Z Books

I've been comparing The New Oxford Companion to Music, ed. Denis Arnold (1983; 2 volumes, 2,017 pages) with the latest edition: The Oxford Companion to Music, ed. Alison Latham (2002; 1,434 pages). In the estimable series of Oxford Companions you can usually expect the new edition to supersede and replace the old one. In this case, however, it's not that simple. A glance at the above reveals that the new edition, in one volume, is some 583 pages shorter than the preceding edition, in two volumes. Losing almost 600 pages of 2,000 represents a very substantial loss of material.

Moreover, when we examine the two editions, we discover that the 1983 edition is lavishly, indeed beautifully, illustrated ("1,100 halftone illustrations and line drawings, 405 music examples"). None of the illustrations are in color, but there is an abundance of well-chosen, functional, illuminating photos, portraits, paintings, manuscripts, figures, line drawings, plates, tables, musical examples. The new edition of 2002, alas, has virtually eschewed illustration: almost all of the illustrations of the 1983 edition have been scrapped. We get a comparative handful of musical examples and figures, but just about everything else has been eliminated; even the greatest composers aren't represented by a single likeness, whereas in the 1983 edition even lesser composers get a photo or portrait. If for example you want to understand what an accordion is, there is no substitute for a picture of one. The 1983 edition has a 4-page entry on "accordion," with photos of four different types (including a musician playing one), plus 2 explanatory diagrams. The 2002 edition has a page-length entry with no illustrative material at all. I find this a significant loss, a significant cheapening of the book, and a significant diminution in the pleasure of using it. It's revealing that Alison Latham, the 2002 editor, refers to the "wealth of illustrative material" as one of the assets of Denis Arnold's 1983 edition, but makes no mention of the fact that she has thrown out almost all of it.

But that's not all. If for example we look up "organ" in the 1983 edition, we find a truly comprehensive 20-page entry, with 20 illustrations (plates, figures, tables, drawings, photos). In the 2002 edition we find a 6-page entry with 8 figures; this represents a radical abridgment of the earlier article.

Could "organ" be an unhappy fluke? No, unfortunately it's not. I looked up "trumpet," "violin," and "piano," and found the same result in each case: a truly drastic loss of material, both text and illustration, in the new edition.

If you look up any of the hundred standard repertory operas in the 1983 edition, you find the basic facts about composer, librettist, and premiere, plus a synopsis of the action, and often an apt illustration and "Further Reading" suggestions. If you look up any of the same operas in the 2002 edition, you find a very short entry (Carmen, for example, gets three lines; Tristan und Isolde gets two lines) giving the basic facts about composer, librettist, premiere--no synopsis, no illustration, no reading list.

So you can see why the 2002 edition of this book was received with reservation, indeed with downright disappointment, by those who were familiar with the 1983 edition. Why would Oxford UP have made such Draconian changes? Well, the governing perception seems to have been that the 1983 edition, lavishly illustrated and in two volumes, had outgrown its purpose and over-reached its market. Evidently many found the two-volume format cumbersome and too expensive. The 2002 edition, by eliminating almost all of the illustrations and reducing the size to a single volume, has cheapened and abridged the book, rendered it much less attractive, and in many areas reduced its usefulness, but has made it handier and more affordable.

Does the 2002 edition have no redeeming qualities, then, but cheapness and one-volume convenience? Indeed it does have its virtues. For one, it's up-to-date. A blurb on its dustcover breathlessly claims, "Now, thirty years after the last edition, this invaluable companion is back in a completely new edition"--a barefaced falsehood: the period between the two editions was 19 years, not 30. But the new edition benefits from the scholarship of the last two decades; many new and updated articles ("over 1,000 new entries") reflect the perspective of 2002. Many articles conclude with mini-bibliographies (in both editions), and these are inevitably more current and useful in the 2002 edition.

Perhaps the most valuable feature of the new edition is the inclusion for the first time of entries not just for composers but for distinguished performing musicians. In the 1983 (and earlier) edition, there were no entries for conductors, singers, instrumentalists. In the 2002 edition you'll find entries for Toscanini, Walter, Furtwangler, Caruso, Melba, Ponselle, Melchior, Flagstad, Callas, Heifetz, Casals, Artur Rubinstein, Horowitz, Segovia, Dennis Brain, and many others. This change was overdue and certainly enhances the usefulness of the book. Many of the "over 1,000 new entries" in the 2002 edition are in this category. "Space limitations have restricted these [entries] to artists who are no longer alive and who had significant influence on composition or performance." These entries are also limited to classical musicians.

In some cases the perspective of 2002 has warranted an expanded version of a composer entry in the 1983 edition. For example, Orff, Moussorgsky, and Scriabin all get expanded treatments (but lose their portraits) in the new edition.

So, what to do; which Companion to choose? My solution is obvious but perhaps not very helpful: if you love music and like good reference books, get both. I believe the Alison Latham 2002 edition should be viewed as an updated supplement to the more substantial and lavish 1983 edition, not as a replacement. Denis Arnold's 1983 two-volume edition was the first complete revision since the original 1938 Oxford Companion to Music, edited (and largely written) by Percy Scholes; it is not perfect, but I think it represents the high-water mark of the three editions. If you have only the spartan 2002 edition, be aware that you are missing much of value and beauty in the 1983 edition. (Unfortunately I'm not the only one who has noticed that the 2002 edition is no replacement for the 1983 edition: if you check prices for used copies of the 1983 edition in the USA, you'll find that they are high.) If you own both editions, you can enjoy the best of both worlds. If I could own only one, I'd keep the 1983.

This set of two books has everything. From Beethoven's Sonatas, to who was Beethoven, to what's a Sonata and many many others. Pumped up with 2000 pages of music knowlledge, this Encyclopedia of Music, is a must for every musician as well as anyone who is a lover of music. It's great and it certainly helped me for the preparations of my studies in the area of Music. I give it 5 stars, how could I do otherwise ?

We bought this book after our trip in New York.
Our sons love it. They remenbered all they did there.
To buy or to offer.

I bought this book for a six year old visitor who has the reading skills of an 8 year old. She was visiting Manhattan and used this book as a guide for herself as we took in the sites. The illustrations are charming and she was able to read the text by herself. Nice guide for the child to read while here in NYC!

Dialogue was the best of any book I can remember. The story becomes involved to show the key human relationships framing life in a small southwestern town, relationships which are both random and conventional. Fully sufficient details of human character and habit illuminate the story, in clear contrasting colors, and not made out to be any more complicated than authentic life. Ultimately, this is a sensitive and credible account of a youth's emerging determination to establish values, after always knowing how to think for himself.

I had already read Vandenberg several times in the past years, but have now ordered out-of-print copies of everything Lange has written and will cover them all with real anticipation.

An amazing story, sensitive and probably before its time. Surprising lack of violence and sensitivity unseen in today's craft. Was nominated for pulitzer and internationally printed. You won't regret reading this book and all his others.

In one volume, Spain takes the reader through Noritake's art deco production. That is an important point--this volume is not about the dinnerware lines, but rather concerns itself with the art deco "fancyware" or giftware items. Organized alphabetically, beautiful cake plates, dresser boxes, vases, etc. are illustrated, and chapters start off with excellent introductions. The opening chapter itself is very helpful, outlining the overlapping "Nippon" and "Noritake" collecting periods. Not just a collector book, this book also provides a history of the company, and is well-written, accurate, and the best collector book available on the subject. Highly recommended.

Even if you have absolutely no idea what Noritake is, you'll love this book. Why? The writing is masterful, the photography superb, and the many pictures in brilliant colour which show off the glorious lustre of these precious antiques. A coffee table book not to be missed! :-)

I bought these flashcards to get an early start to teaching my child the alphabet. He's just six months, but loves to hear me rattle off the quirky, yet alliterative, Seuss sentences. A super tool to teaching kids letters and objects that begin with them. I just know we'll get much use out of them over the next couple of years.

I got these to help my 4 yr. old twins prepare for kindergarten. After realizing we had been concentrating on upper case letters only, I searched several stores in our area and was not able to find anything with upper and lower case letters together. Their therapist recommended using something with both letters to help them learn the lower case by association. The only thing that might give pause is that the color side of the card with the sentences and phrases using the letter emphasized in the picture takes a little extra work until your children get used to the "Fiffer-Feffer-Feff" and the "Zizzer-Zazzer-Zuzz" animals. I'm buying several extra sets to include with birthday gifts for cousins and friends.

I found this book very informative. Tamanaha goes clearly though the different definitions for 'rule-of-law' and how they differ. The parts that I knew a little bit about seemed quite accurate. The book is short but strikingly comprehensive.

We're hearing quite a bit these days about 'judicial activism', so it would be nice if we could be clear just what we mean by the 'rule of law'.

Unfortunately, when we get down to specifics, the term means different things to different people. Probably no one anywhere seriously contends as a matter of principle that e.g. judges should render strictly subjective opinions. But in practice, one person's law is another person's bias. (And contrary to the rhetoric of the loudest voices in such debates, it's usually because there are two competing principles genuinely at issue, not because one side doesn't care about principles at all.)

So it's a good idea to take a step back and ask, a bit more abstractly, exactly what we mean by the 'rule of law'. And that's where this slim but information-dense volume comes in.

Brian Tamanaha takes just about the only course it's possible to take in defining such a nebulous concept: the historical approach. By way of putting salt on the tail of the ideal of the rule of law, he traces the development of the concept from ancient Greece to the present day.

If you think that sounds like a big job for just 141 pages of text (plus notes and bibliography), you're right. In fact, one of the most impressive things about this deceptively small book is the amount of erudition Tamanaha manages to pack economically into its pages. There's quite a lot buried between the lines here, and sweating this baby down to such a manageable length (while keeping it readable) must have taken some real editing.

For it _is_ eminently readable, and it does provide a thorough, if brief, tour of the development of the rule-of-law ideal in Western civilization.

The tour begins, naturally enough, in ancient Greece and Rome, since the ideal at least has its roots in, most notably, the writings of Plato and Aristotle. However, as Tamanaha points out, these writings didn't directly embody the ideal and in any event were largely lost to the West until medieval times; their importance for the rule of law was largely in their influence on later thinkers.

It's in the Middle Ages that things really get rolling, what with all the power struggles between the papacy and the various thrones, the development of German customary law, and the Magna Carta. Even here, as Tamanaha shows, the ideal hasn't come to full fruition; what happens at this stage is that we're bequeathed a difficult question about how the government -- the state, the monarch, the legislature, the sovereign -- can be bound by the law when it is itself apparently the source of that law.

Tamanaha traces the ramifications of this question, and its developing answers, through the rise of the middle class, the Enlightenment, the growth of capitalism, and the modern era -- significantly and properly locating the rule-of-law ideal in the rise of political liberalism (in its broadest sense). Along the way we get short and incisive summaries of e.g. the works of Locke, Montesquieu, and Hamilton, Madison, and Jay, and a fine (and scrupulously fair) overview of the recent history and current state of the debate.

In the end we wind up with a broad tripartite account of the meaning of the rule of law. The three essential themes, Tamanaha contends, are the limitation of government itself by law, the 'formal' requirement that law be both impersonal and predictable, and the contrast between the 'rule of law' and the 'rule of man'. Having distinguished these themes, Tamanaha spends a chapter considering their application to international law, and then closes with a short rumination on whether the rule of law is really a 'universal human good'.

Ultimately Tamanaha finds grounds for optimism in the fact that pretty much everyone, no matter what their other disagreements, gives at least lip service to the rule-of-law ideal. This fact, though disconcertingly negative as to the prospects for agreement about precisely what the rule of law means in detail, is also evidence that societal attitudes broadly favoring the rule of law are deeply embedded and not likely to be dislodged by those narrower disputes.

It would be hard to find a more timely subject than Tamanaha's, and it would be hard to find a fairer or more readable discussion than his. If you're interested in current debates about the independence of the judiciary and the role of judges, don't miss this opportunity to stand back from those debates and look at the big picture. Public discourse is better served by a little history than by a lot of rhetoric.

I found this book hilarious. I strongly recommend it to everyone with a good sense of humour.

I heard about this book, I think it was on The Daily Show, and Jon Stewart called it a wake up call for America that everyone should read. I read it and whole-heartedly agree. The only scary thing is if George Bush read it he would probably like all of the ideas presented in it, even though they are written with extreme sarcasm and irony. If you like the Daily Show or Animal Farm, you will love this book. Make sure to read the Author's Warnings first.

This is the best book I've ever come across for all round information on training the body for a healthy strong life. Phillip Sienna clearly knows the body, how to take care of it and how to build it. I have been using this book for some years. Though I am now over retirement age I continue to consult its pages. It's good clean weight practice free of gimmicks. I highly recommend it.

I have read this book and have even taken classes with Prof Sienna. He is a knowledgeable person who cares about his students and it shows in this book. It is definitely a book you will want in your library if your a serious athlete or a novice.

An art theif is on the loose!
Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose are visiting Dink's Uncle Warren in New York City when a painting is stolen from his apartment.
A trail of orange peels and an orange hair are the only signs that someone was there.
Do the kids have enough clues to catch this crafty- and hungry- crook?

Dink, Josh and Ruth Rose are at it again.
Only this time they are in New York City.
There has been a priceless work of art stolen right from Dink's Uncle Warren's apartment!
Will they find the art work or will this crafty crook get away?

William Humphrey's second novel The Ordways (1964) is not as well known as his more celebrated first novel Home From the Hill (1958). The novel's early reception suffered from its fragmented structure, as it is separated into 4 distinct sections: In a Country Churchyard, The Stepchild, Sam Ordway's Revenge, and Family Reunion. Like Home From the Hill, the plot is intricate and convoluted. It various digressions, references to unrevealed elements and events, and frequent narrative jumps between past and present slowly reveals the story in bits and pieces.
Humphrey's writing was often compared to Faulkner, an influence Humphrey vigorously denied. Insightful comments from two reviewers are revealing: "[Humphrey's] cosmos is less awry than Faulkner's, and his syntax is far more agreeable," and "Humphrey gives us...a piece of Faulkner in which the obscurities have been clarified and the crooked made straight."
Nearly 40 years after its publication, the loose structure and the Faulknerian inheritance of The Ordways are no longer hindrances to its value. It was unjust to Humphrey that the book was viewed as a shortfall compared to his first.
The story contains two main elements. First is the retold saga of the migration of the Ordway family ancestors from Tennessee to Texas, which is recounted in the section entitled In a Country Churchyard. The saga relates the travails of Civil War soldier Thomas Ordway, his incapacitating injury, his wife Ella's determination to keep the family together, their eventful migration to Texas, and the remainder of their lives in Texas. This remembrance is told during Remembrance Day, a yearly event where families clean cemetery housing the graves of their ancestors. In a Country Churchyard is brilliant writing and story-telling, both emotional and hilarious. Much of the Ordway history is extravagant and over-the-top, yet deeply moving at the same time. Bert Almon, Humphrey's primary literary critic, points out that Humphrey's desire was to satirize a number of southern and western cultural myths: the glorification of the lost southern cause of the Civil War, excessive southern piety to family, glamorization of the Wild West and cowboys, and an obsession with the past. Despite his extra-textual satirical goal, Humphrey does not come off as nasty or sarcastic. In fact, his love and affection are clearly on display. In a Country Churchyard is fiction, writing, and story-telling at its finest.
The second main element is an account spanning nearly 30 years of the kidnapping of Sam Ordway's son Ned by a neighbor, Sam's futile attempt to track down his son and the perpetrator, and at last the reunion of father and son about 30 years after the fact. The Stepchild describes the loss of the child and the step-by-step realization that he has been kidnapped. Slow, yet dramatic, The Stepchild is more straightforward story-telling compared to In a Country Churchyard. However, the events in The Stepchild, frequently and tantalizingly foreshadowed in In a Country Churchyard, make the prologue even more masterful and gives The Stepchild an extra poignancy. Sam Ordway's Revenge is a humorous recital of Sam Ordway's ridiculous search for his son. Ludicrous events happen time and again; this section perhaps reveals Humphrey's satirical intent the most. It does not continue the same sense of drama and devotion of the previous two sections and thus I found it somewhat weaker. Family Reunion is also weak compared to the book's first two sections. It is similarly humorous, capturing the celebrations across Texas for the reunion of Sam and his son Ned. The reunion of father and son provides some relief to the reader after the central tragedy of the kidnapping, but one wonders if the book may have been more powerful had the reunion never occurred.
Mr. Humphrey's lack of literary success was a source of great disappointment to him. I am similarly at a loss why his career did not take off as did those of his less-talented contemporaries. William Humphrey died in August 1997. I hope that his extremely worthy works The Ordways, Home from the Hill, and Farther Off from Heaven will not be forgotten. Everything you could ever want of a writer is there.
Thanks to LSU Press, two of these fine books are still available. A word to the fiction connoisseur - buy them while you can.

This is an important book for every Texan to read because it is a family history so many of us share. William Humphries viidly follows the day-to-day life and adventures of our ancestors from the time they pull up stakes in Arksansas or Alabama to putting down roots in Texas.