Maestro Books

This story is about the history of money. It was kind of interesting because it tells in long time ago how they got foods without money. Also, it tells how money started. The book explained how money is made and now how it is use. I like this book because before I read this book I wondered what money is made of. Well, I thought it was going to be a little bit boring, but it was ok. I want to recommend this book to students who like history books and also who are interested in money.

History is a lot more fun when combined with the beautiful pictures and informative, easy-to-read text in this book. We have been able to use the entire series as the foundation for our elementary history curriculum combined with other activites. I highly recommend these books to others looking for an enjoyable way to study history together.

A good book with nice colorful illustrations. Duck is gloomy - he hates winter. His two friends, Squirrel and Rabbit set out to cheer him up, but everything they try turns out wrong! A nice book about the seasons - the fun things about winter and the signs of spring. Also, the plight of the three characters and their constant mishaps will keep little kids laughing. It's worth looking for!

What a lovely book about being neighborly. "Love your neighbor as yourself"( quote from my best friend ). Bear isn't too thrilled about having a new neighbor until ..... This story introduces the canning method of food storage and, of course, gardneing.THREE DOESN'T HAVE TO BE A CROWD. In fact I know a Threesome that is heavenly ! FYI This is my personal copy from my childhood. The illustrator has a lot of published books as well.

This book is not tabloid. The book is going to brook criticism for being one of the only books to just start talking about the conductor problem. Like a dictionary for the music history of conductors. Why are orchestras going out of business whilst orchestral musicians are dreadfully unhappy and relatively poor? Who's left but the "maestro" who represents the star and rakes in the profits? Bad editing aside, we need to know more. pretty eezy to read.

Backstairs gossip, blurted out in a confused, breathless stream-of-consciousness rant. Nothing particularly new, poorly proof-edited.

The maestro myth must still be very powerfully alive if it tempts a supposed grownup to this extreme of incoherence.

Lebrecht writes trenchantly about the music business. Many of his observations are carefully considered, if impolitic. Those who idolize the "great conductors" will be very uncomfortable reading about their equally outsided foibles. The author's conclusions are his own and may not be to everyone's taste. However, Lebrecht has enough backbone not to be trying to please everyone--for that way also would lie a boring book. No, he's trying to tell the truth as he sees it. This volume does not pretend to be a complete or scholarly treatment of all the major conductors within recent memory and Lebrecht clearly has his favorites (such as Simon Rattle). The editing leaves much to be desired because typos abound. Is this entirely the author's fault, or does the editor share the blame? If you want to know that we're all human and some more so than others, this is a book for you. It's not geared to people who don't already know something about the subject, so you need to be a classical music buff to come away feeling the impact of what Lebrecht has told you. If you are, you will see clear examples of how the press is often prejudiced (not to say sometimes vindictive, as in the case of Mitropoulos), how public taste is shaped by odd events and sometimes how virtue is punished. I feel a little guilty giving this book only 4 stars because its writing is up to a high standard and its thesis is interesting, but the substandard editing is, nevertheless, distracting to the reader.

For anyone seriously involved in the classical music arts world,
there is very little in this 'tell-all' attempt that will provide new information. In addition, the writing style jumps around in such a manner that the reader is often confused as to the subject matter at hand.

Although I am deeply enthralled by the lives of great conductors and musicians, this was not enough to erase the embarrasment and, at times, utter disgust at the mistakes (typos, misspellings,etc.) and errors found throughout this book.
I bought the book on a whim and became deeply entrenched in its pages within minutes (this is not to say that this reads like Clancy but it is very interesting). But the more I read the more frustrated I became at the mindless and senseless editing that was done here. For instance, on one page alone there are 3 different spellings of Mahler's name:
1: The correct way appears- Mahler
2: Then this- Maler
3: And finally this- Mabler
The latter really bowled me over. And the further I read the worse it became. There are also misrepresented facts (such as the stockyards in Chicago) throughout.
In short, if you are looking for scholarship and true presentations, look elsewhere. If you are interested in various interesting anecdotes and trivia-like facts about conductors and you dont mind sifting through misspellings and foreign words with no interpretation, then you will enjoy this book. But I must warn you...any book with a typo on its back cover (The Maesto Myth) may be more of a hassle than good informal reading.

My four year old has been bringing up God a lot to me, especially since my devoutly Catholic parents came for a visit. I want my son to respect adults so I didn't want to disparage anything my parents had told him but at the same time, I wanted him to know that some people believe in different things and that it's okay. Then his camp took him to see the movie, Evan Almighty, and my son came home telling me that he had seen God and that God talked. My boyfriend showed him a picture of Morgan Freeman on the internet and explained that he was an actor pretending to be God. So I've been reading this book to my son but we haven't gotten through the whole thing yet. There just aren't a lot of books like this for his age. This is a little bit over his head and he's somewhat bored by it but it is doing what I needed it to do.

My 8 yr old was starting to ask questions about religion so I purchased this book so I could teach him about the main religions in a language that he could understand. I have found it an excellent starter book as it gives just the right amount of information for his age so as not to overwhelm him. We have been reading it together and I have also found it very informative as there was quite a bit I didn't know about certain religions. Even my 6 yr old has been sitting in with us.

I am an elementary school teacher previewing this book in order to find a developmentally appropriate text for a study of religion. I am not religious and I strive to take a learner's stance and a scholarly approach to any unit of study that I present to my students. Betsy and Guilio Maestro have written other fabulous books on several topics; books that I have made available to my students for their research because they were accurate and presented without bias. This particular work unfortunately is neither. Their gesture was genuine and gracious, an example of the tolerance they wanted to promote. No deity need take offense; all were included in the pantheon of possibilities. It is however filled with inaccuracies and contradictions and finally a statement of belief by the authors.

Though written as an overview of many of the world religions, this book culminates in a doctrinal statement of the confusing theology of religious pluralism, the view that no religion is objectively truer than any other. One point ought to be obvious, though: Everything can't be true.

The religions mentioned are like oil and water; they can't mix because they represent opposite and competing concepts. An appeal to their similarities doesn't help. We would never say aspirin and arsenic are basically the same just because they both come in tablet form. It's the differences that are critical. That's true in all areas of life, especially the spiritual.

If God exists, He's either personal or not personal. He can't be both. If God is merely a cosmic energy, why ask His blessing? He can't hear or respond. If He's a person, then He's someone, not everyone.

This book is not as much a story of religions as it is a recipe for religious stew.

I was looking for a resource to open my daughter's eyes to the world of religion without a biase and I found it. This book offers a peek into many religions without stating who's right or who's wrong. The Story of Religion is a wonderful way for an agnostic or non-practicing believer to share the nuisances of peoples faiths without exposing them to the divisiveness found in so many introductory religious resources.

I was very disappointed with the obvious bias of this book; I do personally hold to a particular belief system, but I want my child to understand the background and tenets of other beliefs and cultures, as well. We read a wide range of books on many religions and belief systems, and he has a working knowledge of many of them.

One thing I found particularly frustrating was the disparity between the descriptions of the religions - some are outright stated as being "Truth", and some are stated as "the followers of such and such happen to believe..."; quite frankly, if a book is to be written about world religions, especially for children, all religions should be treated with equal objectivity.

Religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism were treated as peaceful "Truth", while Judaism and Christianity ended with bluntly telling children that "sinners will burn in Hell." Wow, gather up for story time, kids.

I was also extremely disappointed with the outright "truth" statements and bias at the end of the book; teaching children a statement like "there is no truth" and that people who have the gall to hold to a certain belief system (whatever it might be) have caused all the misery since the beginning of time is neither objective or logical.

This book was nothing more than propaganda, aimed toward teaching children that truth is nonexistent and that they should just strive to be "good people", accepting everything and believing nothing. Honestly, the last few pages even blatantly state that idea. I would not recommend this book for anything but the trash can.

I'm not going to sit here and tell you what the book is about. You should read it! It is that good! I will tell you some of its themes. Haves vs Have nots, incest, rape, murder, poverty, love, romance, all throwned into a presssure cooker titled "La charca" to create one of the most touching, poigant stories you will ever read. It has a lot of twist and turns which in the end left me completely blown away.

se me hace muy tonta la novela, el autor hace demaisadas descripciones del panorama lo que aveces no viene al caso terminas desviandote de la novela y perdiendote,la novela se enreda demasiado y termina enredada,para mi el final fue la peor parte.

La Charca is probably one of the best books written by a Puerto Rican while Puerto Rico was under Spanish rule. If you know the history of Puerto Rico, you'd have a better understanding. The translation and introduction given by the editor Kal Wagenheim is fantastic. It's a story about love, poverty, social issues, murder and deception. It's an easy read. I recommend it highly especially if you love Puerto Rican culture.

Ok, so I love reading novels. But, this novel was the most boring book I have read in my entire life. One page is dedicated to the particles in the air. It has too many descriptions and it makes you loose the idea of the plot.

This is an excellent novel written by one of the foremost Puerto Rican writers. It is about life in Puerto Rico at the end of the XIXth century. It represents a unique opportunity to delve into the minds, lives, and landscapes of the Puerto Rican jibaro of that time. Its Spanish is impeccable. La charca is influenced by the naturalist style in literature, and its psychology is accurate and consistent with the jibaro mind and personality. A must read.

This book was required reading. Sadly, I fail to see why people find this to be an important text. It is a very flat read devoid of anything interesting. If you like reading incoherent dreams and delusional rambling then this is your book!

Rodo describe en este ensayo su concepcion de America Latina y de los Estados Unidos. Es una America Latina que posa su esperanza en su juventud, a quien aconseja desprenderse de un materialismo utilitario y apreciar los valores humanitarios del ser humano. Si bien Rodo no apoya el espiritu intervencionista de los americanos, si les reconoce en este ensayo su espiritu de libertad, capacidad para autogobernarse efectivamente bajo un regimen federalista, y por su capacidad creadpra en todas las areas tales como la investigacion y ciencias, la cultura, educacion y deportes.

Este libro es complicadisimo de entender y si no esta dispuesto a dedicar mucho tiempo a leer y ha entender un libro de tanta complexidad y enredo no se lo recomiendo a nadie.

Si de modernismo, liberalismo y jacobinismo se trata... aqui tiene un trabajo que fuera cumbre entre los ensayos latinoamericanos en los albores del siglo XX.

Advertencia preliminar: No nos engañemos, Ariel no es una obra fácil de leer, ni una novela para pasar un rato ameno, no obstante, valdrá la pena si se está dispuesto a invertir el tiempo y esfuerzo intelectual que demanda. Si lo que usted busca es leer algo por mero entretenimiento, seguramente hará mejor en buscar cualquiera de los tantos otros buenos trabajos de la literatura hispana, que satisfacen dicho fin, pero no este.

Rodó, llama a la juventud latinoamericana a rechazar el materialismo, y regresar a los ideales greco-romanos de mejoramiento propio, el libre pensamiento y el desarrollo de la cultura. Rodó es considerado por mucho como el teórico del modernismo -liderado por Rubén Darío.

Leer "Ariel" es interiorizarse con un ensayo que ha estado vigente por mas de un siglo entre los pueblos hispanos; ya sea que usted acuerde o no con los ideales del autor, esta lectura podria contribuir a incrementar nuestro acervo cultural y literario...

Rodo was besides a remarkable thinker a poet . In these pages you will find important reflections about the values who feed the Greek Civilization and Rodo in the middle of his efervescent mind considers the posibility to turn back this dream in America .
Expressions such as : "For the greeks the word was before anything a will appendix" or "Greece shone because it had the young soul" are the final result of a long period of reflection and deep thinking .
A neglected book that it deserves a better place in the world .

Lenny Bruce never waited for the television censors to not be listening before he delivered his punchlines. Lenny Bruce was never afraid to improvise a skit where the characters were shallow one dimensional vehicles whose sole purpose was to give life to his punchline, much like Karl Marx who created characters of similar depth in his monumental work, "Das Kapital" characters who were used to breathe life into his economic examples. Lenny Bruce was a stand up comedian who traveled across the country from gig to gig with two suitcases, the first suitcase was packed full of paperback books, the second suitcase was packed full of newspapers and magazines. When Lenny came on stage he did so with a newspaper tucked under one arm, he would clutch the microphone with one free hand and hold a cigarette in the other hand. He looked like, "a late night existential detective who was solving one case while beginning to investigate a new one." Lenny bought black silk oversized "kleenex" suits for each night he had a gig, he hired fraternity house renegade jazz drummers who dropped out of college. He would ask the college renegades, "What were the most influential books you have ever read?" Lenny would then track these books down, read them and discuss them with the jazz drummers. It was not drugs or four letter words that made Lenny Bruce dangerous, it was his ability to not only be literate but to comprehend what he had read, but what makes the material of Lenny Bruce transcend the label "dangerous" and allows it to enter the realm of entertainment was his ability to sew it all together and aim it at the hypocracy of society or his audience, this is what makes the comic ability of Lenny Bruce a gift and not a gimmick, very few comics have come close but none will hit the mark the way Lenny Bruce did. If you, the reader, want to learn the truth about Lenny Bruce from the perspective of a man who was his friend in the final years of his life then buy and read this book, "Lenny Bruce: The Making of a Prophet" by William Karl Thomas. In conclusion I can only qoute from, "Constantly Risking Absurdity", by Lawerence Farlenghetti, "And he a little charleychaplin man."

This fairly thin book is a first hand account of the time the author spent with Lenny Bruce. Probably the best part of the fairly pricy book are the photographs which were taken by the author.

When I first saw this book for sale, I was very keen on getting a copy as soon as I could (I was on a kind of Lenny Bruce book-finding mission--and still am). After going everywhere to try to find a used copy and could not, I put out the 27 bucks. Anyway, here's why I, with much reservation, give it only three stars (should be two really). It's not about Lenny Bruce! In fact, at best, he's a bit part in a not-so-interesting story about this Thomas guy (Lenny talks about him a little in his writings here and there, but he's just another guy in the life of Lenny). If you're interest in the author, get the book. If you're interested in Lenny Bruce, there are a least ten books that you should read before this, mostly, non Lenny literature.

`The Art of Cooking' was written by the fifteenth century Italian Renaissance chef identified as `The Eminent Maestro Martino of Como'. This is a truly impressive and fascinating piece of culinary scholarship published in the `California Studies in Food and Culture' by the University of California Press. For serious foodies, this book documents several trends which dozens of food writers often repeat with no historical support. The book contains four major sections by three different scholars.

The text from Maestro Martino himself is translated by Jeremy Parzen, a food historian and musician (I will wager that his musical speciality is the Renaissance). Fifty modern versions of Maestro Martino's recipes are interpreted by Stefania Barzini, a Roman food historian and journalist for Italy's National Food Channel (Shades of Molto Mario). The Introduction, endnotes, and textual editing are done by Luigi Ballerini, a poet, translator, scholar, and instructor of medieval and modern Italian at the University of California.

By far the most engaging part of this volume is the introduction that chronicles Maestro Martino's career and his times in Renaissance Italy. Allowing for the rather dryly scholarly presentation, this often reads like a pitch for a cinematic costume drama starring Tyrone Power or Errol Flynn, with the evil cardinal played by Orson Wells or Sydney Greenstreet. All this steps right out of the pages of Machiavelli's `The Prince'. So much so that Machiavelli even shows up as a character in the story of Martino's career. As a journeyman scholar, I can attest to the fact that the story is thoroughly documented so that anyone wishing to pick up where these authors left off will find plenty of material to establish a starting point.

From a culinary point of view, the most interesting facts spelled out by the introduction show that modern trends in decorative plating are a faint shadow of the kinds of extravagances created by chefs to the princes of the Italian city states and the cardinals, the princes of the church, who were often as wealthy as their secular brethren. The most important contribution of Maestro Martino appears to be the introduction of vegetables from the peasants' cuisine into the meat laden dining of the nobility. This confirms all the talk from experts of contemporary Italian cuisine that this is based heavily on the food of poverty, but it does not refute the very important observation by Paula Wolfert that one of the requirements for the rise of a great cuisine is a nobility and the corps of chefs enlisted to serve them. A secondary contribution of Maestro Martino is the extent to which he standardized culinary terminology in Italy. This was an era in which no dialect on the Italian peninsula was dominant. It was hardly a few hundred years after the publication of Dante's Divine Comedy and Boccaccio's Decameron and the invention of moveable type. And, the unification of Italy was still almost 400 years off. The editor's citing this as an accomplishment reaffirms my concerns when I find culinary writers using the wrong term to describe certain cooking actions. This only reassures me that if words are not valued, the result is Babble.

By far the most interesting experience I have in reading the recipes is in the similarities I see in these Renaissance dishes to the Medieval fare described in `The Medieval Kitchen', written originally in French by Odile Redon, Francoise Sabban, and Silvano Serventi. Both books document the love the 13th to 15th century nobility had for the `cookie spices', nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, and sugar. These ingredients literally show up in virtually every dish. No wonder there was such an interest in finding a way to get these little darlings more cheaply. One can almost hear the echos when we read of Sicilian cooks and recipes which like to add nutmeg to their greens. This practice is not only hundreds of years old, it is `home grown' and not as much an influence from the Saracens as one may think. And, Maestro Martino's introducing local vegetables may have been one of the things which changed tastes away from Asian spices, although I suspect their rarity and the arrival of New World ingredients had a lot to do with this trend as well.

As a source of no more than fifty recipes written so that a modern cook can follow them, this book will not be a very good practical cookbook, especially since the dishes will tend to be either too sweet or too tart for modern tastes. The modernized recipes really are best taken as a means of understanding the connection between Renaissance dishes and their modern equivalents. The only thing I would suggest to the scholars who gave us this really fascinating volume is that pairing the original recipe texts with the modern interpretation would have done much to show us what the original author said versus the modern interpretation of his recipe. I also missed a good recipe or explanation for `verjuice' which the Larousse Gastronomique describes as a sour extraction from grapes; very similar to the wine vinegars we use today.

This book and some of the others I have read recently really fuel my interest in reading a good history of gastronomy. And, if I can't find one, this book is a totally welcome treatment of food of the nobility in Renaissance Italy.

Highly recommended for anyone with scholarly interests.

I've been reading through and trying out a number of the recipes from The Art of Cooking. Parzen and his collaborators are to be congratulated for translating this important work. I find myself somewhat puzzled and a bit unhappy at some of the recipes. The value of this work is that it showcases the flavors and techniques of another era. It seems strange that they went to so much effort removing them in order to substitute ones with which the reader would already be quite familiar.

The recipe section abounds with sentences like "Martinotti's recipe is sweet, but we've made it savory because that's what modern diners are used to" and "We've eliminated the broth, changed the seasonings and added ingredients of which he would have never heard. Isn't it wonderful?"

Honestly, no. If I wanted modern Italian recipes I would buy a modern Italian cookbook. There are many. The whole point is that it's Martinotti's cookbook. The reader with an interest in historical cooking would have been much happier had you turned your significant talents and impressive learning to giving examples that would allow one to create food in the style and tastes of the time. Likewise, if a recipe has remained unchanged for hundreds if not thousands of years why provide it instead of guiding the reader through the difficult parts of dishes with which he or she would not be familiar? We know how "air fritters", marzipan and sage fritters are made. As the authors crow, there has been no change over the centuries. It seems a waste to dedicate pages to these when there are so many dishes that are mysteries, truly novel and difficult to decipher.

There is also the question of measures. I count three different possibilities for the "libra". There is the Ancient Roman libra, the old French livre and the libra mercatoria. Martinotti could be referring to any of them given his background. They all represent different amounts. Some guidance as to which the writers thought was meant or at least a recognition that there is some ambiguity would have been welcome.

In short, the translation itself is a great service to the cook who wishes to delve into history. The modernized recipes often do little but confuse the issue and frustrate those who are looking for Martinotti's cookbook rather than Parzen's.