Wagner Books

This is one of those inter-company crossover stunts, really. Two granite jawed lawmen with little tolerance for outsiders with strange abilities in their cities, must find a way not to beat the hell out of each other too badly, and eventually work together to stop a threat in Mega-City. Dredd tells Batman at the end of the Gotham based part of the story that it is foreseen he will be needed in Dredd's town.

So here we have one of my favorite Batman writers, Matt Wagner, spotlighting one of my favorite villains from Batman's rogues gallery, The Riddler. It seemed like a great pairing to me so I couldn't resist.

The first thing that struck me as troubling, is why Wagner didn't illustrate the story himself? Not only is he a good writer, but I love his artwork, especially on Batman. The artwork grew on me slightly, I loved how dark and shadowy it got in some scenes, but I still couldn't help wishing Wagner had done it. That alone could have pushed it up a star for me.

The only other negatives were it was too short. If it had been as long as Wagner's Batman: Faces, that would have been a nice length. However, the story isn't very complicated so it might have been worse to try and stretch it out. I also was a little annoyed at how easily it seemed The Riddler's master plan was foiled by Batman. You'd think he would have had it planned out a little better. Other than that it wasn't a bad story and I still love Wagner's writing. I would recommend it to Riddler and Wagner fans only. Now I just wish he's take a crack at Scarface and the Ventriloquist.

While this book has some good, basic information about adoption and foster care, it's a little outdated. It uses language like "real" parents, "natural" parents, and presents the idea of adopted children being chosen (an explanation that adoptive parents know puts an undue burden on their children).

The writing also tends to change audience and makes it difficult to know who should be reading it. The title sounds almost like a "how-to" book for parents to read; the text, however, switches between talking about adopted children in general and addressing the reader directly as an adopted child. It reads as if two different authors tried to put it together.

I gave this book 3 stars because it does address some difficult issues such as race, identity, anger, depression, and searching for birthparents, but it's just not put together very well.

I just completed a college course titled "Introduction to the C language and Unix". Our instructor used this book, and I found that, as a beginner, I had a very hard time following the concepts. I constantly had to turn to "The Waite Group's - C Primer Plus" for detailed explanations. And it only provides just a short sampling of the Unix environment. If you have used the C language and Unix, and are somewhat comfortable with it, this book will probably serve you well. If you have never used C or Unix, look elsewhere!

Osborne gives some background on the writing of each of the mature Wagner operas. Then a quick plot summary, with some of the key musical themes. Since a synopsis comes with every complete opera recording, I'm not sure how useful these synopses are. We get too much explanation of plot and not enough critical commentary, by my standards. And little in the commentary is new; Ernest Newman's book "Wagner Nights", though 50 or so years older, is still a better introduction, making the same points as Osborne, and more.

Not all the commentary is reliable; the chapter on "Parsifal" buys into some of the nonsense first talked by Robert Gutman about this opera (the Grail knights as homosexual SS order, and so on), which has been comprehensively and devastatingly demolished by Lucy Becket in her book "Parsifal".

I find Osborne's "even-handedness" a little irritating at times. "Tristan und Isolde", he says, is a masterpiece, though it's too long, of course. That reminds me of Mozart's reply to the Emperor who thought his "Il Seraglio" score had "too many notes": "Which notes do you think I should take out?" (I'm quoting the "Amadeus" movie there, and from memory, so that's not quite what was really said, but close enough.) Like Mozart, I find that a dumb comment, unless Osborne cares to tell us which parts of "Tristan" etc we should do away with to make it shorter. And I think the job of someone writing an introduction to any composer is to be critical, certainly, but also to communicate enthusiasm, not weariness.

So for new insights, Tanner, Magee, Millington are better, and for "sources, plot plot summary plus musical commentary" Newman is better. It's not actually bad, just mediocre. Also, unlike Newman Osborne covers the first three Wagner operas, "Die Feen", "Das Liebesverbot" and "Reinzi", so that's quite useful.

Laon

The maths behind credit risk management is quite sophisticated, as made clear in this handbook. The various authors of the chapters delve into the intricacies of how different financial instruments were cobbled together. Along with elaborate models of the risk of default. From such models, you can see how pricing was then derived for tranches of the synthetics.

Yet perhaps the models were not sufficiently diverse, and did not incorporate what actually happened and is happening in the US and other countries. The models keyed off historical data of default rates for mortgages. None used the assumption of a widespread fall in housing prices across the US, as no such event had occurred since the Depression. Well, this has happened and is not over yet. Default rates are still rising. And the derivatives, by their very structure, amplified these declines.

Read the book cynically. Look closely at the modelling.

Those who are familiar with the writings and biographies of the Wagner clan will be overjoyed with this book.

During Wagner's life, he wrote in a personal diary, usually referred to as Das Braune Buche, or The Brown Book. This is an English translation of that rather legendary document. It's publication was held back by the Wagner clan for several decades after the death of Richard Wagner. It was finally published and then translated into English in 1980, and this is that book.

Many people thought that they would never be able to read The Brown Book, but here it is, and those people ought to be celebrating at being able to read Wagner's personal diary, rather than his official and carefully polished autobiography. On the other hand, little in this book is really that interesting. Think of it as a supplementary text for those people who have already read a significant amount of Wagner biographical books.

Dieter Borchmeyer, a professor at Heidelberg, is prodigiously well read. How can the man have a life outside of books? (But his website shows that he does.) For each of the fourteen chapters of this book, Borchmeyer settles on a theme, sometimes a tangential one, but a theme. Whether it's a literary source that we've overlooked or the antithetical attitudes of Wagner and Ludwig on religion vs. art, the subject at hand is fairly tight. This is not a book, then, with a clear thesis, and it suffers a bit from that. Moreover it is uneven: to this reader some of the subjects Borchmeyer chooses simply lack much interest. On the other hand, his chapter on the Ring is one of the most insightful I've ever read. So here's what I'd suggest: by all means read it, but with some judicious skimming.

Those looking for a thrilling read might possibly be disappointed by this 'DIY Guide', but those interested in the field of DIY Audio may well find it usefull indeed. Mr Wagner's book is a rather lengthy account of how to build one particular design of ESL loudspeaker (not a particularly thrilling design).This account is technically very good , but unlikley to be of any use to anyone who was not in attendance with Ron when He actually built the speakers. There are few illustrations, fewer photos and the bulk of it appears to be construction notes of exceedingly tedious detail. That said, this project documentation is preceeded and followed by some very good engineering and technical info, a good brief history of the field and an overview of current commercially available units. Of special interest are reprints of relevant magazine articles some of which would be difficult to obtain elswhere. I found many aspects of this book disappointing. Even for a book released in 1993 it seems hideously outdated , and the 'How To' section is virtually useless. The engineering notes are probably quite usefull IF you are a engineer and the whole book misses the point....That is, if someone wants a speaker of preset design they would most probably buy one. DIYers want to design and construct their own devices. They want guidelines and helpfull design info. In short they want to learn from the mistakes of others and not to simply follow in the footsteps of others. Such is the human spirit when the TV is off. People are naturally creative. I would recommend this book only to those hungry for infomation on the subject who already own 'The Electrostatic Loudspeaker Cookbook' By Roger Sanders, which is much more usefull to those who wish to DIY.

This book is advertised as being suitable for ages 9 to 12. Well, after getting it for my young daughter, it really looks to be more suitable for the upper end of that spectrum. The book is nicely laid out with an interspersing of jokes and exercises, but so far the actual riddles that you've got a chance at figuring out are pretty few and far between. Most of the riddles are ones that you really can't figure out.

Anyway, I'm more impressed with the other "everything kids" books I've purchased.