Berg Books

I bought this book/Cd package because I wanted to know how to take drum rudiments like the paradiddle and flam, and use them as drum fills or beats. OH MY !! The author of this book is such a great drummer and teacher, he successfully shows you how you can take each drum rudiment and apply it to the kit. He takes you through the single stroke rolls and triple ratamacues and swiss triplets etc. It is a great book well laid out. I must say the recording quality of the CD examples of grooves and feels are out of this world fantastic! You will not be lost on how to follow the standard notation, simply put in the CD and listen to MR. Berg wail on the drums.
Andreas Berg(the author) started playing drums at the age of 11, was a member of the band "Toxoplasma" and has performed with such artists as "Framnz Kasper and the Violin Violence". He is the author of the book "Double bass Drum" and has been teaching for many years.
I use this with my students and it has taught me some wonderful new ideas for my own drumming as well.
If you get this you will enjoy it also. A great book/CD package!!!

The first time Mary Ann Koenig asked about her birth parents, "I saw a look on my adoptive mother's face that I had never seen before," writes Koenig. "Maybe fear, maybe hurt. The story of how I came into the world was a dangerous topic."
Today's parents are more willing to bring adoption into the open, a trend Koenig supports with moving essays culled from interviews with adoptees and birth and adoptive parents, compellingly illustrated with Berg's portaits. Meet Jim Rockwell, who at 60 felt a need to "lay eyes on one living sole whose flesh I am." (He found seven siblings.) And artist Kathryn Shelley, whose says trying to imagine her birth mother was like "grabbing smoke - there was nothing to hold onto." Koenig though offers plenty. (Peter Wolf Press, $29.95) Bottom line: Thought provoking look at family ties.

This is a small and very enjoyable book presenting with humor and wisdom born of experience and caring the does and don'ts associated with destination weddings. It is unfortunate that there isn't a Jean Stewart Berg available to perform such service in all wedding destinations but reading this book will help those wishing to marry for the first time or just to renew and repeat their committment in a lovely and remote setting to know what to look for.

Scandinavian Sweet Treats, in the popular recipe-card file size Stocking Stuffer format, is chock-full of the best recipes and notes about Scandinavian coffee and desserts. Compiled by Karen Berg Douglas, this book features artwork by the great Swedish master, Carl Larsson. This cookbook is inspired by the Swedish love of coffee and sweets (served up to five times a day in some areas)! Scandinavian hospitality is shown to a guest with a variety of cookies, pastries and cakes served at the coffee table. Karen has presented us with the best of them in this little cookbook!

In addition to recipes, Scandinavian Sweet Treats contains information on the tradition of Afternoon Coffee in Norway, and memories shared by Scandinavian folks of afternoon sweets and picnics. The stories are charming and remind us of a time which was a little less hectic than our own. Recipes include Cinnamon Coffee (Finnish), Norwegian Christmas Bread, Swedish Rusks, Norwegian Cookies, Swedish Sugar Twists, and a Butterscotch Dessert that is out of this world! This is just a sample of the recipes which this book contains! You will never be at a loss for a bake sale or dessert again!

This book is excellent for personal collections and as a gift for anyone with a sweet tooth.

This is the most thorough book I have ever read on Schoenberg and the Second Viennese School. It very clearly leads the reader through the progression from tonal music to the twelve-tone system and demonstrates how this progression is a logical extension of the music that came before. There is also a great deal of analysis of almost all the works of Schoenberg, Berg & Webern.

This book is the ultimate "how to". It guides women on "how to meet men" & "how to start dating" in a healthy way, which leads to happy marriage. It is a must for any single woman that would like to get married! By using the principals in this book, a smart woman will be able to avoid the pitfalls of another relationship with a frog/loser. I highly recommend it!

I first came across this book years ago at Connecticut College, and was impressed enough by it that I found my own copy years later. This book is an excellent technical introduction to the music of Schoenberg, Berg and Webern, and the author places these composers in the proper historical context by including descriptive chapters on other musical trends in the early-mid 20th century (such as Hindemith and Weill). The introduction alone is an amazingly insightful overview of the history of classical music with a few surprise observations.

The Secret Cemetery by Doris Francis, Leonie Kellaher, and Georgina Neophytou fills a fairly obvious gap in the study of cemeteries. Most studies focus on the historic aspects of the cemetery - individual histories, genealogy, symbolism, and funerary architecture - but have virtually ignored the reason cemeteries exist in the first place.

Never before has such a sweeping and thorough study been done to examine how contemporary mourners actually use the cemetery. The authors have employed a social anthropology approach to their research, which has resulted in a fascinating modern look at cemeteries in Western society.

The authors first obtained permission from cemetery owners to conduct research. Their field study was quite extensive and lasted several years. They would interview willing participants for as long as they wished to talk, and were even invited to a few homes to continue the discussion. The authors also attempted to make contact via mailed questionnaires to those living in the vicinity of the cemeteries, to examine their attitudes toward the cemetery. Copies of research forms and questionnaires are included as appendices.

I was fascinated to learn how significant the garden is to English society. Often, many of the flowers and plants growing at a gravesite have been transplanted from the deceased's own garden. Some plants were even raised as cuttings from family heirlooms, given to newlywed couples or new parents. Some study participants had grown plants for the cemetery garden from seeds themselves, which they viewed as a more personal and powerful tribute to the departed. Gardening is a national pastime in England that carries over to the cemetery.

While the focus of the book was to study the behavior of cemetery visitors, the authors also examine funerary rituals of some of England's ethnic groups. There were extensive sections on the traditions of the Orthodox Jewish and Greek Cypriot communities, which have very specific funerary traditions that greatly influence the appearance of their respective cemeteries. For example, the Jewish faith does not encourage regular visits to the cemetery, which controls how the Jewish cemetery is used. From the photographs provided, the typical English Jewish cemetery is uniform, stark, and rarely personalized, creating a true "space apart" from the living.

The Greeks in the study, however, regularly visit to tend to extensive gardens. Although they frequent the cemetery, tradition and superstition dictate cemetery behavior. For example, in one interview the authors learned that Greeks typically keep a separate set of gardening tools exclusively for use in the cemetery garden that never enter the house. Another visitor recounted a tale of a fight that broke out at her home after a cemetery visit on a rainy, muddy day. Someone had not thoroughly wiped the cemetery dirt off their shoes, and had tracked it into the house. This was seen as an extremely bad omen, inviting death into the home of the living.

The Secret Cemetery also examines how people deal with the first year after a death, as well as how cemeteries are used long-term. The book includes research on how parents, children, and spouses view their own reasons for visiting the cemetery.

The authors went to great lengths to preserve the anonymity of the study participants, even going as far as to blur the names on the stones in photographs. Aside from brief biographical information, none of the quotations are identified.

At times, the book is difficult to read, as it is written in a kind of sociological doublespeak, which requires a bit of deciphering. While that may be a weakness of the book, the information conveyed was clearly worth reading. Since it is based in England, readers will find variant spellings and colloquialisms that may not be readily familiar. I would like to see a similar study conducted in the United States. I suspect some things would be similar to the findings in The Secret Cemetery, but others would be remarkably different.

For me, this book filled an important gap between modern day use of the cemetery and the historical view where I usually focus my research. It is important for all cemetery researchers to remember the reasons people build cemeteries, and how mourners have used them in the past - and today.

My daughter (9) and I loved reading this book. The symbolism used throughout the story made me a "page turner" rushing to SEEK the next awaiting biblical message. The language and wording was easy for her to understand. Therefore, making her bi-weekly chapter book report assignment pleasurable to complete. For the first time, her feelings overflowed on the report instead of me trying to pull them out of her. We will continue to read and spread the word about Dian Laytons' labors of love.

This great book builds a hunger in children for a relationship with the true and only King Jesus.

From having a King that is so loving that he winks at us and slides down a shining hallway to a King that says, "I know" when you tell Him you really want to be with Him.

Read this book, adults and children and become SEEKERS!