up" exercise for the author's social and historical project. Chapters and descriptions are far too long and the effect of environment on human character - a favourite theme of the naturalists - is often unclear. The shallowness of those who seize political power is fairly well portrayed, though less skillfully than in Zola's later offerings. His main themes are all here but in embryonic form. He's groping his way. Fortunately, he didn't give up and battled on until he hit the jackpot with lucky number seven. Frankly, the book is only for hardened Zola nuts, who know where the man's heading. But it was intended to be an introduction to a cycle, and if you read it on those terms it's just about OK. A sort of boot camp. The Z-boy does show some promise here, and there's already a big improvement in book number two. So grit your teeth and stick with it.

this books contains a few stories, the largest and best being man-wolf, the others are by the way completely uninteresting. they are gothic in style. man-wolf has a good plot, though simple. descriptions are good. but it doesn't go far enough and is filled with unnecessary stuff, like most gothic tales. something strange is going around in a castle. a nobleman is experiencing personality change. it could have been good. it becomes mediocre