Bernstein Books

In response the reviewer who complains that Leonard Bernstein raises more questions than he answers, the composer never purports to be doing anything in these lectures than raise informed points -- hence the title, The Unanswered Question. He gives an extremely cogent hypothesis to explain how and why we perceive music on an emotional level, and from what I've heard, nothing's been shown to disprove his ideas.

Beware that although Bernstein tries to put everything in "layman"'s terms, many of the concepts touched upon will be difficult to understand without a rudimentary knowledge of musical notation.

I found this 'book' to be extremely interesting and a unique, welcome perspective on the nature of music. Those of you interested in Bernstein's compositions will get a nice long look at the inner workings of the mind of one of America's greatest composers; and even if his insights as to the answers of the questions he's asking are erroneous, the manner in which he couches said questions is insightful in and of itself, and more than worth the investment.

I respect Bernstein even more as a scholar of music and languages than I do as a conductor. I thought this was an inspired literary work of his, really. For example, his explanation of musical motive in Beethoven's 5th Symphony where we are shown that Beethoven has taken the common coda form, TA TA TA DUM, that many classical works end with, and turned it to a motive from which derives the motion and power of HIS entire symphony. That is Bernstein at his most insightful and brilliant. Wonderful! Illuminating! I would never have thought of things that only a conductor and musicologist can otherwise understand and explain. Thank you Lenny, we love you!

The Unanswered Question, the transcript of six lectures delivered at Hardvard in 1973, outline a new theory of music. Inspired by work of Noam Chomsky and other linguists, Bernstein attempts to find a system of musical grammar analagous to that of language. This is the weakest part of the book. He makes strained generalizations and is attempting to show something that quite possibly isn't true. Starting with the third lecture, however, his work becomes stronger. He includes an efficient analysis of Beethoven's Pastorale Symphony without any extramusical associations. Then he proceeds (with musical examples) to trace the "twentieth century crisis" in music and how Schoenberg and Stravinsky derived different "solutions." This is the strongest past of the book, and certianly worth suffereing through the first two weaker lectures. "The Unasnwered Question" is strongest for raising questions rather than answering them.

This is genius. Only now scientific research is proving his incredible leap of imagination.

In our banal age when sanctimonious platitude is often mistaken for wisdom or even ethical character, Adorno's mercilessly uncompromising analyses of the controlling nature of mass culture may initially strike some of us as exaggerated or hysterical initially. After all most of us now bear the consequence of lengthy habituation to our socio-economic situation: a chronic semi-conscious, autopilot behavioral and perceptive mode that can comprehend only the pre-digested, repetitive ideas or ways of thinking. However, once we start reading Adorno more attentively and thoughtfully we realize how prescient and perspicacious Adorno was as a critic of our modern society and culture. Many of his thoughts articulated in this volume anticipate the thoughts and writings of our leading contemporary thinkers, such as Jean Baudrillard, Frederic Jameson, and even Noam Chomsky (although he probably disagrees with Adorno's attitude toward culture, which may be construed as elitist).

I highly recommend this book to anybody who wants to escape the mass-culture induced stupor to become a more conscious human and citizen.

This collection of essays is very interesting. They all cover a critique of mass culture with quite original and interesting points made.

Sometimes it is bit difficult to read, this might be due to the translation; for this reason it gets only 4 stars. However, if you think you are ok with a moderately complicated text, the book is really great. I am glad I have read it.

The title of this review says much of it. Several essays in this book are dated in their literal forms, but your mind will take the ideas Adorno gives and apply them to your own experience. I don't know about ya'll, but I've found many of my new sensibilities about one thing while reading or otherwise interacting about something I would have considered entirely separated from the other.

My advice: read the intro twice: once through quickly and a second slowly and thoroughly; though I give that advice about many books, the intro to this book is vital to having a context to put the essays into.

Gleason's book is great because it offers works from other authors, so that you can gain the perspective of other experts in the field. This book really helped me understand the development of language. The book was particularly useful for me, because I am studying to be a School Psychologist.

I appriciate Gleason's addition of multi-authors (for each chapter), specializing in sub-specialties. I am learning alot!

Jean Berko Gleasn is a leader in the fields of psychology and linguistics. This book is a comprehensive introduction to language acquisition. It is easy to follow, yet thorough.

Here's the deal: Take a weekend to read through the 256 pages of this inexpensive, easy-to-read reference guide and you'll soon know more about English usage than 95% of the people you work with. Even the English majors, I kid you not.

You'll soon gain the reputation of being the office wordsmith. People will look at you differently. You'll gain more respect. And you'll get a 120% raise come review time. (OK, maybe you won't get a raise, but you will feel pretty darn knowledgable. Oh, what a feeling.)

God bless you, Mr. Bernstein, wherever you are. I just wish I had all of your books when I was still in college.

This book is arranged alphabetically like a dictionary, but to my mind this is much more than that. This book will help you when you need to know "All or All of?" or "Affect or Effect?". And it will also let you know some facts hidden behind grammar rules. I didn't know why the words "a six-foot man" are used instead of "a six-feet man". This book told me that this derives from Old English, which had no distinctive plural sign. I have learned lots of interesting facts or information about the proper use of English words, correct punctuation and confusing problems involved in learning English. No one will find this book unintersting. I strongly recommend this to all students of English.

finally a book explaining how to properly use "that" and "which" in terms every man can understand.

Nothing is hotter in IT right now than integration. The authors have done a great job in not only explaining the term "enterprise integration," but arguing that it's as much a business concept as it is a technological one. The short case-study examples propel the text forward and give it a real-world credibility. The authors have obviously walked the integration walk, and their book is an effective testimonial to their experience.

Jill Dyche
Author of The CRM Handbook and eData

If you are a manager to whom information technologists report, or a manager that employs technical advisors who in turn help oversee varied IT procurements and implementations, then this book is an ideal primer. It can also be scary, because I will wager than in 7 out of 10 cases, the technical experts are not pursuing the enterprise integration fundamentals that this book outlines.

Both authors are strong in their own right. The book bring together Bill Ruh, former MITRE, MITRETEK, and Concepts 5 guru, today the global manager for CISCO AONS, who is updating his 2000 book on the topic, with Beth Gold-Bernstein, who has consulted, lectured, and written on this topic, and has her own book titled "Enterprise Integration: A Practical Approach."

I regard the book, and the topic, as a watershed between the old days of configuration management and a focus on data that was largely within internal custody, and today, when real-time data integration and exploitation is required across both all internal points (i.e. including the 85% that is in emails and hard drives) and external points--not just the web, but supplier, buyer, regulatory, and other databases.

I recommend this book for managers in part because the book itself is quite clear on the fact that information technology by itself, no matter how much money is thrown at it, will not achieve enterprise information integration. Management mind-sets, management metrics, management enforcement of standards and compliance with the strategic direction implied by enterprise integration, are all required.

Early in the book there are important references to both scale and speed, with the key difference between the 1990's and today being that instead of humans accessing the data, there now much more machine to machine communication and sharing, and this requires hyper-speed. There is also much more focus on event-driven information actions, with Delta Airlines being cited as a very good case study--the system must be able to take many autonomous actions triggered by an event (e.g. an airplane more than 15 minutes late, with repercussions across gate management, luggage management, connections management, catering management, etc.). Zero latency, real-time enterprise, and event-driven information transactions are among the buzz words.

The case study of CISCO on page 6 grabbed me early on--my primary focus is on the Global War on Terror (GWOT), and reading about CISCO's move to real-time metrics (this book is *very* strong on metrics, which I take to be a very good thing) and real-time decision making and course corrections, I was thinking to myself that CISCO is to information as special operations are to terror. So when CISCO doubled productivity, cut costs by 30%, and made daily reporting the norm, I say to myself: okay, now let's see that in GWOT....this book is Ref A in answering that challenge. Another case study, on FedEx using hand-held devices as both points of data entry in the field, and end points for data value to the field, also struck me as relevant to GWOT.

Throughout the book, one of its own phrases: "people are the most expensive part of any system," keeps resonating, because everything in here is about either increasing productivity or reducing the time-cost of information transactions. This book also has a very healthy focus on information sharing across all boundaries, with appropriate security, privacy, and legal attributes for each transaction.

Standards receive heavy emphasis throughout.

The book is slightly dated on the topic of automated metastandards and semantic data definitions, but I know the authors to be personally very engaged in the very latest developments surrounding semantic web and synthetic information architectures and other related automated assignments of meaning, so I take this to be primarily an issue of timing--the book had to be put to bed.

The chapters on Information Integration Architecture and on Information Integration, the ones I was most looking forward to reading, strike me as the least developed among the many excellent parts of this book. In part this is because Enterprise Content Management (ECM) is just coming of age, and truly scalable solutions to the challenge of managing global multi-media multi-lingual unstructured information data (Cf. InfoSphere AB in Sweden) are just now coming into being. This chapter does provide an important itemization of key organizations responsible for metadata standards, and lays out a framework for establishing "who needs to know what when" as part of the manager's contribution to the over-all enterprise integration planning process. These two chapters excel in pointing out that information management is about ensuring long-term data value, allowing for reachback over time and space.

In its conclusion the book makes reference to turf wars, training, reducing redundancy, reducing reliance on proprietary technologies with lock-in costs, finding a return on assets, and creating a culture of reuse. The last hundred pages of the book, and the CD-ROM, provide templates that any manager could reasonably demand of their technical advisors. I opened these up and found them very useful, to the point of being worth at least a week if not more of man-time, and hence easily repaying the price of the book many times over.

The bibliography is good and the index has been thoughtfully developed. I recommend this book to anyone who deals with global information in any form, but especially to managers who might be wondering if their IT people have any clue as to where they are taking the enterprise and its information. This book also strikes me a superb textbook, both for undergraduates as a primer, and for graduates as a foundation for a more nuanced discussion. For myself, it was "just enough, just in time" information, exactly what I wanted and needed in my specific context.

The statement on the last page, "This book is not intended to be a full blown integration methodology", holds true. This book is essentially a walkthrough of the provided document templates (see Appendix and the included CD) and provides only limited information about how to use or implement an integration methodology. In fact, the templates are the main reason to buy the book, but don't expect to read about a tried and tested integration methodology or (unfortunately) how to develop an enterprise integration architecture.

The authors do include a fair number of 'lessons learned', but they are scattered across a very repetitive book, so don't assume you can easily find them again. I found the authors' choice of 'important lessons' odd at times. For example, section 8.3 makes some key points about metadata for integration architecture, but the points only feature in the standard text whereas a description about XML is highlighted in a framed box. That really seemed like a waste of two pages.

The second key part of the book is the "Integration Road Map" first introduced on page 11. The road map (not to be confused with a methodology!) is meant as a "step-by-step" guide to implement a reference framework based on the provided templates. Incidentally, it also serves as a reading guide to the book.

The problem with the road map is that it fails to explain how the individual activities (read: templates) hands together, i.e., they lack an obvious way to link the templates together into a coherent architecture description. This is why the book falls somewhat short of the stated goal of demonstrating how to document a reference integration architecture. 'Disjointed' is the word I was looking for.

The authors' have focused on what the templates should describe rather than how the templates describe a certain view or aspect of the enterprise integration to ensure a consistent end-to-end architecture. "Documenting Software Architectures: Views and Beyond" is a good reference on how to do this.

Oh, and before I finish. The book's constant reference to importance of building "re-useable" components is not a bad thing, but just remember that good re-useable software components only come from the knowledge of what and how people will re-use them - guessing will almost certainly only lead to wasted development effort and undermine the business' confidence in the IT department or vendor.

Great stills from the films and some conceptual artworks (they could've included more) make this book a perfect choice for movie buff and comic book enthusiast. The origins of FF and how eventually it became a major motion picture is detailed with good narrative. A special preface by Stan Lee himself is like a cameo in nearly every Marvel film based on his creations, a salutory touch.

I am an avid fan of the Fantastic 4 since I was growing up, reading the comic books and now this book...Fantastic 4: The Making of the Movie! The layout is well put togher and the coverage by Stan Lee and his cameo in the movie was a nice treat! The artwork presents itself well from the comic strip to the movie. This book will make a nice addition to your collection if you're a Fantastic 4 fan!!

This a nice book for any fan of the FF and/or the movie to pick up. There are a lot of photos and production art. The only problem is that it might have been nice to see more of the production art. Also, many of the photos seem like shots we've already seen from the trailer. That said, the photos, art, and info that is here is great. It really seems like the creators of the movie put a lot of thought into the Fantastic Four as characters - both in the script and their development for the screen as far as visual effects.

The full screenplay seems to be included as well. This part I didn't read as I want to wait for the movie. But it's a nice addition that serves to pad out the book.

Definitely worth your time and money.

After reading the other two reviews of this book, the other reviewers appear to be "history buffs". Which is fine, only they've missed the most extraordinary element of Mr. Bernstein's writing--his sure-footed, muscular prose. Bernstein's ear is pitch-perfect: his sentences and thoughts link with the surety of railcars in motion--and he takes you on a hell of a ride. The characters he has written about (and characters they are, all) do not include Ritty (the inventor of the cash register). The wild (nay, eccentric) friends and acquaintances (for they all lived in Dayton early in the twentieth century and knew each other), these broad-stroked shapers of America (for they came from a time when when the American psyche was still malleable--and they did shape it), include the Wright Brothers, James Cox, John H. Patterson, Arthur Morgan and Charles Kettering. This is an engaging read that anyone with a love of history or fine writing will enjoy.

Orville Wright, Wilbur Wright, James Cox, John Patterson, James Ritty, and other men have brought many great inventions and insight into the world of business, politics, and science. These guys are known mostly for their contributions to human progress but they also have one more thing in common: they all grew up and/or lived in the city of Dayton, Ohio, when they achieved greatness. Author Mike Bernstein wrote this book in 1996 to commemorate the bicentennial of the city of Dayton and to celebrate the many native men who helped change the world.

Much of this book is spent talking about John Patterson, the former head of NCR (known as National Cash Register in those days), and his business practices and personal conduct that thrust him into the national spotlight. The Wright Brothers also get extensive coverage in this book, with Bernstein talking about not only the invention of powered flight, but also the personalities that made the Wright Brothers unique. You complete your reading feeling like you know about them as people and not just as two guys who were good mechanics.

Bernstein includes many black and white photos throughout the book, showing some of the factories, the people, and the inventions that put Dayton, Ohio, on the national map. He doesn't include any color photos. He gives the book an historic feel by including photos exactly as they were taken in the early part of the twentieth century.

Dayton, Ohio is still known by many as the birthplace of aviation. But it was also a hotbed of other activities and inventions. Author Mike Bernstein explains these complex men and the ambition and drive that propelled each of them to national prominence. These men were all unique and important to the progress of mankind. But most of all, they were "grand eccentrics"- men who were out of the ordinary and who didn't allow conventional thinking to stand in the way of innovation. This book describes them well, showing how the combination of determination and zeal led these inventors to accomplish so many great things.

Mr. Bernstein does a great job bringing to life the interactions among the Wright Brothers, Boss Kettering, and John Patterson in turn of the century Dayton, Ohio. Did you know John Patterson (founder of National Cash Register)invented the canned sales pitch and direct mail marketing? And the way the book covers the five year period it took the Wright Brothers to concur flight is spellbinding. I have purchased five copies of this book to give to various friends, all of whom loved it.

I enjoyed this book a lot. Interesting and funny. Tons of pictures, and some great insights.

grappling glory is a fun, nostalgia romp through the awa and amateur wrestling. it brings back fond memories watching the wrestlers on tv, then running to the auditoriums and see them live. although very informative, i think it could of been more objective. it does mention the shaddier side of the sport here and there, but should of talked more about it. the book discusses the fall of the awa, mainly focusing on the wwf and how it took wrestlers away. ross does causally mention weak story lines, but should of make more of it. there were times on tv, where the audience was booing, and yelling "boring" (along with other words)throughout the matches. when they started taping shows without audience, it was miserable. ross spends a lot of time being very, very kind to the gagnes. although he mentions greg as being undersized compared to most wrestlers and their steroid use, he really misses the point that greg was a stiff. greg was the reason i turned off watching awa wrestling and in my opinion, was the final nail in awa's coffin. he had no personality, and was dull to watch. he had no business to step into the ring. watching him do car commercials was bad enough. with regards to wrestlers, i believe verne introduced new headliners about once a year. this made for many, many "rematches". sometimes you'd see the same main events 3 times in a row. i believe they were losing audience with that redundancy. ross only mentions the jobber/heel george "scrap iron" gadaski once, (yet he was a regular on tv and the cards) along with kenny yates, who is not mentioned at all. ross does not discuss verne gagnes "gera-speed and gera-lac" products he pushed on tv. both were taken off the market by the fda. the book is roughly divided in half, the first being spent on amateur wrestling. i would have like less of that and more on the professional end. overall the book is a fun, recommended read.

Forewords by Jesse Ventura, Verne Gagne & J Robinson

Minnesota's amazing amateur and professional wrestling histories come to life like never before in best-selling sports author Ross Bernstein's newest coffee-table book, "Grappling Glory." Featuring interviews and biographies from hundreds of our state's greatest wrestlers, coaches, media personalities, supporters and fans, the book is both intriguing as well as insightful. In it are stories ranging from inspirational to heartwarming to downright hilarious. While these two completely different animals, wrestling and rassling, surely make for some odd bedfellows, Bernstein went to great lengths to make sure that each entity had its own place in the book: amateur in the first half and professional in at the latter. He also made sure to acknowledge that amateur wrestling is a sport, while professional wrestling is a form of sports-entertainment. There are many common denominators between the two, however, in that they both require incredible athleticism, extremely hard work and a boat-load of self-confidence to succeed. Both have also produced a whole bunch of extraordinary people over the years, and that is what this book is all about - celebrating the achievements of those who have made Minnesota proud both on the mat and in the ring. With some 350 photos, the book highlights a tremendous sampling of local heroes - both native Minnesotans as well as transplants. Some were obvious choices, while others came from way outside the box. All of them, however, had a very unique and interesting story to tell, and all of them have touched the lives of countless people along the way. Bernstein spent nearly a year doing research and interviewing wrestling aficionados from all spectrums of the world of sports and entertainment to get the inside scoop. On the amateur side, the book dives into the state-of-the-state of youth, high school, collegiate and Olympic freestyle & Greco-Roman wrestling. Take a trip back in time as you read about and look at pictures of every high school state champ from the very first tourney in 1937, all the way through 2004. From in-depth interviews with dozens of local high school coaches, to feature chapters on every college and university program statewide - it's all here. Highlighting this section are the two-time National Champion Golden Gophers, as well as Division III powerhouse, Augsburg, which has very quietly turned its program into a dynasty over the past two decades. In addition, there are even sections devoted to junior college wrestling as well as the advent of women's wrestling too. Now, on the professional side of the fence, the book chronicles the glorious history of grappling in the Gopher State, going all the way back to the turn of the century - when the "f" word (fake) dared not be mentioned out loud... or else! It also features a huge chapter on the history and evolution of the old American Wrestling Association (AWA), and its legendary founder/promoter/world champion - Verne Gagne. There are also more than 100 feature biographies on nearly every home-town or home-grown pro wrestler with ties to Minnesota as well. From "Jumping" Jim Brunzell to "Mean Gene" Okerlund, and from Stan "Big K" Kowalski to Larry "The Axe" Hennig - the AWA's entire cast of colorful characters is all on board. Learn about life on the road from Joe Laurinaitis (aka "Animal") of Road Warriors fame; find out what Baron Von Raschke is up to these days; and laugh yourself silly reading about the antics of legendary wrestler-turned-trainer Eddie Sharkey. Relive the glory days of watching the action up close and personal out at the old Minneapolis Auditorium, it will be a trip down memory lane that will surely bring a smile to your face. It was all about the journey and about making a difference... and the difference these legends have made has left a truly lasting legacy - for all of us all here in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. From high school state champs to world heavyweight champs, their personal memories dot the canvas of this century-long saga, in what is sure to be a wonderful trip through time.

IF YOU WISH TO ORDER A SIGNED, PERSONALIZED COPY FROM ME DIRECTLY, PLEASE VISIT MY WEB-SITE: WWW.BERNSTEINBOOKS.COM. THANKS!

For media interested in keeping and developing ad revenue in this era of a dollar crunch, here are helpful hints for planning the publication in relation to advertising and sharpening selling skills. Bernstein, publisher of Selling Space Magazine , takes some fearsome concepts and puts a positive spin on them.

Association Management, the magazine of the American Society of Association Executives, reviewed the book by saying:


Association executives who want to build a better bottom line for their organizations will find The Guide to Selling Advertising Space a valuable source. Written by Jack Bernstein, publisher of Selling Space Magazine, this second edition offers interviews with advertising agency professionals as well as the basic information needed to generate advertising pages in an association publication.

The 15 chapters provide practical advice on such topics as working with advertising agencies, developing a media kit, and using merchandising options - those little extras thrown in to sweeten the advertising deal.

This book comes very close to providing a training course in advertising sales and strategy. Not only will seasoned advertising professionals discover insights into advertising agency policy and practices, but chief staff executives with overall responsibility for the bottom line will also find the book enlightening.

I just recieved this book a couple of days ago and i began to skim through the pages,this book caters to magazines advertisers but i believe alot of the information explains the concept of advertising as a whole. The pages are not numbered correctly, it looks like someone took the information from somewhere else and just copied it unto the pages of this book. The book is very impersonal and though i have not sat down and officially read this book it seems as though it will be somewhat informative on how the advertisment business works for entrepreneurs new to this business. I will be sure to check back in once i officially began reading this book.

The IBM authors wrote a concise reference manual on circuit
design, process variation effects on circuits, and time borrowing. What is missing? Sections on sequential circuit design, transistor sizing techniques, or modeling circuits through mathematics, spice and verilog. However, this is among the most lucid texts written on circuit structures to date.

It's concise but deals the topics in depth. It's much better and practical than usual vlsi text books.

The book is very nicely written and has lots of practical tips, rule of thumbs which a practicing high speed CMOS circuit design engineer needs. Its conscise and works as good referance.