This is the most widley used book and not that expensive so Isuggest if you are in the show and don't have a huge part, (ie theChorus) to use this book. It is easy to read and has all of the samethings as most of the others, I just got done using it and was verypleased.

Probably the most popular printed score of The Mikado, this G. Schirmer edition has been used for years and years by hundreds of amateur and professional groups in presenting the opera. All the music is contained here for piano and voice. The piano part is NOT EASY; it very closely follows Sullivan's originals. I particulary enjoy reading along with it when I listen to a recording.

I liked this book, because it is such a great play!

There were sections when the unabashed humor had me tittering like a schoolgirl. And there were sections that had me squirming, recalling what it was like to think and speak and act like a teenager. Mitchell has done a superb job conjuring the mood and scenery of Austria, along with the language and the people. He's also done a masterful job depicting the moral clashes that come from young men, unwilling to surrender their youthful playfullness, struggling to remain true to the rigid set of rules they have sworn to live by.

Mitchell does seem to capture the essence of a Mormon mission--the conflicts, the irritations, and the deep feelings. I was convulsing with some of the humor and moved by the deeper parts. It was a good read and might help someone understand a little about what a Mormon missionary experiences.

A unusual, often startling but wonderfully refreshing Mormon missionary novel. Angel, which promises to be to Mormon missionary fiction what God's Army is to the Mormon missionary film, is a moving and comical account of a young man's successful search for spiritual wholeness amidst an (Austrian) world of rejection. Tracking Elder Barry Monroe's spiritual odyssey through the Austria Vienna Mission is something like tracking Huckleberry Finn's discovery of his and Jim's humanhood, and even more like following Henderson on his comic journey into the heart of Africa in Saul Bellow's Henderson the Rain King. In fact, in Alan Mitchell we may have discovered our Mormon Saul Bellow. Writing his missionary journal in California-hip dialect (Mark Twain did it almost as well in Huck Finn), Elder Monroe, who calls everyone "Dude," is wacky and comical and essentially serious as he stands atop his bedrock Mormonness and calls the nonplused Austrians to repentance. Writing from what is obviously his own sound faith in the power of the gospel to change and improve lives, Mitchell has hung a rich and literarily satisfying coming-of-age novel upon an infrastructure of Austrian folklore and the ups-and-downs of Mormon missionary life. The result is a landmark novel unique in Mormon fiction that will delight everyone-except, perhaps, the Church Missionary Committee (Angel of the Danube will not become a supplement to the white Missionary Handbook). The rest of us will enjoy this fresh, original, thoroughgoingly Mormon, albeit wonderfully unorthodox treatment of the First Principles' pattern of the journey to belief. Hurrah for Alan Mitchell's rich contribution to Mormon letters and positive and affirming answer to the question: "what is left to be said, in fiction, about the life of a Mormon missionary!"

Richard H. Cracroft Nan Osmond Grass Professor in English Brigham Young University

While in todays political climate of extremes -wherein books celebrating America can actually cause contreversy- it is refreshing to read a collection of essays defending the constitution. Yes, I was excited when I read this collection, but the further I went, the more something just didn't feel right.

I came away convinced that the authors should have subtitled their collection "apologia for the constitution" as every essay (save for one on campaign finance), no matter if it was on the two party system, amending the constitution or state vs. federal pwer, always reached the same conclusion - "It's perfect the way it is. Don't change a thing, really!" Not only that, but it felt to me like the reasoning used was simply an instrument for arrival at this desired conclusion. In other words, the essays crossed the line from polemic to propoganda. A few examples:

In an essay written to convince us that a two-party system is the most democratic of all, the author gives one sole reason. Only in a two party system can a candidate be elected by over 50% - hence, a majority. The more parties, the more you divide the vote. Why does this seem like a strange argument? Because most people don't vote anyhow and there's much reason to believe that it is BECAUSE of the lack of choice casued by that system. (When we do the math, G.W. Bush garnered maybe 30% of all possible votes as many people didn't cast any vote) It seems plausable to me that by representing more viewponts by increasing third party viablility, we would increase voter turnout and we'd wind up with higher overall percentages in any given camp. Sound far-fetched? Too many political scientists have entertained this notion for the essayist to blindly ignore it.

Second example: In an article on state v. federal power, the essayist unqestionably (and I mean this literally, not figuratively) sides with federal power. She blithely tells us that the founders wanted the federal government to be larger than state governments but doesn't explain why, if that was the case, the ninth or tenth amendments needed to be written or why we settled on the name "the UNITED STATES" instead of just America. She didn't even ask why, if the federalists were really as federalistic as she draws them, acts on a national scale like voting was constitutionally assigned to be conducted by the seperate states.

I can't say unilaterally that these essays are wrong simply becasue I disagree with the conclusions (despite the fact that, for the most part, I do). I simply wish that the authors had went about proving their cases by arguing for the conclusions. Instead, each essay simply picks a conclusion and skates smoothly towards it. Not much substance.

This book does not approach the brilliance and eloquence of the original work by Hamilton, Madison, and Ray. While this book's essays are somewhat interesting in their own right, the authors overstep the bounds of literary license by using the title of "New Federalist Papers."

Somehow the authors have transformed the original debate between federalists and anti-federalists into a liberal-conservative one. This large leap of logic soils the otherwise informative essays. Alan Brinkley displays himself as the leader of a lynch mob against conservatives. Because of this book's obvious political bias, it does not deserve a setting at the academic table. It only belongs on the coffee table, or more accurately, beneath one.

Ambitious title, I thought, but Brinkley, Polsby, and Sullivan rescue the Constitution from common misconceptions, mostly invented by political campaign consultants and lobbyists, that have undermined civic discourse. The New Federalist, more than the original, transcends passions and interests, left and right, and fairly instructs a vastly larger audience on the historical, political, and legal fundamentals of the Constitution. The authors direct our attention to the most vital aspects of the original and help us all understand how the Consitiution rewards the peaceable and constructive expression of the human tendency toward conflict and guides the regulation of Liberty without self immolation. You will understand the Constitution's greatness and it's fragility. Read it twice. Buy copies for your friends. Threaten to leave your book club if they do not assign it and allow extra time for discussing it. The soul of the original is present in these well-written essays.