Berg Books

All the books in this set gives you a different view of looking at life. It's insightful and really makes you think outside the box. Love it.

If you are curious about Kabbalah, this is a great starter "kit". A little bit of everything to give you a taste of what Kabbalah has to offer. This would make a nice gift.

Wonderful! Peaking from behind a curtain into the world of Kabbalah, great place to start.

It's not often you can find a cook book that recipe after recipe can be used as written in an a la carte restaurant. The Asian Collection has given us a wonderful range of spicy dishes to add to our menus over almost six years. A real chef's cook book.

This book has recipes from all aroung Asia, sometimes it presents a beautiful pictures of the recipes. Just recipes, no backgrounds or anything like that. Still a nice book.

Anthony Poole's study of Berg's violin concerto is one of the standouts of the Cambridge Music Handbooks series, exploring every facet of the work and giving a vivid picture of the society in which the book was written. If you love Berg's quirky yet moving masterpiece, or are trying to understand what all the fuss is about, this is a vital book to have. Note, however, that one must also have a copy of the score to fully use this handbook, as Poole makes frequent reference to rehearsal numbers.

Poole's work consists of four parts. In the first, Poole presents the music scene of the 1930s, paying especial attention to the style of allusion used by Stravinsky et al. and the conservatism of Rachmaninoff and even some of Schoenberg's American works. Berg, writes Poole, elegantly balanced between the competing musical philosophies of the time. The second part of the book takes up this theme, showing the breakthroughs Berg made in the works written up to the violin concerto, such as the Three Orchestral Pieces, the "Lyric Suite", and parts of "Lulu".

Yet it is the latter half of the book that will be most fascinating to many readers, getting as they do to the violin concerto itself. In the third part, Poole tracks the composition of the work, explaining how it was partially inspired by the death of Manon Gropius. A big bombshell is that parts of the work are inspired by a bawdy Carinthian folk song; a work often seen as of angelic purity (dedicated as it is "to the memory of an angel") has a rather risque subtext. Poole also mentions Berg's fathering of an illegitimate child by a servant girl in his boyhood home, memories of which, which he says, leave meaningful traces in the work.

The next two chapters form the musicological analysis of the work. Some of it is accessible to everyone. For example, he goes step by step through the various portions of the concerto. The two movements break nicely into two sections each, and each section has several distinct parts of its own. Poole helps the reader follow these developments in a way that greatly enhances appreciation of the concerto. The discussion of tonality in the work, however, supposes some knowledge of music theory, and makes heavy use of Schenkerian/Neo-Schenkerian theory. Poole reveals the work to be much more traditional than is often let on--which, incidentally, vindicates Boulez, who over fifty years ago famously dismissed Berg as too bound by early notions of form and tonality. The final chapter of the work talks about the critical reception that the concerto met.

An admirable handbook, and much more successful than most entries in the CMH series.

This book covers almost everything you could want to know about this concerto, which is difficult but full of powerful emotion. It explains the commission, the performance history, the program, and the tonality. I wish the book had more short musical examples in the program section, but that is a small caveat. The discussion of tonality is much clearer than in the other works I have read on this concerto.

This is one of the most under-rated phenomenology books available. On first read it appears simplistic, but this is both its charm and power. Phenomenology is not complex - it is very simple. It is seeing (or hearing etc) what is there - before any interpretation. And this is perhaps the difficult part - engaging with things without intepreting them.

This book must be re-read and then it can be mindblowing. And many of todays 'stars' - like Hillman and Sardello owe van den Berg a large debt. Also try his other books, particularly 'Changing Nature of Man' and 'Divided Existence and Complex Society'.

For those looking for an accurate and concrete introduction to phenomenological psychopathology, this book is probably the best way to go. Van den Berg is a pretty good phenomenologist, and has a very down-to-earth yet evokative descriptive style that, while sometimes frustratingly vague, can also be quite revealing. Unfortunately, Van den Berg spends a bit too much of his time talking about patients' relationships with the physical world and almost no time speaking of the structure of their interpersonal relationships, making his interpretations sometimes seem strangely decontextualized and a bit off the mark. Still, this is a neat little book that can can be quite helpful when one is trying to get an intuitive and nontechnical grasp of phenomenological psychopathology.

Keith Kahn-Harris' "Extreme Metal: Music And Culture On The Edge" investigates sociological and subcultural insights from the world of Extreme Metal. An often misunderstood music scene where musicians explore positive and negative themes together, and an influential music identity that embraces the relevance of relationships empowered by community and friendship. Extreme Metal is a pioneering publication featuring interviews with both band members and music fans. Readers will find this text well referenced and researched; a critical and crucial companion for all fans of extreme music. Keith Kahn-Harris has produced a brilliant book expressing a sincere depth, focus, and passion for Extreme Metal.

Keith Kahn-Harris' book on extreme metal started out as a PhD thesis caled "Transgression and Mundanity: The Global Extreme Music Scene," and this tells you a few things about the nature of the book. While I found it a fairly entertaining read, some might say it's overly scholarly and dry. It also largely focuses on themes and the "scene" more than it does the actual music involved.

It starts off with the reasons that KKH thinks that extreme metal is culturally important, and goes on to discuss issues such as gender, race and sexualiry in extreme metal, and to compare/contrast the relative absence of women, gays and ethnic minorities in extreme metal to those in the more mainstream metal scenes. This was some of the more interesting material covered in the book, and most of his ideas seemed fairly sound. He suggest that the above groups tend to exclude themselves, and that "certain backgrounds seem to engender a dislike of extreme metal." He could have written more on outright misogyny and racism, but it's probably all been said before anyway.

I liked the discussion of the lack of "out"homosexuals in the extreme metal scene, despite the abundance of people in black metal who dress a lot like Rob Halford. He quotes another author in saying that a "key element of metal is the misogynist fantasy of a world without women," and cites some of the rather ridiculous (homoerotic?) photoshoots of the band Manowar.

Having spent some time at a few metal messageboards and having run a metal fanzine in the mid-90s, I'm inclined to agree with a lot of this. In fact, I'd say the average metal messageboard user appears to be about 15, male, and still under the impression that women all have cooties. It may also be that the older/wiser/less misogynistic people just have other things to do besides hang around messageboards, but the fact remains that the internet has become a widespread and visible way of discussing music, and the global extreme metal community has changed greatly with the advent of the internet. The views of Kahn-Harris on the subject are thought-provoking, anyway, and the apparent views of the community at large are something that merits thought, even the ones not universally accepted.

Kahn-Harris discusses the ways that music was traded and bought in the early days versus today's file sharing and internet distribution, as well as the impact of things like nu-metal. He suggests that more mainstream bands calling themselves black metal, such as Cradle of Filth, are shunned not only because they suck, but also because they wear bondage gear, have dreadlocks, and feature women on album covers.

An interesting book, but most will probably just skim it here and there. It's not really something to sit down with at night and read cover to cover.

Some of the styles in this book were obviously western-inspired, with their own twist. Very amusing book, although it could have done with some background info.

Judd Stitziel has written a fine book. Well researched and put together. This work is very interesting, informative and revealing.....much like the fashion itself.

This book was great! The right mix of passion and pure raw sex. Good characterization and lots of hooks to keep you wanting more

This book follows the lives of two women, one a nurse and the other her patient who has lost her memory due to an automobile accident. As time unfolds, our patient, in her recurring dreams finds there is someone lurking in the far reaches of her mind yet unable to be seen clearly enough to identify. The passage which is travelled to find the memory she wishes to regain is filled with an intense level of feeling and emotion and a highly charged sensual and sexual flavor. It made me hot just reading it and I longed for more.

A page turner on the excitement of uncovering many secrets of life from the rediscovery of Mendel to the threshold of revealing the genetic dictionary and how it is translated into living forms told by two leading biochemical geneticists.

High marks for telling an interesting story well. George Beadle was a old-fashioned, principled country boy from Nebraska. But he and a cast of brilliant colleagues revolutionized how biology is done, and that is the highlight of the book. It is best when showing how Beadle got where he did scientifically. George Beadle was a driven, brilliant workaholic who kept his emotions tightly bottled, like his flies, except fpr short, well-directed bursts of anger directed at lab workers for sloppiness. His wonderful institutional personality contrasts sharply with more infamous, disagreeable sorts, like Delbruck and Watson, who appear later in the book. The book moves along smartly and efficiently, but lapses in a couple areas. I recognize this is a book about biology, but it's also a biography, and so Beadle's personal life is fair game, besides being inherently as interesting as much of the later administrative info, in which the book becomes bogged down. So, here goes: Frequent references are made to the unpleasant personality of George Beadle's first wife, Marion. But no attempt is made to flesh this out in any effective way. What did she say and do that was so offensive to so many people. What was her problem? She remains too much of a mystery, given that she was an important part of Beadle's life. This lack of info contrasts with the often overly detailed, and somewhat murky explanation of the neurospora life cycle. I had to read it three times to understand what they were talking about and have taught this stuff for 20 years. The authors are scientists, not historians or novelists, and it shows. Still, it's close to a page-turner for the first half.

This book gives the basic ideas about scheduling,meal planning,storage,housecleaning,and time management,geared for an observant Jewish woman.And the first piece of advice is something very to the point - pray for help!It has parts about preparing for the Jewish holidays and Shabbos,with regards to cleaning,scheduling,and cooking.Good general info;but if you want only hints,get something else in addition.This book,while giving hints,gives more of a general ideas and attitudes.Useful.

I haven't read this book just yet but I plan to as soon as I can. It's by the writer of my favorite book and if this is anything like the other one it's gonna be terrific. I'll fill the rest in when I read it. ENJOY!

The author highlights that he wrote the book with the University of Phoenix in mind, but when he asked for feedback, he was told that he should include other for-profit institutions. Although he did this, the book gives the reader the feeling that the other examples were added hastily at the end of the project. Some of the major for-profit institutions (like City University) are not even mentioned. Nonetheless, he does have enough information to give a good background to this up-and-coming trend.

This book is not who's who of the for-profit university world. Instead, it talks about the mindset of the nontraditional university and explores why it succeeds. It also makes a call for the traditional university to rethink its mission.

I would recommend this book to people who want to get a good background understanding on nontraditional universities. These universities will not replace the traditional universities, but they will help us to be better educated and more productive.

Berg offers a careful and thorough evaluation of for-profit higher education in America, today.

The book is an evaluation of the foremost regionally-accredited, for-profit universities from an academic administrator who joined University of Phoenix faculty and taught online, during the course of his research. From a description of the beginnings of for-profit education in America to the challenges and future potential of the business of education, this book carefully explains the value of for-profit education to our society.

The profit motive for the illustrated institutions reflects a core focus that puts student success ahead of traditional concerns: rather than allowing the professorial cadre to manage these universities, responsibility is shared between faculty and administration, always keeping the students' best interests in mind.

This book should be in the personal library of all scholars' libraries.