Howard Morgen's arrangements & treatment of standards are great as usual !

Paul Simon is one of the worlds greatest musicians. This book shows a three decade career at it's best, the book includes a good number of the hits as well as the not so well known hits. The only bad thing I can think of to say about it is that it came out before Rythm of the Saints did so therefore it didn't have songs like the Cool Cool River, obvious Child, or Born at the Right Time. Overall for any musician who wants to be able to play the songs of one of the worlds greatest musicians, get this book

This is a good companion to Paul Simon's masterpiece album, Rhythmn of the SAints. With this album, Simon's music reached a whole new level of poetic lyricism at an almost surreal level, as well as amazing instrumental arrangements. These songs are some of his finest, and this book very nicely transcribes them for all to learn to play. Enjoy!

ROCK TROUBADOURS: Conversations On The Art And Craft Of Songwriting by Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers I love what I do. I get to review fantastic books like this one. :-) Here they are - some of the songwriters I have most admired throughout my lifetime, all talking about what makes them want to write, how they write, where their writing comes from... It's amazing stuff. Paul Simon, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Jerry Garcia and David Grisman, the Indigo Girls, Chris Whitley, Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds, Ben Harper, the Barenaked Ladies and Ani DiFranco. Hell - the first three alone would be worth the price of the book.

Jeffrey's opening words to each interview are insightful commentaries on where the songwriter has been and where they may be heading. Though the interviews themselves may have happened several years earlier, those commentaries bring the reader to the present so that everything can be put into perspective. And his questions get right to the meat of the matter. These are personal interviews that dig into the why's and the wherefore's. What are the differences between then and now? How has their songwriting changed from the early years? How do they perceive the "industry" as a whole? How do they arrive at their inspiration? How do their

instruments of choice influence their songwriting? That's only a sample. These are the questions I would love to ask if I were in a room with any of these wonderful artists - only I would be too tongue tied. Thankfully, Jeffrey does the work for all of us.

In each interview, there is a section called "What They Play" where the instruments the songwriters use are explained in detail - their preferences, what they used in the past and what they use in the studio compared to what they use in live performance. There is also a selected discography for each songwriter.

I enjoyed every moment of reading this book. Not only did it answer a lot of my own questions concerning these songwriters, but it also inspired me. Deep down, these songwriters, legends though they may be to me (yes, even the Barenaked Ladies - whom I adore and who have a true knack for not taking themselves too seriously), are still human beings with the same problems of time, insecurities, and daily difficulties that I face myself. They have managed to overcome them and create some of the very best music of the 20th century and beyond. Reading about them gives me hope that I can do the same. I highly recommend you pick this one up...

This pocket size book on Qi and Qigong covers everyhting someone needs to know on the subject. There are plenty of excellent photographs for explanation of meridians and exercises. There are a lot of standing exercises as well as taichi exercises. One of the best books I have read so far.

Just thought everyone one should know this is the sheet music of Simon and Garfunkel. That's great if you were not looking for a biography of their time together. I just wanted other people to know so they don't make the same mistake.

I stumbled upon "Smile" by accident, intrigued by its unusual topic of a young Parisian man of Moroccan origins. Despite the fact that the main character is a fully acculturated Frenchman and a graduate student of literature at a university in Paris, he is a victim of traditional French prejudice and xenophobia. The depiction of racism against Arabs in France is alarming and vivid, urging readers to reevaluate racial stereotypes. The young student's racial alienation; however, is only a part of his isolation. The plot that ensues as he struggles to write of his life and to come to terms with his identity, family and future also confronts the predicament of being an artist in an insenstive world. I had some complaints with the translation, but the overall message of the novel was not lost. Smile is a beautiful, powerful and memorable story that I highly recommend.

This quiet gem ought not to be overlooked by anyone interested in beautiful writing combined with unsparing, intelligent self-consciousness. From its brilliant title on, Unbecoming is Rousseau's Confessions for the age of AIDS. Skip the various prefaces by well-meaning but uninsightful people (I'd have given the book five stars if the editors had been wise enough to let Michaels speak for himself), and go straight to the journals of Eric Michaels, an American academic teaching in Australia and dying of AIDS. Here you'll find the unmistakable voice of a chastened, ironic, post-'sixties sensibility, a man reflecting on eros, liberatory politics, and moral truths. Though hip and funny, Unbecoming is also painful to read, its cover illustration and author photo painful to look at. But anyone who values self-awareness as much as Michaels obviously did owes it to him or herself to enter into this testament.

This mammoth book does a wonderful job of displaying some brilliant sports images, and does a fairly good job tracking the evolution of sporting photography from static view-camera shots to today's cinemaesque, remote-camera action images. But as an actual history of sports photography, it's a bit lacking. The editors apparently felt content to limit their selection of photos to those in the Allsport and Hulton-Getty agency archives, and so a large chunk of the notable sporting images and history from the last century are just plain not there.

Where's Neil Leifer's picture of Muhammad Ali standing triumphantly over Sonny Liston after knocking him out in 1965? Where are any of a dozen other seminal pictures? The answer: not here, because they weren't taken by an Allsport or a Hulton-Getty photographer. This is a book that, according to the index, contains not a SINGLE mention of or image from Sports Illustrated, probably the single largest and most defining force in sports photography in the last 50 years.

Don't get me wrong, this is an impressive book that displays some fantastic and great-but-obscure images well. Just don't buy it thinking you're getting a complete survey and overview of sports photography from its beginnings to the present.

Slightly unfair review by the previous reviewer, when they say the book doesn't have all the great photos of the last 50 years. It is made fairly clear by the tag line of the book that it IS a collection of photos from the Allsport and Hulton-Getty. Anyway, for me, it was enlightening to see a lot of extraordinary photos that I had never seen before. I've already seen the really famous ones !!

Sports photography is both a fascinating medium and one which has stood the test of time. Despite the onset of the digital camera and computer generated images, the craft remains fresh, yet few give thought to the creativity and skill of our best sports photographers. Sportscape shows in detail the creativity, efforts and techniques that world - class photographers use to take the stunning pictures we see in newspapers, magazines and other printed media. Many great pictures feature in the book taken by photographers such as Clive Brunskill and Adam Pretty. I recommend it for anyone with a keen interest in the art.

A harrowing and often poignant recount of the trials and trivulations of the Simon and Garfunkel team. Chronicling everything from their days in Queens as the teenaged duo Tom and Jerry, to their triumphant reunion concert at Central park, this book is truly a dedicated fan's guidebook. Although the stories were cleaned up quite a bit and it is a little out of date, (it leaves off at Paul Simon's 1986 album 'Graceland') the book's stories are relatively honest accounts of Simon and Garfunkel's careers. Although, I'm not a huge fan of the group's work, I found this book to be an informative and interesting read.

As a devoted fan, it's been difficult for me to accept the breakup of Simon & Garfunkel after all these years. Sure, you can go see their solo concerts every now and then, but it's never the same. Thanks to Joe Morella's detailed explanations on what was actually happening between the two singers, I can now understand and accept what eventually had to happen, no matter how painful. It was particularly heartbreaking to learn that their relationship was such that Simon destroyed the sound track of Garfunkel's voice when they were initially producing "Hearts and Bones" as duo album. That's important to me as I still expect to live several more decades. Talking in the same vain, The Beatles Anthology (the book) served a similar purpose, as far as I'm concerned. I can now live with less frustrations.