New York Books

Well written and amazing to read. Author captured the moment and took you there. Book was flooded with facts.

I would highly recommend this book, it is not only for the history buffs.
If you do enjoy history, you will love the author's details.

I very good book that gives the reader an interesting twist on what was believed to be gospel. The author's research is convincing.

An awesome book....definitely a different view .... a must read for anyone seeking to truely understand Benedict Arnold's story.

Who would have thought that what was assumed by the average student of American history to be an open and shut case against Benedict Arnold could be brought into question. And, furthermore, to do so with such detailed facts woven into a rather gripping novel format. Mr. WIlczak has laid out a compelling case that Arnold was not a traitor but a collaborator with George Washington to ultimately fool the British. This book could be the basis of an excellent movie.

This book expresses a thoroughly researched, fresh approach to one of history's most infamous legends. When I began to read the book I felt my feelings regarding Benedict Arnold could not be swayed. The author, however, through meticulous use of timeline, documented fact, and letters of many of the involved, opened my eyes to the possibility that Arnold may have been the protaganist in a great scheme to free the colonies and help create the United States. I highly recommend this book to anyone who seeks the truth instead of the commonly handed down history stories we have been fed since childhood. AAAAA+++++

Juan Gonzalez was the first journalist to grasp the impact of the environmental disaster of 9/11. His article on October 26, 2001 said what some of us already sensed: Contrary to the 'good news' being sold like sugarcoated poison by government officials who wanted Wall Street back up and running, the air was dense with astronomical levels of asbestos, lead, dioxin, mercury and hundreds of unpronouncable contaminants including some that had never previously existed.

Fallout is in this tradition of groundbreaking journalism.

Unfortunately Gonzalez is so ahead of the pack that when I showed his article to my son and exhusband, whom I was trying to convince that our son should not remain at Stuyvesant High School, four blocks north of the World Trade Center, they dismissed it as a red herring.

Fallout is a compelling account of this environmental disaster which may ultimately claim more lives than the attacks themselves.

Jenna Orkin
World Trade Center Environmental Organization

Finally someone has the guts to print the truth about the toxic air at Ground Zero. For those of us who were there and who are experiencing the medical consequences of having been exposed to these toxic chemicals, Gonzalez's book explains in understandable language why we are sick and what we are likely to experience in the future. Americans need to know the truth, especially the thousands of men and women from around the country who volunteered their time at Ground Zero and are likely to suffer the medical consequences of having done so, either now or in the future. Fallout is a must read for all Americans.

This is an extremely disturbing book. Perhaps because along with the well-documented facts concerning the unprecedented toxic environmental fallout from 9/11, it is the shocking realization that it's not just the NYC and federal goverment cover-up of this story -- it is the citizens themselves collectively turning away from the horrible reality of this disaster.

The national media has not pursued the obvious leads -- the common sense questions -- but Mr. Gonzales has. And the logical conclusion of this story, in the not-too-distant future, is a public health nightmare that will have the media self-righteously condeming Giuliani and Whitman in hindsight as bearing responsibility for perhaps thousands more deaths.

The story from 9/11 that the media immediately created was of the heroes and victims. We remember them, and try to forget the horror of the collapsing towers. But if we are a truely a courageous nation, we will look clearly and not turn away from the terrible reality that ground zero represents. That is what I think this book is really about -- there are facts and consequences of 9/11 that have not yet been dealt with. And closing our eyes and wishing them away simply won't work.

Americans are being deceived. In this stunning piece of investigative reporting which should be awarded a Pulitzer Prize, Juan Gonzalez reveals the horrible truths about the environmental impacts of the 9-11 disaster. Asbestos abounded. The many heroes who helped to clean and console may face excruciating deaths thanks to suppressed and inaccurate information.

Our sacred institutions are rotten. Every American citizen should read this brief but incendiary work which speaks truth to power unflinchingly. If we do not quickly institute major changes which make our leaders and representatives truly responsible for telling the truth to the American public, however unpleasant, we may be facing the end of American democracy as we have known it and believed in it.

Where are the Thomas Paines and Thomas Jeffersons of the twenty-first century? We desperately need your voices and leadership!

I live 5 blocks north of Ground Zero and have attended hearings and forums and read hundreds of articles, studies memos and reports about the post 9/11 environmental issues in Lower Manhattan. But my jaw dropped when I read Juan Gonzalez' book - here are the missing pieces, the things I'd heard but was never able to find in print - and lots of insider information that only someone as dedicated to this story as he was could have. It is a clear, readable summary of the case against the EPA, OSHA, NYC DEP - and, de facto, an indictment of all those newspapers whose reportage consistently minimized the issue. Not since the Vietnam War has there been so much media "disinformation."

If you live or work in lower Manhattan and/or have any interest in the true story of how our government knowingly and intentionally jepordized the lives and health of the rescue workers, residents and workers downtown after 9/11 while ensuring that their own health was well protected, this book is a "must read."

Juan Gonzalez is to be commended for his courage in bucking his editors to continue to cover this story.

I have read lots of Joanna Hurwitz's books and i must say this is one of her best. Haddasa [Dossi for short] has nobody but her sister Ruthi and her friend Mimy. Dossi 's parents have passed out and so has her sister . Dossi and Ruthi live in a crowded tenament with just one room too do everything : Eat , Sleap , Sit , Stand ....... Ruthi works in a sewing factory. The tenament smells of sweat and OF COURES They dont have a single toy. When Ruthi signs Dossi up for a Fresh Air Fund ,Dossi objects . But when Dossi starts to like , even befriend the family she is staying with ..............

Dossi is a poor girl who lives in the city.Her parents and younger sister,Velvel have passed away.Dossi's sister,Ruthi is the one who will take care of them.She works in the factory.When Ruthi signs Dossi up to be sent to the country,on a Fresh Air Fund vacation,Dossi is terrified and surprised.Soon,the day had come to go to the country.Dossi packed her bags and brought along a library book which was a new one.She and her friend,Mimi, didn't tell the librarian that Dossi was taking it away.Dossi prommises Ruthi that she will send a postcard to her as soon as she reaches her destination.In the country,she meets the gentile Meade family.Nell and Emma are around Dossi's age.Mr. Meade and Mrs. Meade also have two sons,Timothy and Edward.Nell chats nineteen to a dozen.Emma doesn't.There are a lot of things that Dossi hasn't seen.Like fireflies,cows,two yolks in one egg and many other things.She learns about a man named Snowflake Bentley.He is mad about snowflakes.Snowflake Bentley also takes photos of snowflakes not people.Dossi likes Nell but she wants to befriend Emma too.But Emma treats her like if she is not there.Will Dossi be able to befriend Emma before her holiday in the country ends?

Haddassah (Dossi for short) is a Jewish girl lives in a cramped apartment in New York City. Her sister (Ruthi) signs her up for a Fresh Air Fund which sends poor children too the country for 2 weeks in the summer. Dossi leaves excited and yet afraid to go on vacation with a family she doesn't know in Vermont for 2 weeks. She is stunned by things in the country and doesn't even know what fireflies are. This is one fault that I found with the book, she seems to know NOTHING of the country, now I can believe she's never milked a cow, but some of the things she had never seen are unbelievable. Anyway during the book she sprouts friendship and learns new things of her trip. She meets new people and learns what the lovely countryside is like. This is a really fast paced book, you should be able to finish it within an hour or so, but nonetheless it is worth reading.

This is a good story about a girl who spends a few weeks with a family that is very different from her own. Dossi learns other people have alot to offer her and she has alot to offer in a friendship,too. Hurwitz is a wonderful author; she makes the characters and situation come alive.

This was a great book. It is about Dossi, a poor Jewish orphan from New York City who is able to spend two weeks in August of 1910 in the Vermont countryside through the Fresh Air Fund. Dossi learns about country life from her hosts' two daughters, and Dossi in turn teaches them about city life. I highly reccomend this book.

It is simply one of the most inspiring and novel books ever written about film production: Jean-Pierre Geuens' FILM PRODUCTION THEORY. This is not a "how to" book, it is a book that raises strategic questions about what we perceive as standard filmmaking practices and accepted aesthetic (professional) norms. What Geuens sets out to do is to open the potential filmmaker's mind to alternate ways of "skinning the cat" or alternate approaches to filmmaking from various significant aspects: screenwriting, composition, staging, sound, editing and even direction. The book is literally a testament to the benefits (and the pain) of thinking differently- of going against the grain and standing your ground. Geuens reveals the real reason anyone should go to film school and it is not to make a delightful reel of your work that imitates hollywood production values and conceits... He reminds us that what we love about certain filmmakers was born from those particular individual's unwillingness to conform- to challenged the pre-existing notions; so therefore this book inspires you to challenge, to explore, to take risks and more importantly to appreciate the risks and challenges taken by others. It is the kind of book that could be read simultaneously with any "standard" required film production book. Geuens repeats the rules and then reveals to you how others have broken the rules and still made provocative,groundbreaking and classic work. For graduate students, Geuens puts various thinkers (Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Derrida, Nietzche and Bazin) to great use and allows their thoughts to be easily understood in the context of film production. For the practicing (struggling) filmmaker, Geuens renews your faith in the differences between your work and "hollywood", your work and the conventional, the unique experiences of your soul and the "system". The lignt that permeates Geuens work is that he forces you to decide whether you are trying to really make films or trying," to use filmmaking to secure the easy life." (pg. 256) All in all this was a compelling, throughly engaging and necessary read for anyone interested in film, films studies, film production and film criticism.

I picked up this book thinking it would be a dry treatise about lighting and camera direction etc. But having not attended film school I thought it'd be good information to lay under my practical film Production experience.

...and it certainly opened my eyes.

This is a book for filmmakers, film critics, and those with a deep interest in film.

It does NOT tell you HOW to make a movie. It provides food for thought about the major production decisions that the Producer and/or Director considers when making a motion picture.

It is an extremely "thinky" book. Moored in the French New Wave, American Zoetrope and to a lesser extent Spanish and Italian cinema. It praises experimentation and asks the reader to consider the effect of everything that they will put into the film. Likewise, the author derides "Hollywood" for sacrificing the potential of the motion picture as art form in order to accumulate as much money as can be made. While this feeling is prevelant throughout the text, it is refreshingly not overbearing.

The book reads like a series of lectures about film theory on such topics as Film School, Writing, Directing, Framing, Lighting, Sound and Editing. In this format it is digestible in small chunks and allows the reader to process what they have read before taking on the next topic.

As an Independent Producer, I found the points in this book to be worthy of consideration as I develop, plan, shoot, and finish my projects. I don't agree with everything he says, but he says it in such a way as to help me understand the impact of my decisions (e.g. to shoot on location vs. on a soundstage). I could easily see myself skimming through this text before any project to help me frame my approach. This is as much a testament to its depth and density as it is to its worth.

It is a new century, a new reality... Hail the new art form! one that will only 100 years of life awaits to be fully and beautifully exploited by new kinds of filmmakers, artists, philosophers, dreamers and siners!

This is the one book you need to read to fully understand the capabilities of Cinema as a true art form, not an obscene business.

Thank you Mr. Geuens, blessings to your creatively anarchic mind.

BUY THIS BOOK!!!

First I thought what could this book tell me what I didn't know already. But then I realized this is not just about filmmaking, this book is about you and me and what we call life. It's a story of looking behind the curtain and seeing the wizzard but not giving up your dream. Deeply inspiring and ultimatly insightful, this is the one text everybody who cares about movies should read. I read this book in a day and I hope Mr. Geuens will continue to write. So fasten your seatbelt and be prepared to see your preconceived ignorance shatter into a thousand little pieces and out of it will rise a new outlook on life and the movies.

Film Production Theory is an exciting and important book. Most importantly, the book outlines what is at stake aesthetically and philosophically in what appear to be merely technical considerations that enter into the making of film. Unlike many other works that focus upon the finished product, or, upon the personalities behind the product, Geuen's book focuses upon the techniques of cinema, with an eye to clarify what are the assumptions about the nature of cinema that are implicit in those techniques. For example, with respect to screenwriting Geuens points out that the standardized approach to screenwriting, in which dialogue is the most prominent feature and camera movement and angles are for the most part deliberately left out, implies that film is about story first and image second and also implies a less than fully collaborative relationship between writers and directors. Of course some writers and directors do collaborate very effectively -- but in doing so they are going against a trend that is implicit in the mainstream traditions of filmmaking, traditions that make it difficult for filmmakers to, say, let images and settings be the impetus for a creative and improvisational approach to telling stories. In addition to screenwriting, Geuens gives very helpful and detailed analyses of the nature of film school, the techniques of directing and lighting and cinematography and sound and editing. In all this, he is not simply aiming to criticize the way films usually get made, or the techniques that get applied to filmmaking, but primarily to show that such techniques pretend to be the best and only professional way to do things when in fact there have been remarkable films made differently and with far different results. In fact, the first few chapters of the book are attempts to understand why and how the "Hollywood system" came to be what it has become, what impact it has had culturally, and along the way to consider and highlight paths that were never or rarely taken. Sometimes Geuens can get a bit heavy handed and he is certainly not without his own strong views, but the book as a whole works to open up and clarify and illuminate the process of filmmaking. He is extremely well read in philosophy and critical theory and film theory, and draws upon ideas from people like Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze and many others, but never simply in the form of obscure name dropping. His references to such thinkers almost never fail to be both extremely helpful on the nature of film and quite clear in its summary of the often obscure thoughts of difficulty philosophers. The book is both an exceptional guide for the aspiring filmmaker and a powerful complement to works of film theory that focus on the product rather than the process. I consider the book the most important book on film I have read in a very long time, and can't recommend it highly enough.

Darcie Denkert has given us a gem. Her lavish book with its incredible photographs tells Broadway and Hollywood tales with purpose. She discusses the influence of Broadway on filmmaking and the all-important connection between the two art forms in highly intelligent and most enjoyable prose. Her knowledge of the genres is huge, yet she lays it out in a natural way, never inserting herself into the stories, although she no doubt has many of her own across a distinguished career. Her passion for the subject is palpable. The people and places come alive in the telling.

This book is required reading for all budding theater impresarios and filmmakers.

You might expect that a work filled with such brilliant photography in the coffee-table sized format to be all fluff. Wrong, Ladies and Gentlemen. This work actually has something to say and does it in an intelligent fashion! Not for just anyone, but if you truly Love the American Musical it is a Must Have. Since I teach Musicals, both Broadway and Hollywood, this is a welcome reference work. Besides the photos are wonderful and many not seen elsewhere.

I couldn't agree more with the other two reviews. This is a marvelous book that any musical and/or movie musical fan will devour. And the design, layout and pics are all sensational. If only "A Chorus Line" had been included, the book would be perfect. (Maybe Denkert was precluded from writing about it for some reason.) In any event, this is a reader-friendly (not to mean dumb) coffee table book that won't break your wrists or the bank.

Being an observer of plays and movies with a particular interest in musicals I've long been puzzled by the difficulty there seems to be with moving a musical from Broadway to Hollywood. Why does a smash hit like Gypsy, sometimes called 'The best damn musical ever,' basically flop on screen?

Darcie Denkert is an expert on both Broadway and Hollywood. In this book she has carefully researched a series of the most famous musicals that were made into movies. Sometimes, like with Gypsy, the play simply doesn't translate into the big screen. The scene at the train station, for instance when Rose is shifting her attentions to Louise after June left in the play works well. The train station doesn't look like a train station, it looks like a set. The orchestra is visible, the song works. In the movie, at a real train station, you don't just burst into song. And the stars, great movie stars, just didn't fit.

This is the kind of information that only an insider with a foot into each camp could get and then put into a book. Referring to Gypsy again, the author also tells us how the stories got written, who did what, how did the music get written, what did they do in the screenplay to adapt it?

The book covers 6 big plays: My Fair Lady, West Side Story, Gypsy, The Sound of Music, Cabaret, and Chicago, and 8 smaller ones. This format gives all the space that is needed to completely tell the story. Gypsy, for instance gets 38 pages, and they're big pages. To we outsiders, not plugged into either Broadway or Hollywood, this is an absolutely fascinatin book.

darcie denkert has done a fabulous job talking about the great shows of broadway and their translation to the screen. i love this book--the illustrations are insightful and the text is very well thought out. it should be a great addition to any college course on musicals.

it is also a great thing to see a woman's voice come through on this subject that is dominated my many great writers such as ethan morrden and mark steyn.

go, darcie!

Reynolds uses a panoramic camera for the views in this book. Whether one cares for this sort of photo with itsunconventional proportions may be a matter of taste. The subjects represented are fairly conventional for this sort of picture book, and several similar volumes about the Finger Lakes are available. Little textual information is provided. On the other hand, Reynolds is a photographer of the first rank, with a good eye and technical command of the medium. The book is handsome. For this reader, it is less rewarding, however, than his subsequent "Wine Tour of the Finger Lakes," where the pictorial subjects are less predictable, while the informative text by Grady Wells makes the content more substantive. That one is a full five stars!

I live in the Finger Lakes area (Elmira) and I have either driven, hiked, or bicycled around all the lakes and sailed across several. This is a wonderful piece of work and all scenes are easily recognized. A great compilation.

The pictures are beautiful. Mr. Reynolds is a top knotch photographer. You can tell much time and effort was put into this book.

As a previous resident of the Finger Lakes area, I can personally vouch for the beauty of the area. Mr. Reynolds has captured it as well as any human being can capture the glory of nature's beauty. I would highly recommend this book to anyone with a taste for looking at beautiful places, beautifully photographed. Mr. Reynolds has presented an excellent talent with this beautiful book. I look forward to his next effort.

This book reminds all of us who live in the Finger Lks, how beautiful this area is, and how lucky we are to live here. GREAT JOB KRIS!

All I could say when I was finished was "why didn't I see that coming?" A great story by a very talented writer. I was going to give this 4 stars out of anger, because Ferrenz didn't give me MORE!!!

One writer to another -- Great job Barb!

If you've ever thought of being a horror writer, or if you ARE a horror writer, I think you'll really enjoy this book. I'm a struggling writer myself, and I couldn't believe how much I identified with the protagonist and how real the conventions seemed. The strains our solitary avocation put on a marriage seemed too familiar, too.

Since I don't normally read mysteries, I can't comment on how well it fits the format of the genre, but I will say that it held my interest, moved swiftly, and didn't disappoint.

In Edgewater, Maryland, Mary Kate Flaherty has problems with her husband Chuck and her two children over the time she spends on writing and selling her novels as well as their belief she writes trashy erotica vampire tales. Known as the Queen of Vampires with the alias Theodora Zed, her family members also resent her attending conventions though that is what sells the books and buys their luxuries like designer sneakers.

Currently, in her Theodora persona, she attends Bloodcon in Atlanta where wannabe writer Randall Valentine disparages her work as trash in a public panel. Not long afterward, her shoe is found near the corpse of Randall, who has two small puncture wounds in his neck. The police question Theodora with only fellow writer Connor Drake, who has loved her forever, on her side. When a second murder similar to the first "Vampire Killer" slaying occurs in New York while Theodora is in town, the author knows she must risk her life to uncover the identity of a murderer even as her marriage is collapsing.

Though the identity of the "Vampire Killer' seems unreasonable and Mary Kate's husband is an idiot, WORSE THAN DEATH is a pleasant amateur sleuth tale. The story line allows the audience to see behind the scenes at a convention and the impact on a family when a member attends a lot of these. The two bites are cleverly explained and the heroine's willingness to risk her life to solve the case makes for a fine reading experience.

Harriet Klausner

Worse Than Death is a glimpse into the bizarre subculture of the devotees and the wannabe authors of the horror writers convention circuit. The protagonist of this interesting and well-plotted story of deceit, infidelity and homicidal pathology is an anonymous mother and housewife, Mary Kate. She haunts the meat counter at the Farm Fresh supermarket and strip mall pharmacy blighting the tranquil tobacco country of her southern Maryland suburb. But Mary Kate bangs out pulp vampire novels in the upstairs chambers of her old house. The reader is warned early in the story of the strains in her marriage. She has kissed her husband, hugged her children and flown off to a few too many conventions. There she squeezes into thin black leather and balances on stiletto heels and joins her fellow struggling authors. As vampire author Theodora Zed she stokes the fantasies of the fans who swarm like flies to themes of sex and murder.

Barbara Ferrenz crafts a very creditable story as neck-punctured bodies follow her to city after city. There is no shortage of suspects. Her husband has grown distant. A former priest pilgrimages against her brand of Satanism. Her fans only just contain their adolescent sexuality as they gaze on Theodore's tightly wrapped chest. Her best friend's boyfriend lusts for her, protecting her even as they are stalked by an unknown killer.

The story is a quick moving engagement of the unexpected with the ordinary. In the end everything is as it should be, but nothing is the same.

Mary Kate, also known as Theodora Zed, Queen of the Vampires, is a mid-list writer of vampire romances. Theo promotes her books at weekend horror conventions and bookstore signings, much to the disgust of her husband, who would much rather have a conventional wife, and the embarrassment of her children, whose friends pass around her books at school. For Theo, promotion is just part of the job.

But, when a writer who insulted her at one of her panels turns up dead, though, Theodora has a motive and looks like a suspect. Or perhaps she's being targeted as one of the next victims. The Vampire Killer always seems to know where she is, and strange things keep happening when she and fellow writer Connor are in the vicinity.

This is a fun, fast paced mystery with unexpected twists and turns. The central characters are well drawn and credible. Mary Kate, although perhaps a bit naive, is a woman of integrity, determined to do the right thing no matter what. Descriptions of her circle of friends and acquaintances in the writing and publishing community struck a familiar chord. I am looking forward to reading more books by Barbara Ferrenz.

When the first edition came out, I purchased the first copy. I used several of the resources to move my apartment and found the book to be right on the money as far as the recommended services and contractors. I tried other resource books, but found that they were driven by advertiser money and not the quality of service. I would recommend the Franklin Report books to anyone looking for qualified home services, repair or contractors. There are a lot of unscrupulous individuals out there in this business and these books help you pick the best based upon actual user recommendations and not by advertising dollars alone. Buy this book, you will be glad you did and it will save you time and money!

Prior to buying the book I looked up some of the service providers I had already used and found that the descriptions provided were exactly as I would have written them! I have hired several more of the companies/people in the book since and again, the descriptions matched my experience. I am very impressed with this book and have recommended it to many people!

Thank goodness someone else has done the groundwork and the research to interview clients and the service providers. What an inspired idea! As a homeowner, this book is such a big help and the answer to any renovator's prayers. The quotes are extremely helpful and the ratings help me, as a consumer, sort through the people I should call. What would have taken hours of phone calls and research and questions only took me thirty minutes because of this book.

This proved to be a very useful and reliable tool for me. It gives an indepth description of each service provider. You can pick out service providers based on which styles the excell in and whether or not they stick to your budget. I think that this is particularly helpful.

Really gives a detailed description for each service provider. I feel much more comfortable about hiring someone I found from the Franklin Report than some random person from the yellow pages. A "must" for every home.

Hal Glatzer's Fugue In Hell's Kitchen provides a new Katy Green mystery. Katy is no ordinary P.I.: she's a swing violinist in 1939 who helps a friend search for a missing classical manuscript - only to find an investigation into petty theft becomes a fight for life. Gripping, especially with the unusual plot and background setting.

I only wish I were Katy Green! She's the woman I always pictured myself being, but haven't yet become. I love the way she comes at the crime and the criminal---not to punish or exact revenge or retribution but to restore the balance of things. And the author seems to have gotten the period and the location just right---New York's Hell's Kitchen just before World War II. You can almost hear the El and smell the exhaust from the cars. I thought the first Katy Green was terrific ("Too Dead To Swing"). but this one is closer to home.

The more I read about Katy Green, the more I wish she was a real person! She's just the sort of person I'd like to know and share musical tales with. The time in which she lives is a bit before mine, unfortunately (I was still in my crib) but still - she's definitely a lady of her time.

Katy is bright and funny and smart and thrifty, and above all--a very talented musician, who can look beyond the notes on the page to pay attention to the world around her. And if that world includes good looking young men, well, why not? She isn't foolish about it, though, which is a good thing.

This tale is set slightly prior to the first book - Too Dead to Swing - so we learn how Katy ended up traveling in that swing band. As a classically-trained musician, she is somewhat of a rarity, being equally capable on violin or saxophone. The period details about New York City in the late 1930s seem right on, although not having been there at that time I can't say for certain. But I'll bet anyone who did live then would be hard put to disprove them, either.

Prejudice rears its ugly head in several ways in this engrossing mystery: it's just prior to WWII, when Oriental persons were looked at in different ways than they are now, and the migration of Southern Blacks to the North was in full flow. Add in a religious young woman from Appalachia, and you have a wonderfully mixed group of talented musicians who are not always capable of seeing beyond their music stands.

Katy follows various threads with the help of a newspaper reporter and finds the solution to several crimes, not just the one she was asked to investigate--the theft of an autograph manscript by the famous Niccolò Paganini. It's a marvelous performance, all around. I'm off to read her next adventure.

It's 1939 in Hell's Kitchen, a New York City neighborhood where even plucky heroines, like Hal Glatzer's Katy Green, fear to venture. Gangs rule the streets, and World War II lurks around the corner. As the Great Depression hangs on, musicians, like Katy Green, conservatory and bandstand trained, scramble for any kind of gig they can get. A couple of bodies turn up at a failing music academy, a pal on the faculty is accused of stealing an original Paganini manuscript, and Katy rushes in to settle scores. Her investigation is well paced, and the ending surprises. Glatzer projects as detailed a rendition of the pre-war era as any cinematographer, with authentic language, cuisine, fashion, sexual mores, and race relations, against the ever-changing backdrop of New York. A Fugue in Hell's Kitchen is time travel without the sugarcoated nostalgia. Yet, traditional mystery readers will be glad to know there's little violence or sexual explicitness. A Fugue in Hell's Kitchen should appeal to anyone who likes jazz or classical music. Like Too Dead To Swing, the first in the Katy Green series, an audio version of A Fugue in Hell's Kitchen will soon be produced. The audio of Too Dead To Swing featured fine music and brilliant actors. What fun! I can't wait to hear the audio version of A Fugue in Hell's Kitchen. But definitely read it first.

In 1939 swing violinist Katy Green is as usual unemployed and walking the pavement (and clubs) for a job. Though she would prefer to say no to her pal cellist Amalia "Am" Lee Chen's request for help, a gig is a gig, but Katy would have preferred a musical job. Instead Am asks Katy to find a priceless Paganini manuscript stolen from her cello case following a performance performed at the prestigious Meyers Conservatory.

Though Katy agrees, she finds the recent death of the conservatory's dean, Iris Meyers a bit more interesting. Katy notices the high note of the tension amidst the faculty reaching discord that along with the disastrous efforts of the deceased's successor, her brother Joseph, threatens the school's existence. .A forgery of the missing composition is returned to Am that leads to the police arresting her for stealing the manuscript. Now the case is personal as Katy follows the musical notes to Harlem trying to find the purloined item even as the conservatory's librarian, know it all, Nina Rovere is killed

Hal Glazer hits all the high notes with this delightful historical cozy that pays homage to various musical styles like swing. Katy is a wonderful lead performer who keeps the tale humming as she digs the scene in an attempt to prove that the arrest of Am is racial due to the imminent war and her friend being of Asiatic descent. Fans of historical who-done-its starring a wonderful amateur sleuth working the mean streets of the Manhattan club scene will sing in harmony with FUGUE IN HELL'S KITCHEN and want to resonate about Katy's previous number, TOO DEAD TO SWING.

Harriet Klausner

A superb book - lots of fun - but digestible only in little bites. There is a lot of information in here!

This book is a must read - it was so entertaining and funny, I had pop comming out of my nose laughing! And my friends and I had a great time sitting around the piano playing and singing the composed musice enclosed! We even added a few lyrics of our own to the already hilarious lyrics ;-)
Have Fun!

If you share my growing concern at the musical cross-over tendencies in synagogue songs and how "un-Jewish" much of today's Jewish music sounds, you'll find a charming antidote in Dr. Jack Gottlieb's new and original coffee table book: Funny, It Doesn't Sound Jewish. Gottlieb's earnest musical detective comparisons and analyses invite us into joyfully playing the "sounds like" game. After we chuckle in consternation, at the Yiddish or liturgical roots of a pop song's pedigree, we marvel at the truism that there seems to be "nothing new under the sun"; especially under the show biz music lights.

Gottlieb loves to make puns and burst bubbles. This effervescently entertaining study is filled with anecdotes, song sheet covers, musical illustrations, photos of composers and performers, and even an accompanying Audio CD to bring home his astute assertions.

Some of my favorites include: Did you realize that -

George Gershwin's It Ain't Necessarity So is kin to the Torah blessing Barachu Et Adoshem Ham'vorach?

The Torah cantillation for Merchaw R'via inspired both Bach's Oh Sacred Head Now Wounded and Paul Simon's American Tune?

Rozhinkes Mit Mandlin prompted Irving Berlin's Blue Skies.... and my all time favorite

I Am A Gay Caballero, I'm back again from Janeiro is both Y'hei sh'mei rabah m'vorach from the Kaddish and Ashrei yoshvei veitecha od y'hall'lucha selah

Are you curious to follow Gottlieb's unearthing of more of these amusing affinities? There are dozens of other examples, some more apparent than others, but all will cause you to "aha!" pause, smile, and, most importantly, think about what we consider immutable Jewish traditional melodies.

Dr. Gottlieb is an engaging author and lecturer (this book began as a touring presentation with him at the piano). He is a published composer of both secular and synagogue music who most recently was honored by The Milken Archive of American Jewish Music when it distributed a CD of his works on the Naxos label. He is also a meticulous researcher, program notes writer, and former assistant to Leonard Bernstein. In all these endeavors it is quite obvious that he is also a passionate lover of all thing musical and Jewish.

We offer kudos to Dr. Gottlieb for this wonderfully endearing study of Jewish melodic ties to mid 20th century pop music and enthusiastically recommend it as both an urbane entertainment and a carefully documented study. Buy it and enjoy!

Over 30 years ago there was a famous ad campaign for a brand of "Jewish rye bread," showing an American Indian eating a deli sandwich, and the caption read, "You Don't have to be Jewish to Like Levy's Rye Bread."

With regard to this book, this was never so true. Anyone who love the "Great American Song Book" spanning the first half of the last century cannot afford to miss this book.

Especially remarkable is that it IS a scholarly book, complete with footnotes and bibliography, but the tone is also so jocular.

The accompanying CD of musical examples alone is worth the cost of the book.

Do yourself a favor - Order this book, but pass on the Most book offered by Amazon.com in tandem. It is hardly as comprehensive and definitely pales by comparison.

Don't be mislead by the title of this book. It isn't glib or lightweight--in fact, it's a brilliant analysis of the subconscious effect synagogue music and Yiddish song have had on our most beloved popular music. When I picked it up (out of curiosity) I found myself mesmerized and couldn't stop reading.

The book is peppered with musical examples that continually evoke "I never realized that song was related to that"! Gottlieb must have spent decades researching this and it seems unbelievably thorough. He doesn't stop at musical analysis; he also includes a good examination of the history behind everything, particularly focusing on the heavy periods of emigration, when most of the (now) well-known Jewish composers came to America. The book made me look at some of the best known popular songs in a new light, yielding a deeper understanding of what went into their creation.

It may seem a little expensive, but you also get a CD packed with great rare recordings that have never been released before (try Bernstein performing Blitzstein's classic "Zipperfly" or Jolson singing "Khazn oyf Shabes" in Yiddish).

Gottlieb decides to pay limited attention to some of the living composers who focus on Jewish themes (for example, Jason Robert Brown and Osvaldo Golijov are only mentioned casually) but I suspect he could write another book on them. Let's hope he does--I would line up to get a copy.