Wagner Books

It can help to do quick basics revision for Nuclear medecine resedents who intend to get into the final exam .

I was at the book release in Troy. The party had about a dozen of the contributing authors there to sign their chapters and was a lot of fun with people buzzing around the room getting autographs.

I loved the book. I devoured the stories one after the other. Even though I heard it would make a great daily devotional, I couldn't put it down. I read it straight through, but I'm going to read it again because there was so much in it that I want to go back over.

The way each real life story was named with a relating quilt pattern was very interesting. Not only did I learn spiritual lessons from each chapter (and I was amazed there were stories from Australia, New Zealand, Germany, and all over the United States), but the history and connection of the quilt patterns was very creative and touching. I did laugh and cry over the different experiences the writers shared -- from a new father dealing with his baby boy's first diaper blow-out to the author's own story of being widowed at 32 years old with two small children. But even the tough stories were encouraging as they pointed me away from the situations and to the God of the situations.

Lori Wagner has a unique way with words and is very transparent. It's like she's sitting next to you and her warm personality comes across in her writing. I got several copies to give as gifts because I know this book will touch the hearts of my friends and family.

I rely on ENO for their excellent breakdowns of OPERAS. Makes it so much more enjoyable.

'atta girl! Just what I was looking for!! Someone is desperately in need of your book!!!

And what a fantastic book it is!!!

Joyce, just looking at your back cover cracks me up. Hope you're still dancin'!!!

This is an excellent and useful book. Though there is some commentary by Sabor, the book is largely a compendium of quotes, mainly from Wagner himself, on different aspects of his life, views and work.

It's surprising how complete a picture of Wagner's personality can be given in this format. Wagner emerges, in my view accurately, as mercurial, utterly inconsistent, and full of crank ideas. The most notorious of Wagner's crank notions is his antisemitism, but he held to his Francophobia, his water-cures, his advocacy - though not consistent practice - of vegetarianism, just as fiercely. Sabor also quotes Wagner confessing that these notions were "a kind of poison he needed to get out of his system", showing an awareness that they were not Wagner at his best.

Sabor shows Wagner ready to flair into anger (with truly astonishing tantrums) at a moment's notice, and equally swift to apologise; sometimes playful, sometimes grumpy, remarkably like a child all his life. So the long-suffering and devoted Cosima was a miracle not just for him, but for us too. Without her patience we may never have had the finished "Ring", "Meistersinger" or "Parsifal". Sabor's quotes demonstrate the trials she went through, but also the rewards.

Another miracle is how much information can be packed into a relatively short book, in this way. The quotes are also illuminating on the works, and on Wagner's musical and philosophical development.

And the last miracle is how a man like Sabor, auther of a splendidly well-researched commentary on the "Ring", can have the modesty to allow his subjects, largely, to speak for themselves.

Good book.

Laon

"The crown of literature is poetry. It is its end and aim. It is the sublimest activity of the human mind. It is the achievement of beauty and delicacy. The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes." -W. Somerset Maugham.

Every time I read this quote I think of Laurie Wagner Buyer, a special poet from Fairplay, CO. If you have not read any of her previous works, some of which are out of print, and would like to be introduced to some "beauty and delicacy," you are in luck. Red Colt Canyon is Buyer's fourth book of poetry and it is a keeper. Buyer and her husband work a cow-calf operation near Fairplay, CO. She not only understands ranching but has a keen eye for the natural beauty that seems to become all the more awesome under her watchful eyes. Her observations about personal relationships cut to the bone and will leave you with a myriad of feelings. The book is divided into three segments. The first, "Heartwood," is a chronicle of ranching life and the trials experienced by a husband and wife as they work together to survive both economically and spiritually. It has not been easy as noted in "That First Summer." "We cooked out of cans and boxes, grew grungy and tough, set out markers on the land and on our hearts, never knowing that nine years later we would still be fixing broken dreams and busted wires." Included in this section is Buyer's award winning poem "Until I Run Out of Thread," which is simply a wonderful example of the beauty and delicacy admired by Somerset Maugham. It alone is worth the price of the book. The second segment, "Unrumbled Thunder," confirms Buyer's acute awareness of, and appreciation for,nature. She writes of the wonders of the river and cottontail rabbits with "such small elegance," a Killdeer's rapid voice in the morning, and a multitude of other natural forces that she summarizes in "These Things of the Earth" as "These simple, ordinary, everyday, miraculous things of the earth." In all, there are 21 poems in this segment incluling "Early Winter Walk" which is a special tribute to Buyer's sensitivty to nature. The final segment, "Women on the Bridge," is a collection written mostly for specific individuals. They celebrate and try to explain women's life on western ranches. Two have stayed with me for nights,"Letters" and "There Were No Women." If you have ever wondered how it is living on an isolated ranch, I'm talking about the real thing, then take a look at these poems. Buyer has written a striking, tough, gentle, no nonsense collection that will stand the test of time. W. Somerset Maugham would have approved.

The final poem in Red Silk is titled "Depth Finder". As her introduction to this volume of poetry suggests, this is not an ending, it is a beginning. However this volume of poetry is about the road to beginnings, especially when those beginnings seem so very illusive when we are submerged in the depths of living. This is a book of poetry that has been long awaited. It is about the "other" victims of the Viet Nam travesty. It is the story of those who waited at home for the returning soldiers, those who anticipated the return and suffered even greater anxiety when the loved one who left has returned a stranger. This is particularly the story of the wife, but it is also the story of the returning soldier who has suffered physical and mental wounds that never quite close, always just one thought or nightmare away. In brilliant, elegant, precise poetry, Maryfrances Wagner lets us visit the precious, frustrating, anxious moments of two lives that have been forever changed by the mental shrapnel that accompanied the physical shrapnel which wounded her husband. But the depth of this volume of poetry is not limited to the life changing, life threatening, experience of Viet Nam. The depth is found in the memories of family that rise above the experience and provide a foundation of strength that enables the author to move forward. The depth is found in the shared experiences of living and of teaching that are enhanced by the compassion and understanding that have been so necessary to ever move beyond the victimization of Viet Nam. That compassion has opened itself to embrace the lives of students who are seeking direction and understanding and that compassion provides the courage to meet the challenge of aging, as a teacher and as a human, and to share that process, openly with the world. This volume of poetry will alarm its readers. It will reinforce what the reader has already suspected about the strength necessary to prevail and grow beyond the most arrid of days. It will open windows into the readers' own experiences, and, in poetically precise unveiling, Red Silk will point to the depths and invite each reader to personally "glide into the cove" and "touch" their own depths. One can not help but believe that the beginning poem, "New Starts", and the final poem, "Depth Finder", are interchangeable. Red Silk, through careful attention to the timelessness of experience, plants new direction for the author and the reader,sounds the depth of life, and then invites all of us to find our own depth. These poems are the treasure in that depth. Maryfrances Wagner has salvaged those treasures and shares them, one long bolt of red silk delivery waiting to be touched.

I really got a lot out of this book. It is a lifesaver for the beginning wood worker like myself. I have referred to it countless times, and I thoroughly enjoy it every time I open it.

There are few better suited to reflect on the Ring Cycle than John Culshaw. An instrumental figure in the titanic Solti Ring, Culshaw's Ring Resounding offered a clear, bright view on Wagner's phenomenon, a 16-hour opera cycle that has been regarded, with the Chartres Cathedral at Notre Dame, as one of Western art's pinnacles. Reflections does the same: it shows Culshaw's personal yet often virtually universal thinking.

This book was drawn from Culshaw's lectures, in the intermissions, which appeared on the Met Opera broadcast of the entire Ring Cycle some years back. Essentially this is a volume printed by popular demand. Reflections is a "middle ground" to read. The book's character analysis tends to be concise yet much more meaningful than the general pages and pages of review, and the same applies for the rest of the volume. The connections forged by this book between Wagner's Ring and general humanity are strong, and Reflections is certainly a good companion to the Ring for those who seek to find a greater awareness within Wagner's work. The photographs and illustrations are in the style of Wieland Wagner's famous Bayreuth productions. They seem, to me, a perfect choice for the book. John Culshaw's words are designed to get the reader thinking about Wagner's meaning: Wieland's sets and lightings are likewise very open to interpretation.

This is the best book I have found on preparing for retirement. A concise, easy to understand, review of every topic you will need to consider in retirement is addressed and additional sources of information (web-sites,books, etc.)are referenced if you want more information on a certain topic.
If you are thinking about retirement consider starting with this book.