Television Books

It's unfortunate that when talking about Jeff Smith, there's always the issue of what did or didn't happen in his personal life, but for those of us who were fans of the show we will always remember him for what he was, one of the top voices in food television long before anyone ever even thought of the Food Network. He had intelligence, humor, and a warmth of personality that only a handful of people could ever communicate through cathode rays, and those same traits are to be found here in these pages.
The Frugal Gourmet Cooks American is hands down my favorite of his cookbooks, and one of my absolute favorite cookbooks ever. It's a wonderful lesson in American cuisine and full of wonderful recipes. I frequently find it sitting on my coffee table, and it gets read, even when I'm not looking to cook anything.

First off, I'm a big fan of Smith, nevermind all the scandal. I watched his show religiously when I was a kid, and his were the first cookbooks I ever really read. He got me into cooking, for sure. This is one of his better books. Interesting lessons, great recipes, both unique and familiar. Some of my best versions of things, like chicken and dumplings, jambalya, barbeque, biscuits, and chili come directly from this book. Like all his recipes, they're straightforward, and always turn out well. I love his writing "voice", he always made me feel welcome in his world, and I view this book as a comfort, these days. It's like slipping into a favorite sweater. Even if you don't cook from it, it's worth reading just to read.

The Frugal Gourmet' Jeff Smith shows us some great American standards with interesting historic information to boot with this authentic American cook book! This is an excellent cook book for everyone. Jeff Smith has another winner here! It's full of great recipes and stories by a very talented cook and writer. This one focuses on American cooking. I have used many of these recipes and found them to be very good. Being a home grown cook myself and having a mother who is a fantastic cook, I found this book to be very helpful in expanding my culinary taste buds.

Jeff Smith entertained us for years on his PBS program 'The Frugal Gourmet'. Not only did he teach us many savory dishes, he also educated us. Not satisfied with just cooking delicious meals for his viewers, he would give detailed history lessons about the origins of the dish and made it all a lot of fun!

This may be Mr. Smiths best cook book and it is a worthy edition to everyone's cook book library. I own and have read many, if not all of his cook books, not only for the man's knowledge of cooking, but his incredible wit! This guy was funny and I would have loved to have hung out and throw a few beers down with him.

Unfortunately, this man had some very seriously bad press released about his personal life and well..... I am not one to spread rumors.....he seemed like a great guy and sadly he died before he was able to clear his name.

R.I.P. Frugs!

This is a great book, not only in the recipies (which are all wonderful), but in the stories BEHIND the recipies: where it all came from. I used this book quite a bit in the States, and now that I live in Germany I don't know what I would do without it. Our friends are always asking me for TRUE American dishes (not just the hamburgers everyone associates with the States.)

I really love all thoseHistory stories about GeorgeWashington, Thomas JeffersonThe Pilgrims Etc. that went along with the recipes.I hope that Jeff Smith will return to Television very,very soon.

Vishnevskaya's reputation for forthrightness AND the sub-title she chooses here --A Russian Story-- indicate strong intentions for this book. Not 'MY Russian Story', but 'A Russian Story', because Galina Vishnevskaya tells an epic Russian story, honoring with a severe truth the Russia of sorrows of which her story forms but a unique part. This is no prima donna's idle tableau of a curtained career. Vishnevskaya's art comes of suffering, & she doesn't head down that road. She divulges her art generously, but her attitude never self serves. Her aim is always higher - she's interested to say not only what HAPPENED in Soviet life, but what WAS. and WHO!--- Vishnevskaya regularly excoriates with galvinizing abandon the soviet lackeys with whom she had to deal! She names names and motives, because it's the damned truth! The West in general and artists in particular owe a huge debt to Rostropovich and Vishnevskaya for the willing sacrifice of themselves in exile for the simple truth. Rostropovich garners the commentary in the West with the cello & conducting, but Galina is the heart of genius, and THAT seems the telling component in this book. Her depiction of Solzhenitsyn is heartrending, and stands as the book's axis; everything leads to it, and derives from it. Her friendship with Shostakovich, her brilliant feelings toward him-- an almost daughterly reverence informed by the highest artistic aesthetic. It's also through the part Shostakovich played in her life that we meet a musically learned Galina as well. She was a musician FIRST, singer second. How rare and wonderful - no wonder Slava fell in love! Galina dances with the shadows of Shostakovich throughout, & it's one of the book's endearing aspects. There are wonderful stories too of Britten and his music, & a surprisingly frank exposition of Furtseva, soviet Minister of Culture, whose enigmatic machinations both helped and ill-served Galina more than once. Vishnevskaya can sing AND write! The book ends when you don't want it to, leaving Russia... it's ultimately a love story -- Galina and Russia. Maybe she'll yet write her American story.

"...We were actors in real life and human beings on the stage."

Thus spake Galina Vishnevskaya, in interviews she and her husband, Mstislav ("Slava") Rostropovich, gave in Paris in 1983, captured in a companion book ("Russia, Music, and Liberty: Conversations with Claude Samuel.") to this one. The quotation barely begins to suggest the Kafkaesque world in which they lived, when they were musical artists of the highest order in the Soviet Union.

Vishnevskaya was a "prima donna assoluta" at the Bolshoi Opera during her prime, arguably the finest Russian soprano of all time. And, as her prime overlapped those of Maria Callas and Renata Tebaldi, one can only wonder what her international reputation might have been had her career been entirely in the west; the first two-thirds (and best) part of it was largely away from the gaze of the international music community.

This is, as she subtitles it, her "Russian story" covering her life up to the final hours in 1976 when she left the Soviet Union, eventually (two years later) as an exile. And it almost ended before it ever started.

Born in poverty to parents who abandoned her to her grandmother, she possessed an incredible voice as a child. Largely self-taught, and then - at age sixteen - improperly taught - she didn't learn proper voice technique until after she had established a beginning career in operetta. Then she contracted TB, and the doctor caring for her offered that the only cure - which she refused - was to collapse the infected lung. It was only by mortgaging her future singing fees for black-market purchase of scarce antibiotics that she recovered.

In 1952, in her mid-twenties, she auditioned for the youth group of the Bolshoi Opera Theater, was instantly accepted, underwent a meteoric rise through the Bolshoi ranks on her voice and talent, and soon became the prima diva of the troupe. In 1955, she met Rostropovich, whose courting of her is one of the few lighthearted sections of an otherwise chilling tale of intrigue, deception and lies in the intelligentsia circles in which the pair of them existed and performed.

The next two decades (1955 - 1975) of this journal focus largely on one person, and the special relationship that they had with him: Dmitri Shostakovich. As artists, it was only natural that their paths would cross and thereafter, for the rest of Shostakovich's life, intertwine. But this was more than acquaintanceship; it was friendship based on trust during Shostakovich's years when it was virtually impossible for him to trust anyone. And Vishnevskaya defended that trust with the ferocity of a tiger. One anecdote of her ferocity will suffice as an example.

In the early 1960's, the poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko was well-published in "accepted" Soviet literature journals despite his "rebelliousness." His famous poem, "Babi Yar" (1961) about the German slaughter of Ukranian Jews during WW II, gained overnight success, and Shostakovich, moved by the poem's message, placed it at the core of his Thirteenth Symphony with Yevtushenko's warm agreement. The work received its Russian premiere "as is" on December 18, 1962, and was tumultuously received by the audience but not by officials of the state, who read into it a message of Russian complicity in the matter of anti-Semitism, a subtext of Yevtushenko's that was undoubtedly accurate, as he revised the text shortly after the premiere without consulting Shostakovich. Some years later, in London where Vishnevskaya and Rostropovich met up with Yevtushenko, Vishnevskaya gave Yevtushenko a tongue-lashing over his "revisionism" that runs several pages.

In an act of supreme political courage involving another Russian writer, Rostropovich provided refuge, for four years in the early '70's, to Alexander Solzhenitsyn, whose writings on conditions in the Soviet Union were officially banned. Solzhenitsyn subsequently went into political exile, but this act of courage was to have its effect on the careers of Vishnevskaya and Rostropovich, particularly the latter, who for all intents and purposes had his abilities to perform and conduct stripped away from him. Only by "pulling in markers" were the two of them able to secure permission from Brezhnev to go abroad on a two-year "artistic leave."

"Galina" ends on a note of uncertainty and apprehension, as Vishnevskaya, in 1976, boards a plane with her two daughters to join Rostropovich in the West, eventually (1978) in exile when their citizenship was revoked for the Solzhenitsyn matter. But this is merely the end of her "first" Russian life and the beginning of another, more international, one. Her own career as a diva continued for nearly another decade; Rostropovich went on to become an internationally-known conductor while continuing his career as a preeminent cellist; with "perestroika," they made an historic return to Moscow in 1990 (after Gorbachev restored their citizenship), at which Rostropovich conducted what is to me the finest performance of Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique" Symphony (immortalized on a Sony CD that also included Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever" and William Schuman's orchestral arrangement of Charles Ives's "Variations on America").

Nowadays Vishnevskaya loves to brag about her six thoroughly-Americanized grandchildren. They oversee the Rostropovich-Vishnevskaya Foundation, a charity for immunizing Russian children against disease. She recently founded the Galina Vishnevskaya School of Opera in Moscow, for providing master classes to promising young artists. All in all, a rather remarkable "follow-up" for this peripatetic pair of seemingly perpetually-young 75-year-olds.

But the clock cannot be turned back. "Galina" serves as a gripping reminder of how things were over the fifty years that the two of them spent in the Soviet Union. And, at least as important for me, it serves as one of the most honest and accurate appraisals of Dmitri Shostakovich the person as one is likely to find, from one who knew and loved him as a true friend.

Even in a totalitarian society, supreme artistry can sometimes carry clout. For Vishnevskaya (and Rostropovich), there was enough clout - barely - to get out and "live to tell about it." Thankfully.

Bob Zeidler

Of all the singer's biographies I've read (which is plenty!) this remains at the top of the heap. It is a journey that could have only come from the pen of Vishnevskaya and, unlike so many autobiographies which eventually turn into a "And then I sang _____, and then I sang at the White House, and then I . . . " Galina reads almost like a novel. Her description of the Soviet Union during the war years is positively chilling. The road she took to success, punctuated by hardships followed by tragedies is never less than enthralling. How many biographies can truly be called "page turners?" Well, this is one!

The insights she gives into the Soviet system, the role and treatment of artists by the government, her personal views on politicians, singers, composers all come off with rare candor that almost caused me to blush.

Feeling mezzo soprano Elena Obratzsova had been been a betrayer, she humiliated the young singer in public shouting out "Judas" writing of Obratzsova's exit, "Like a snake with a broken spine, she crawled past the amazed Americans, who stood aside to let her pass." Ouch!

My favorite passage from the book succinctly, and pointedly paints the most vivid picture of the Soviet system:


In this vast, monstrous theater, with our faces twisted by
underground jargon, we Soviets wriggle and squirm for one
another. We are actors by compulsion, not by calling, in an
amateur theater run by no one. And all our lives we perform our
endless, pathetic comedy. There are no spectators, only
participants. Nor is there a script, only improvisation. And
knowing neither plot nor denoument, we act.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Whether or not one is a fan of opera, this will prove to be an enlightening, fascinating read.

[Taken from my review of the hardcover edition - same comments nevertheless apply.]

As one reads this book, where Gospozhá (Mme.) Vishñévskaja is throughout blunt about everything she turns her pen to, one really gets not only great entertainment generally (it is most excellently written!!); it is a superb window into the Russian soul at its best in addition to being an outstanding analysis of the conditions of artistry, artistic life and life generally under the Soviets!! It also serves as an excellent guide into the great composer Dmítriy Dmitrjévich Shostakóvich's life and artistry as well as that of her husband Mstíslav Ljeopóljdovich Rostropóvich; furthermore, its recounting some of the scandals forced by the Communist leadership when they couldn't accept the fame and worthiness of such books as "Doktor Zhivágo", "The First Circle" and "The GULag Archipelago" as well as such pieces of music as "Lady Macbeth of Mcjénsk District", the 13th Symphony and enough other works of Shostakóvich is positively juicy even in the midst of the disgust and revolt caused by reading how intolerant Communism really is!!!

An ABSOLUTE MUST for any intelligent person to read and have in his library - especially if he is into the arts and/or politics in any way whatsoever!!!! This is one of those relatively rare books which both entertains AND edifies - and does it all superbly (what a life experience on her part!)!!!!

[POSTSCRIPT: This very book (which I've enjoyed rereading MANY, many times!!!) also was critically influential in preparing me to go hear - and fall in love with!!!! - Shostakóvich's operatic 'magnum opus' "Lady Macbeth of Mcjénsk District" when it was given its Canadian première by the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto in 1988.]

Galina, né Pavlova, has many interesting stories to tell about her remarkable life: as a baby abandoned by her parents, an army officier and a polish/gypsy mother, she was raised by her paternal grandmother. Galina overcame so many difficulties in her life, surviving the blockade of Leningrad during the war and so many hardships such as tuberculosis and starvation. Unlike so many singers' biographies, this intelligent artist shares more than anecdotes about the opera world and her many successes in the theatre. She speaks of her personal friendships with people such as composer Shostakovich her neighbor, scientist Andrei Sakarov, also a neighbor, and writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a live-in guest in her dacha. There is much commentary written with not a little bitterness about the Soviet authorities who so often thwarted her career and blocked free expression in the arts within the Soviet country and in other countries where she was invited to perform. She writes very well and with much insight into philosophy, human relations, personalities, etc. I found the book very absorbing and hard to put down. Her close friendship with British composer Benjamin Britten also yields many stories of their memorable times together both at Aldeburgh and on vacation in Armenia and Russia. Her remarkable and at times stormy marriage to cellist/conductor Mstislav Rostropovich, her third husband, brought about big changes in her life, and their mutual courage and boldness to stand up for freedom against the Soviet regime cost them their citizenship.

Got it, enjoyed it.....ordered it with another book that I never got, but that's okay!

This book is a must have for anyone who is an Earl Hamner or Walton fan. Mr. Hamner's rawest emotions exude from each page as he so eloquently shares his thoughts and experiences about the women of his latest book.

This book was very well written. The ladies written about were interesting people.

Reviewed by Debra Gaynor for Reader Views (2/07)

"Each of our lives is the result of a myriad of encounters with an astonishing variety of our fellow human beings." Earl Hamner celebrates the lives of 29 remarkable women that touched his life.

Where else would Mr. Hamner start than with his mother, Doris Giannini Hamner? "My mother and father had a good marriage. They genuinely loved each other. Some evidence that they got along reasonably well is that eight children were the result of their love." His series "The Walton's" was based on memories of his childhood growing up in Virginia.

Ellen Corby played the part of Grandma Walton in the TV series. Ellen brought tartness to a show filled with sweet characters. While Ellen and Earl did not always see eye to eye they developed a strong friendship over the years. Ellen's life defines tenacity. After suffering a stroke she returned to her role as Grandma uttering the words, "Need Me!"

Patricia Neal played the role of Olivia in the special "The Homecoming." She was beautiful and elegant. She later stated that the reason she didn't play Olivia in the series was because she "wasn't asked."

Olivia was my favorite character in the series. Michael Learned "was then and remains today, a radiant actress, an exciting and loyal friend." The stress of a long running series took its toll on both Earl and Michael but their friendship persevered.

Famed author Earl Hamner celebrates the lives and offers thanks to the women who generously gave to his life. He includes his mother, wife, daughter and various other people, some famous and some not so famous. As I read this book, I kept hearing that famous voice echo from the past. It was as though I could hear "John Boy" reading to me. Earl is an excellent writer and I truly enjoyed his perspective on these wonderful women. We should all take time to thank the people that contribute to our lives. I highly recommend "Generous Women" to everyone.

In his introduction to Generous Women, Earl Hamner quotes from one of his favorite books, Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward Angel. He says "...it prompted me to count some of the influences on my life and how they led me to become the man I am today." In his latest book, Hamner counts those influences in the form of short vignettes, some poignant, some funny, and some surprising, about the women he has known throughout his life.

For Hamner fans, the joy of reading his books is that, with each one, we learn a little more about him. In Generous Women we glean more about his college and army days, and his early career, in the context of the helpful and giving women he encounters at each stage. As his biographer, Jim Person, says in Earl Hamner: From Walton's Mountain to Tomorrow, "...there are pervasive themes that run throughout Hamner's work, which shows a man forever taking a backward glance to his roots for direction in the way of what makes life worthwhile, [and] who allows that vision to direct his steps forward..."

Generous Women is a beautiful read and a genuine tribute to a wide assemblage of women who have offered Hamner important gifts at impressionable moments. Would that more of us had Hamner's open-hearted capacity to overlook the negative and to offer similar expressions of gratitude for the positive interactions in our lives. I'm hoping a companion book, Generous Men, is to follow.

While a major Hollywood luminary of the late 1920s and early 1930s, British-born stage/film star George Arliss (who won an Oscar for 1929's Disraeli) is too little known by modern generations. This detailed biography provides a rich study of Arliss's long life--both on and off camera--bringing the unusual (by Tinseltown standards) leading man into sharp focus.

A book well worth buying and reading!

Once famous as "The First Gentleman of the Talking Screen" and winner of the Best Actor Oscar (1929/30) for "Disraeli", George Arliss returns to the limelight thanks to the (almost) single-handed efforts of Mr. Fells (Turner Classic Movies also occasionally shows Arliss films). More than a biography, this book places Arliss' personal story of defying conventional wisdom to become successful on stage and screen (silent and sound) in the larger context of Hollywood in the 1920s-30s. Thoroughly researched and elegantly written - in the Arliss tradition!

"George Arliss: The Man Who Played God" was not only an interesting portrait of the man, but also a snapshot of the entertainment industry in general during the 50 years Arliss appeared on stage and film. Although Arliss' career may be obscure to contemporary moviegoers, after reading Mr. Fells' well-researched biography, Arliss' legacy was apparent - both on and off screen - through both his artistic and financial successes. In my choice of reading material, I enjoy being entertained while I'm being educated, and this book certainly met that criteria - I highly recommend it!

George Arliss, in his day a top star, is today the least-remembered of any, which makes this book especially welcome. Too bad its style is a bit pedestrian, but it does whet the appetite for Arliss's largely-unavailable output (Amazon has, through its contract supliers, his Oscar-winning "Disrael" and "The Iron Duke" and "Dr. Syn", and Movies Unlimited has "The Guv'ner" and "East Meets West", but his reputed two best, "The House of Rothschild" and "The Man Who Played God" don't seem available anywhere). The book points out Arliss's dedication (he insisted on two weeks's reheasal before shooting, even if he had to pay the Cast himself), sterling character (never a hint of scandal, no marital infidelity, etc), and modesty (he had full charge of all films and often wrote or rewrote screenplays, but insisted on being billed solely as an actor). For further info, see his two autobiographies, "Up the Years from Bloomsbury" and "George Arliss".

Full Disclosure compels me to say that I am the author so you know already that you won't be getting an exactly impartial viewpoint. My purpose here is two fold: first, to thank the individuals who have taken the time and effort to comment on my Arliss biography/critique. Researching and writing the book was a labor of love and, besides, there's nothing worse than being ignored.

My second reason is to merely add a point of information. As has been stated, very few of George Arliss's films are available on video, either VHS or DVD. But thank heaven for cable stations Turner Classic Movies and the Fox Movie Channel. With a little bit of patience, you can see all 13 of Mr. Arliss's American films on these two stations. Fox has gotten quite generous by running The House of Rothschild (1934) and Cardinal Richelieu (1935) every month, although Fox seems to be stingy about running the finale scene in "Rothschild" in its original Technicolor brilliance. It did show it in color back in 2001, but in the last year or so, Black & White seems to be the rule. Perhaps if we all email Fox, they might change its corporate mind. And while we're at it, let's urge FMC to run Arliss's comedy, The Last Gentleman (1934).

Turner schedules the Warners films, The Man Who Played God, The Working Man, and Voltaire, a couple of times a year. Perhaps with a bit of encouragement, TCM will program Disraeli, Old English, The Green Goddess, The Millionaire, Alexander Hamilton, A Successful Calamity, and The King's Vacation more often than once every few years. Is it possible that George Arliss could be a TCM Star of the Month? We'll never know if we don't ask!

Fans of soul music will find Richard Younger's Get a Shot of Rhythm and Blues to be a fine biography of one Arthur Alexander, a singer/songwriter who may not be well known by name, but whose songs influenced the 1960s rock musicians. A fine coverage of his life and achievements is presented in a lively survey of soul and rock and roll music.

This is a great book that provides clear and concise insight into the life of Arthur Alexander. The story behind the singer, the songwriter and a true influence behind some of the greatest figures of rock and roll. This story should be made into a movie so everyone can learn about this unsung hero. Richard Younger has researched Arthur's life, the people he affected directly, and the soul of this talented man. READ THIS BOOK AND LEARN THE STORY OF A MAN WHO DESERVES TO BE RECOGNIZED AND REMEMBERED!!!

After being a fan of Arthur Alexander in the early sixties he seemed to drop out of sight, occassional records but very little else seemed to appear, this book puts the record straight and fills in all those gaps. It also goes a long way to answering the reasons that he did not make it to the position in the music scene that his undoubted talent deserved. The book is very well written by Richard Younger who obviously felt very deeply about the subject, he deals with the problems that AA encountered in his music career and his private life. It was sad that at the very time that AA was begining to make a comeback and he was again showing the talent that was always there he was taken from us. He had become religious during the last few years and this seemed to have a calming effect on him and I am sure that he would have again had big selling records. Thank you Richard for an insight into the life of Arthur Alexander through the highs and lows.

Fans of soul music will find Richard Younger's Get A Shot Of Rhythm And Blues to be a fine biography of one Arthur Alexander, a singer/songwriter who may not be well known by name, but whose songs influenced the 1960s rock musicians. A fine coverage of his life and achievements is presented in a lively survey of soul and rock and roll music.

Arthur Alexander was always a mystery man - till now! Richard Younger's biography of one of the most distinctive and influential black singers of the 60s sheds sympathetic illumination upon the life, the music - and the demons - of this woefully underrated singer/songwriter (the only writer to have songs cut by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan). AA's hugely-satisfying vocals married to his distinctive soul-country arrangements (his reputation was founded on just four 1962 Dot-label singles) emerged moments before the UK beat boom swept the globe and was crucial in its influence on the Beatles and the Stones. Younger's book explains how it all came about, taking us on a roller-coaster ride through AA's life of musical and personal extremes. With a series of revealing interviews he transports us to the heart of the Alabama music scene and charts Arthur's role in the foundation of the Muscle Shoals/Fame recording empires. Whether you're a long-term Alexander devotee, a soul music buff, or simply a Sixties survivor, then you'll find this unputdown-able tome a tonic that'll have you listening with a fresh ear to those perennial Alexander classics.

The book is a really good reference on Disney records. The color pictures are a really nice addition.

This book is for hard core collectors of Walt Disney records on vinyl and in that respect it is indespensible. There is plenty of material for the Disney amateur historians too. The real treat for all the rest of us is 250 plus color photos of album covers and recordings. It's enough to give anyone the collecting bug. A very complete guide hat lists all of the Walt Disney record even on other labels. Lists picture discs, Little Golden Books, soundtracks to movies and TV shows, storybooks, and material from Disneyland. Includes EP's, 33 1/3 LPs, 45's, and 78's including alll records from 1933 to 1988. Functional table of contents and index help to locate items in the book. Very useful material on accurate grading the condition of records. A short history on the history of Disney records is in the book, an animated film filmography, and the music composers for all of Disney on film is very useful. Softbound covers, no dust jacket, 256 pages in length.

If you are also interested in the process, the how and why of the music of Disney, you also need to read the wonderful book, "The Musical World of Walt Disney" by David Tietyen.

I enjoy this book alot - it's complete and chock-full of useful information concerning the collection of Disney Records. Of course the prices are something to behold too (I figure I have about $50,000 (hyperbole) in my collection). The guide is very well organized and the individual entries usually consist of a picture, record number, brief description (at least enough to identify a particular cover version) and price. The guide even goes so far as to identify non-Disney labels issuing Disney material.

I wish the guide went into deeper discussions of the various Disney labels and the inner sleeves. I have several examples of, say, a Buena Vista label, and between the two BV labels, they are different! Which one to collect? Sometimes the guide falls a little short, but not often enough to prevent me from recommending this book for the serious collector or even the curious weekender.

Overall, to me, it's a valuable reference and fun to ponder. Now it's always a thrill to find a Disney record and read about some of the history behind it.

Happy hunting...

This is an invaluable resource for Disney record collectors. Beautiful pictures and detailed discriptions of every record the Disney company ever released. The prices listed might seem high, unless you remember that they are only for records in near perfect condition. I have already bought 2 copies.

This softbound 256 page book is a handy 6 x 9" making it convenient to take with you as you antique. It contains more than 250 full color, sharp photos of album covers and recordings. This is the first comprehensive price guide and discography covering the complete output of Disney recorded music on both Disney and other labels. It covers the years 1933 to 1988 and is very complete. There is a useful table of contents and index making it easy to locate items. A history and condition guide is provided. Topics range from LPs, 45's, 78's to Little Golden Records. You can't collect items of this topic without this guide. Add it to your library.

Berg does a great job, and the subject is absolutely a fascinating one.

A. Scott Berg does an excellent job in capturing the life of one of the American cinema's first industry moguls. From his tough beginning as an immigrant to his phenomenal success as an independent producer, this entertaining and fascinating biography delves deeply into the man with the "Goldwyn touch." Berg also effectively captures the spirit of early cinema and its rapid rise in American culture. Along the way, we also learn about many of Hollywood's colorful personalites, including Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford. This book is a must for any fan of early American motion pictures.

What a story! A remarkably easy to read account of Sam Goldwyn's rags-to-riches life. Did you know "Goldwyn" was not his real name? Did you know he was thrown out of the MGM company after a few years?! Goldwyn worked at some stage or other with just about every famous name in the business, and also fell out with just about everybody he ever met. A cantankerous and perverse character who loved contradicting people. When people quit because he made their lives intolerable, he sometimes felt personally attacked and betrayed. The book is full of colourful characters, and Scott Berg has done a wonderful job of using quotations and dialogues to really bring these people alive: Gary Cooper, Marlon Brando, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Lillian Hellman, William Wyler, Billy Wilder, and the remarkable Hilda Berl. It reads like a movie! By tracing Goldwyn's history, the book also covers the story of many of the other famous movie companies that are still famous today: United Artists, Universal, Paramount, Warner Brothers, RKO and of course MGM. Goldwyn also came across many young actors and actresses before they were stars: Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier, David Niven, Marlon Brando, John Wayne, etc. And of course the famous Goldwyn malapropisms are here, though limited to the ones actually traceable (as far as possible) to Goldwyn himself: "Anyone who sees a psychiatrist should have their head examined! Include me out! A verbal agreement isn't worth the paper it's written on," to pick just a few.

A remarkably well-written and well-researched biography that brings this vigorous, infuriating, yet oddly attractive ugly duckling to vibrant life. This must rank amongst the best biographies, up there with Ron Chernow's book about the Morgans. Anyone at all interested in movies and movie history will enjoy this.

I picked this book up at the library not knowing what to expect and was amazed! Although it is indeed a biography of Sam Goldwyn, it is also a very well told piece about the studio system and Hollywood in the first half of the century (with an emphasis on the 20's) Not only insightful but entertaining; it makes for a read more gossipy than the trashiest celeb autobiography while maintaining class and style.

I recommend this book to anyone the least bit interested in the classic hollywood days. It is the best book I've read thus far on the era, and it will get you down to the video store hunting down old movies just to see the actors and actresses you've read about.

Great book! I enjoyed reading about a man who literally came from poverty to be on of Hollywood's pioneer filmmakers. He was a rough man to work with no doubt, but knew what worked and lasted in an industry that is hard to last in! A. Scott Berg did a wonderful job of writing a respectful book about this man!

I love, love, LOVE this play.

It is wrought with the same care and cleverness of the Bard Himself. It is a Cinderella story with a feminist twist, with oodles of authentic Shakespeare woven right in. It borrows from the best of Shakespeare's comedy, complete with a breeches role.

Every single character is absolutely hilarious and drawn with a deft hand.

Fabulous.

I love this play! I would love to have my students perform it, but alas there are one or two pages that are a little too suggestive for the innocents in our cohort.
I actually enjoyed this play more than I enjoyed Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. It is witty and clever with just enough tongue-in-cheek.

Two reviewers from HS drama clubs, and one comparison to Japanese anime. Don't let that mislead you into thinking this is some lightweight juvenile fluff. It is more in the line of Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead. As someone who has loved reading and watching Shakespeare's plays for over 35 years, I am delighted to see Ann-Marie MacDonald not only play with Shakespeare but do it intelligently. Amidst the linguistic and theatric whimsey there are some true and serious observations and the best explanation yet of why some characters in Shakespeare's tragedys are such idiots. Who says learning can't be great fun?

Just finished a production of this at our school - absolutely halarious. Very, very much recommended for high school theater. Absolutely great

"Goodnight, Desdemona (Good Morning, Juliet)" is the funniest play I have ever read or seen. I am currently playing Constance in a high school production of the play, and the more we go along, the more we discover about the play. Upon first reading, it is an absolutely hilarious twist of Shakespeare's "Othello" and "Romeo and Juliet." But reading it a second, and even a third time will reveal subtle innuendos and wordings (warning: LOTS of sexual innuendos in this play!) that contain so much wit and humour that your respect for Anne-Marie MacDonald will grow with every scene. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. If you can familiarize yourself with the plots of both "Othello" and "Romeo and Juliet" before reading or seeing the play, then your enjoyment will increase, because you will have a basic understanding of how the characters have been re-interpreted. OH MY GOODNESS -- READ THIS PLAY!

Few writers are adept at recording colloquial dialogue (ordinary speech for a place), but GREEN MILE screenwriter and director Frank Darabont is not one of those writers. He's good at this. Real good. These examples illustrate my point:

· "Billy the Kid," scourge of the earth, says, "Niggers oughtta have they own 'lectric chair. White men oughtn't havta sit in no nigger 'lectric chair, nossir...

· Eduard Delacroix, Cajun, says, "Yeah, you take 'em, John. Take him til' dis foolishment done -- bien! After, you take him down to Florida? To dat Mouseville?"

· John Coffey, gentle, African American, says, "He kill 'em with they love. They love for each other. You see how it is? That's how it is ever' day. That's how it is all over the worl'."

Every character in Darabont's screenplay is defined through his/her speech, although not as obviously as these three. I suggest writers study his techniques and apply them to their own writing.

Note: Reading this screenplay is like experiencing the movie from the inside out, an adventure, fo' sure.

I bought this book after I saw the movie. The main reason is because this film touched me deeply. Secondly I collect screen plays. This is a true gem! The film's beauty is printed as an unforgettable story. Screen play is based on Novel series by Stephen King. Excellent screen play!!

I am amazed at the genius of Frank Darabont. SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION is the type of film that many directors spend their entire lives trying to make. That film alone is worthy of placing Darabont in the top echelon of modern directors. However, with THE GREEN MILE, Darabont has triumphed again. This screenplay is not as in depth as the SHAWSHANK shooting script. Nevertheless, it is still quite informative and is a useful resource for aspiring filmmakers. Transcribing an already successful published work into a successful movie is extremely difficult and rarely happens. However, Darabont has done it twice. A person can learn a great deal about writing just by reading this book. There's no better way to learn than to learn from a master.

With "The Green Mile: The Screenplay", writer-director Frank Darabont provides would-be screenwriters with an unprecedented look at how a perfect screen adaptation is written. Stephen King, author of the novel on which the film is based, has called Darabont's screenplay "hands-down, the best film adaptation I've ever read." Tom Hanks, the film's star, said of the screenplay, "It's that rarest thing, that thing you're always looking for, this piece of work that shows up on your desk, ready to shoot, and you look at it and say, 'Wow! We just have to show up and make this thing!'" In most situations, directors come to actors hat in hand, begging actors to work on a film. With "The Green Mile", Darabont had actors lining up to work in the film. Even actors of the stature of Gary Sinise were willing to take virtual cameos to appear in the film. The book contains Darabont's final shooting script, which even in that form, contains minor differences from the finished film. It also features introductions by Stephen King and Darabont, as well as a selection of stills and storyboards which give readers added insight into the production of what is easily this year's best film. Although lacking the in-depth analysis of changes in the screenplay which were present in Darabont's last book, "The Shawshank Redemption: The Shooting Script", this book is well worth reading, and, in copanionship with the forthcoming "The Making of 'The Green Mile'", will give readers a guided tour of the production of a modern film classic.

I discovered the first episodes of The Green Mile in Biloxi, Mississippi, and the last ones in France. I read them. I was moved by strong emotions, practically to tears, and yet I remained unsatisfied. I reread it when it came out in one volume, and I had the same sensation of frustration. The book, the story had two lines and the unity was not clear, the message was not obvious and it seemed to be that there is always a devil somewhere to torture, at times to death, the righteous and the innocent. The two time lines were not really reinforcing each other. The bad nurse of the old people's home was not a real continuation of Percy, and Percy did not have and could not have, does not have and cannot have a continuation. Evil in man is repetitive, but in no way continuing, developing, getting any kind of amplification with time. I have just been listening to a tape about the psychiatric hospitals of the old days (up to the mid 70s in France), and the doctors, the nurses, and even the patients, those who dedicated their whole life to get rid of that institution, compared these asylums to concentration camps and demonstrated how the inmates were reduced to animals, and yet resisting, how the rations (during World War II) where starvation rations meant to slowly kill the inmates by starving them. Doctor Lucien Bonnafé, MD, cannot be in any way stopped in his explanation of this alienation, of this reduction of men to vegetables, especially with the chemical straight jacket. Hitler did not invent concentration camps, and he did not invent eugenics, the cleansing of society of their misfits. He just systematised, industrialised it. But, But, BUT, I finally got to the screenplay of The Green Mile by Frank Darabont. He got that second time line out. He recentered the whole story on Paul, the only one Paul that crosses time. And then the light came out so strong that I was not moved any more, but literally blinded into ever stronger and never before experienced emotions, into unquenchable tears, tears that were a salvation, a redemption, an epiphany that would not ever satisfy and quench my thirst for optimistic humanism. This human world contains angels that can transform evil into good, and it is John Coffey, a black man. He has done that for a very long time, till the one day he gets trapped by his naivete and simplemindedness, because angels are naive, simpleminded and maybe slightly retarded, since then cannot conceive evil. When one does only good things and can only bring good news to the world, he is totally isolated, rejected, and thus he becomes the prey of all evil beings who will abuse him and trampled him down. And yet he is not completely trapped, because he comes to the point when he wants to go, to leave this world, where he can only love and be loved by fireflies. So he is happy when he gets trapped, relieved of this enormous responsibility of making the world better, of killing or repairing evil. Even if it means Death Row. But, before leaving, he gives his good nature to some other beings, even if he cannot give them his powers. Here it is a mouse, Mr Jingles, and a man, Paul. And his gift takes the form of a very long life. The very long life of telling the truth, the truth of God, the truth that killing is ugly, no matter whether it is criminal or judicial. Only life is beautiful, and the story of life has to be told forever and ever, to push death away, even if it is Death Row. This life story has to be told over and over again, just like a mouse will play with a spool forever. And thus, Darabont gets us to a universal lesson, to a unique and eternal metaphor. The writer, the storyteller is forever the one who will bring life to earth, real life, the life of justice, of beauty, of emotions, of truth, of entertainment, of happiness. The storyteller is God himself, or at least his angel, because he nourishes our souls with the desire to know a better world. When are we ever going to have the film, the video, so that we can be moved to frantic tears by the images that will demultiply the screenplay into a real piece of human paradise, in our dreams, in our night, in our daydream, in our sunshine of hope ?

This is a no-brainer. If you want to get a jump on video blogging and don't know where to start - buy this book. It's an easy read that is not that difficult to digest and understand.

Blog on!

Lionel Felix and Damien Stolarz take you step by step in their book Hands-On Guide to Video Blogging and Podcasting into the emerging new tools of a video blog or podcast.

[MORE INFO AT http:satisfyingsolutions.com]

Easy instructions make it simple to use and the book gives you the latest tools to quickly start video blogging and podcasting for your business.

Chapter one gives you an overlook on how to record and edit your video.

In chapter two the authors discuss the anatomy of a blog as well as a brief history of blogs.

As one reads on Chapter three discuss the main uses for video blogging and podcasting. In addition it also shows how mainstream media and corporate uses these two tools.

Chapters four,five, and six explain blogs and what kind of delivery should be given in this new technology.

Chapter seven incorporates the moblogging and podcasting and continues with chapter eight and one the go spaces and video.

Chapter nine fulfills the reader with essential tools for your computer as well as the software and hardware.

Chapter ten gives an insight on production and breaks down the recording, microphones, and editing.

Chapter eleven continues from the audio production and moves into video production.

Chapter twelve explains to the reader the pricing and hosting of band withs.

Chapter thirteen discusses how to go about assembling blog entries.

The next chapter discusses the important facts of licensing and copyrights.

Finally, chapter fifteen discusses case studies from websites such as ericrice and ryanedit.com.

Furthermore, this is a great hands-on tool to take you step by step in the process of blogging. Paul Gillin gives you the motivation to start your own blog and Felix and Stolarz give you the tools to make it your own.

This book supports Paul Gillin's ideas and the book The New Influencers by reiterating the fact that blogging and podcasting is the resource to business communications in digital media. It is so easy to follow along and not only helps with business aspects but entertainment and educational institutions too.

A. J. Baltes

I work for Loyola Marymount University. We recently decided to make all lectures available via Podcasts. I went searching for books on the subject in order to find a solution for the school. This book was by far the best book on the subject. It even gave us some ideas for video blogging that we hadn't previously considered. Without the precise and coherent coverage given to Podcasting in this book I doubt we would have a solution even half as good. Thanks to the authors for their great book. It has been invaluable.

If you want to get into Video Blogging and Podcasting this is the best book on the market today. Covers every aspect in detail while still making it all seem easy.

This hands-on guide is great for nailing down the nitty gritty of podcasting. Sure, there's nothing to it; you can make a podcast in a night. But then, once it's launched, there are SO many things to consider and so many ways to expand it. This is what makes casting a blast!

His nitty gritty on bandwidth, pricing plans, and especially the case studies of existing vidcasts and podcasts helped me a lot with refining my New Civilization Podcast.

Good stuff!

Zack