A year ago, Lol's lover Alex disappeared a la THE VANISHING. Lol spends all his time searching for Alex (which seems mostly to entail running classifieds and tacking up flyers). Meanwhile the cops suspect Lol himself of murdering Alex, and Alex's family is trying to evict Lol from the home he shared with Alex for years. Lol has lost his job, and spent every dime (farthing?) he had on trying to find Alex. He has alienated most of his friends and acquaintances with his unending agonizing, however as our story begins he is finally coming to terms with the knowledge that Alex is dead. Or is he? The discovery of a secret computer file left by Alex, sets Lol off again (Oh, God!). A plot is certainly buried here, buried in 285 pages of introspection and artificial dialog, but we never get to touch it, feel it, taste it. A curious emotional detachment colors THE CRUELTY OF SILENCE, a detachment acerbated by the really annoying device of randomly interrupting the narrative with screenplay format. Not only does this jarring switch disturb the story flow, it's so...so pretentious. Although the painful theme of loss, fear and abandonment manages to propel the reader along--very nearly touching the heart--ultimately this is the epic saga of one man's internal (and interminable) whining.

I love the story and the characters. They aren't pretty but they aren't that cruel either. Just sorta normal with a little good and bad in all of them. I do think, however, that I would have liked the reader's digest version of this book better.

I thought that this book would be great for children. It has many good fantasy adventures for little kids and I think that you should read it to your kids or just read it on your own time.

This the Disney story about Arial, the little mermaid & all her odd assortment of friends that live with her in the sea. My grand-daughter Britanie, is 4 years old & just loves this book/ tape so much that she wore it out. I love the idea that the cassettes follow the words in the book so the children following the words read aloud, start to recognize words that they hear. I am in the process of trying to purchase her another set. This is only thing she asked me to get again her for Christmas.

If readers are looking for a concise book on Luis Barragan, this book is NOT it. Rather, you are urged to look at Luis Barragan: The Complete Works which not only have architecture pictures but also detailed discussions by few academics & even Luis Barragan acceptance speech of his winning of the prestigious Pultizer prize. But if readers are just a pedestrian reader on architecture like me, you would appreciate this book for it contains beautiful photography (sometimes, pictures of the same thing taken from different angles) & GENERAL discussions upon Luis' refusal to conform to any particular architecture movements but rather following his vision of how an architecture should be depicted. He's not only an architect but an architect & artist combined, a sensible & faithful individual to his culture, core values. The readers are also given a quick overview of his exit from Guadalajara & his rising from ashes in Mexico, inspirations that he attained from his trip to the Meditarrenean & Africa (namely Morroco), his relationships & eventual downfall with artists that he worked with. Overall, a good effort but superficial for the academics.

The Life and Work of Luis Barragan, successfully depicts all of the qualities and aspects which encompases the modern architecture of Barragan. This book also carefully examines the artistic forms present in Barragan's designs of structure, landscape and furniture. After reading this book, it becomes appearant why the work of Luis Barragan is so prestigous and brillant. However, this book fails to address his architecture as a whole, and how the space created interacts with it's environment. The book requires diagrams and photographs, which include the structure and its landscaping, along with the surrounding environment inorder to completely define the work and experiences of Luis Barragan. However, I highly recomend this book to anyone interested in the architecture of Mexico.

Keith Ferrante, Student of Architecture, University of Southern California

Of course you must have a full score of the St Matthew. But beware: while some more recent editions have made it readable to the modern amateur musician, this edition still uses clefs you might find difficult: the soprano clef, the tenor (not viola) clef ... and the clarity of printing leaves something to be desired. However, all the notes are there and much more legible than a pocket score.

First, a knock about Dover's cover and title page: the catalogue number of the "St. Matthew" is BWV 244, not 232 (which is the "Mass in B Minor")! That said, Dover has published a good-quality miniature score of this work from the "Bach-Gesellschaft" (19th century complete works) edition. I bought Dover's reprint as a replacement for a miniature score by another publisher (which also reprinted Bach-Gesellschaft), a particularly nasty piece of work with blotchy print, nearly illegible at many points--especially in the figured bass!--and much smaller than the present reprint. Dover does the job as it should be done, and up to its usual standard.

It is true, as another reviewer has noted, that the format of the "BG" score is somewhat antiquated, particularly with regard to the old-style clefs (i.e., soprano and tenor clefs rather than treble clefs) in the vocal parts. And since this score was originally published nearly a century and a half ago, no doubt there have been strides in Bach scholarship since that time which are not reflected in this volume. Nevertheless, this is a reliable and useful reproduction of what is unquestionably a significant and valuable edition.

Tim Sebasitian is a respected television journalist with the BBC and has specialised in reporting military action.It undoubtedly this which imparts the sense of urgerncy to his prose and gives the novel a brisk pace that makes it eminently readable.Sadly the book is politically jejeune and has an anti-Americanism that verges on being hysterical at times.
It is particularly paranoid about the upper echelons of the American military -industrial complex and one can imagine the book giving comfort to the conspiracy theorists with their lamentable naivety everywhere the book is read.
Ultra is a chemical weapon,developed by the US for use in the Gulf.Ten years after the war a group of US veterans,disillusioned by their government, resolve to steal a consignment of the gas and release it at a White House reception presided over by the President to honour Gulf War veterans. Stirred into the mix are a liberal Brit journalist,Peter March,who is estranged from his US scientist wife,a society hostess Leah Killeen whose ex-lover General Lovett is now speaker of the House and the ultimate behind the scenes manipulator the maker and breaker of Presidents, Piedmont, a man who does not scruple to order the death of his daughter when she threatens to undermine his palns

The paranoia is not to my taste and nor are its politics but Sebastian punches things along with a brisk pace and purposeful prose Just keep the politics out in futute TS baby and I might give you a bit more respect.I want a bit more balance in my thrillers.I simply do not believe the real issues are so simple and the tone evokes those tedious 1970's movies /books in which anyone with an A US government job was a thug.
Recommemded to liberals among the thriller reading community or to those who can ignore politics and just sit back and enjoy a strong story However I agree with Stokely Carmichael that everything is political and hence my low rating for the tale Modify the politics it would score a 4

Into a world where war, particularly the Gulf War, is but a proving ground for the next, walks Peter March, a London Times correspondent, based in Washington DC.

In such a world, much traveled, I suspect, by the author Tim Sebastian, March comes face to face with a reality based on both perception and levels. In the aftermath of a chemical 'incident', the lives of those involved become inextricably linked and extinguished as events unravel.

A cavalcade of corpses carries you forward, conspiracies abound, and Sebastian feeds you the pieces with an eerie plausibility. Well researched, better written. I would read it again, if only to revel in its evident craftsmanship, let alone to tally the body count.

Like most of the other reviewers here I found that Charlotte Gray didn't come close to Birdsong - but maybe it is unfair to compare the too. Charlotte is a good read. I came to care deeply about all of the characters and was eager to see what would happen to them. The one part of the story that rings false is the love story between Charlotte and Peter. Much like the granddaughter in Birdsong, this plot seemed contrived as a way to tell the rest of the story. Faulks is at his best describing life in "Free" France and the people who lived there. His prose brings the landscape and even the smells to life. From anyone else this would have probably been considered a wonderful book, maybe it's just that from Faulks we've come to expect a bit more.

I have had to reflect upon Faulks' 'Charlotte Gray' for some time to refrain from critcising it unduly. This is, quite genuinely, a convincing and well-woven story that will greatly appeal to first time readers of Faulks, yet still it may be a slight disappointment to those who have read 'Birdsong'.

In itself, 'Charlotte Gray' is an accomplished novel by a gifted storyteller. - Our eponymous heroine is a complex and fairly intriuging lady, but in my opinion was less well conceived than the characters who accompany her in wartime France. The Jewish father and son, who aid Charlotte in the Resistance and in her search for her missing lover, are particularly compelling.

In criticism, the concentration camps present in 'Charlotte Gray' would have benefited from the visceral style Faulks' employed in his description of the First World War trenches of 'Birdsong'. Unfortunately, the horrors of the Second World War are not described with the clarity or power present in his earlier book.

This one was my personal favorite of the trilogy. Eventhough I felt little connection with Charlotte, her perils kept me reading. The subplot of Andre, Jacob and Levade certainly stole the show. Faulks seems always to beautifully represent unjust and tragic contrasts of society during war. The historical detail is rich and convincing. I wish he would now write from a Jewish perspective.

I found this book to be useful to me in some ways, but it did seem to be lacking a good bit... then again, the types of information that was missing is just the kind of stuff you can't write in a book without having people attempt to exploit it or mock it, though true. I was hoping when I read it to get some insights, and while there was a bit of help, it mostly seemed to portray vampires as people who dress up and play-act because they crave attention; I know full well there is much more than that to it. Perhaps the next edition will be more thorough and trivialize the vampiric experience less.

It is a wonderfull source for those who are into the vampyre scene (or just want to look like one). From music to shops to where to get professionally made fangs, this is a gold mine for all.

I found the Vampyre's Almanac an extremely useful guide to the vampyre and gothic sub-culture. It contains resources on where to find clothing and publications that I never knew existed as well as a great music section. Coming from upstate NY, I did not know where to begin to find others like myself. This Almanac pointed me to places and things that have expanded my mind.

It is hard for me to believe this book was written by the same author of Charlotte Gray and Birdsong! I am struggling to finish this book knowing full well that it is not going to improve one iota.

I find the characters weak and uninteresting. The affair between the faithful wife and this WWII veteran from Chicago turned journalist is hard to imagine.

This book is genuinely boring. How many bars, restaurants, geographic locations and prominent landmarks do we need to read about. Who cares! So the author is well travelled. This is an unimportant book.

There is not much else to say other than I truly believe this was written by someone other than Faulks or that he has lost what I found superb in Birdsong.

Very moody, atmospheric, with an underlying sense of foreboding. It makes me want to learn more about the early days of the Cold War. There's a scene of reporters covering the big election night that made me understand how difficult "up to the minute" reporting must have been back in 1960. The election was still neck and neck but they had to go to press and were forced to make educated decisions about where things were headed. They literally were not sure if their morning headline was going to ultimately be correct!

(By the way -- if you haven't read the book yet, beware of that extremely lengthy review from NYC because it's full of spoilers that would really mar your appreciation of the book.)

The U-2 incident. The Kennedy-Nixon debates. Smoky Greenwich Village bars and cool jazz (the book's title comes from a Miles Davis album). Do those seem like ancient history? Not to me. There's history --- and then there is History. The former is the kind you lived through; the latter happened before you were born. So it was a shock to realize that ON GREEN DOLPHIN STREET, which opens in 1959, when I was 14, is a legitimate historical novel and it is tempting to be especially picky about the way Sebastian Faulks, an Englishman, goes about authenticating a period I think of as my private property.

The story centers on Charlie van der Linden, a diplomat assigned to the British embassy in Washington, D.C. and his wife, Mary. Around them swirls a Cold War aura of suspicion and a giddy Eisenhower-era enthusiasm for big cars, family values and lots of scotch. It's an uneasy mix that becomes even less stable when Frank Renzo, an American newspaper reporter, shows up at one of the van der Lindens' parties. Not only do he and Mary start an affair, but he and Charlie are, in a way, on parallel tracks: both have troubling memories of World War II and both were at Dien Bien Phu, the last stand of defeated French colonialism in Vietnam. But Charlie is visibly self-destructing: he drinks his life away ("He barely had hangovers anymore, just days of gastric terror and mental absence") and his outlook is suicidally bleak. Frank, though temporarily blackballed for suspect liberal sympathies, is fighting his way back to journalistic legitimacy; covering the presidential campaign is his big chance. He is based in New York and the two cities are an interesting contrast: the pristine surfaces of Washington, the down-and-dirty vitality of Manhattan.

The '50s and early '60s are trendy these days, what with Oscar-nominated movies like Far From Heaven and The Hours. And, as in the careful, self-conscious art direction of these films --- the vintage car rolling slowly across the screen --- the period details in ON GREEN DOLPHIN STREET at first seem intrusive. We are regaled with descriptions of food (including "Salteen" crackers) and clothing (ads for Triumph Foundation Garments). An entire page is given over to Pennsylvania Station, which was torn down in a passion of urban renewal before New York awoke to the glories of older architecture. There are some heavy-handedly ironic winks and nudges, too, as when Frank thinks "the panic over the identity of the potential vice-president was morbid when Kennedy himself was so young" or he remarks of Vietnam, "We never could get American readers interested in that place."

Fortunately, the characters soon take over. Although Frank and Charlie have an attractive, Graham Greene-esque world-weariness and Mary seems initially to be one of those women trapped in housewifery, consumerism and motherhood (the very model for Betty Friedan's THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE), she turns out to be the most interesting of the three. Self-observing, imaginative and intelligent, she is nearly overwhelmed by the burdens of family love (the passages concerning her mother's death are among the strongest in the book) and the cold facts of mortality: "Only people in their wretched middle age had to face the truth, Mary thought; the slipped responsibilities of the old and young were hers alone to bear." At the same time, she is dazzled by the passion she feels for Frank, a love that seems to exist outside of time (an illusion sustained by the fact that the liaison is conducted almost entirely in New York) and drawn to the freedom he represents. Whether she will seize her opportunity for escape is a question that remains open to the very end of ON GREEN DOLPHIN STREET.

The convergence of love and war (in this case more cold than hot) is familiar territory for Faulks, whose brilliant World War II trilogy (THE GIRL AT THE LION D'OR, BIRDSONG, CHARLOTTE GRAY) combines a powerful romantic streak with details of crushing realism, a sense of destiny with a sense of futility. Mary and Frank's relationship is a given, like a hurricane or tidal wave; it doesn't seem to suffer from the slings and arrows that ordinary lovers are constantly ducking. Yet for Mary it also represents a rediscovery of herself --- something she thought she'd lost forever with the death of her first sweetheart, David, in the war --- and in her moral conflict and emotional daring, she emerges as a woman of tremendous complexity and heart.

As the personal story gathers momentum, the political context seems to lose some of its stage-set stiffness. Faulks's account of the campaign, debate and election night is genuinely thrilling, even though we know how it will come out. The scenes at Dien Bien Phu prefigure the war that nobody wanted and the flashbacks to World War II recall the savagery of the war that everybody seems to agree was necessary. There is a cosmic sadness to these events, as if Faulks and his melancholy heroes are grieving in advance for greater troubles to come.

Frank and Charlie monopolize the politics; Mary relates to the wider world almost exclusively through the two men. While that may be accurate in terms of the role women were expected to play 40 years ago, it splits the book down the middle: Faulks never quite manages to fuse his story of love and personal transformation with the currents of social change. Nonetheless, ON GREEN DOLPHIN STREET is an absorbing, sometimes transporting novel. Once I got off my "I was there" high horse, I realized that it captures much of the pace and music and swelling bohemianism of New York when I was young, as well as the mood of expectation that swept us: the country holding its breath, wondering what would happen next.

--- Reviewed by Kathy Weissman

Though this book (and the series from which it comes) seem editorially sound, they are totally useless as working piano scores. They are small hardback books with print so small they would only be good for notation.

This is a tiny hardcover book which is not designed for playing purposes. It says Music Scores in the title, which makes it pretty clear. The English and French Suits are also available in large formats from Könemann Music. Of course, you can also buy this book and make enlarged photocopies. Könemann Music publishes complete editions from composers, including Bach, and these can only be regarded as positive comparing the outlook and price with other editions.

Sebastian Junger is a craftsman of repute. With honed words and dispassionate facts, he takes us into the drama and horror of situations around the globe. His skill is apparent through each chapter of this book. In the beginning, he tells us that he started his previous book "The Perfect Storm" intending to write of dangerous professions around the world, not just that of commercial fishermen. In "Fire" he gives us insight into more than one dangerous occupation; thus, the book might be more aptly titled "Danger Zones."

"Fire," however, falls short of its billing. The title and cover lend one to believe Junger will follow the lives of a fire crew battling a blaze, as he did with commercial fishermen facing "The Perfect Storm." But this book is actually old news. The chapters are reprinted articles (some outdated in information and some redundant in their research). The scenes are vivid and full of engrossing detail, yet lose some of their power in the retelling and in the disjointed stitching of mismatched pieces. I felt that his chapter "Colter's Way" would've made a nice lead up to the more current stories, and his chapter about his own boyhood brush with danger could've set the book's pace with a personal touch. Instead, "Fire" broke out in too many places and I lost my zeal to keep reading. Halfway through, I had to consciously choose to continue. I hope Junger brings us some fresh stuff next time around. Until then, I'm feeling only lukewarm.

The author of "The Perfect Storm," Sebastian Junger once again brings the reader into a story even though the content is based on a series of fact-based articles. This book is poignant and timely for a variety of reasons.

"Fire," the title story, highlights the efforts of firefighters in their battle against the raging forest fires in the Western U.S. But, this book covers much, much more. Each "essay" is a tribute to people confronting life-threatening situations in an unabashed manner. Junger's reports and ability to delve into the core of each situation is equally unabashed and brilliant.

Other than shining the light on the dynamic spirit of firefighters, perhaps the most interesting and timely profile is that of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the anti-Taliban guerrilla leader. Prior to the heinous September 11 attacks on the U.S., Massoud was assasinated presumably by bin Laden-led terrorists. With great flair for detail and an uncanny ability to bring a character to life, Junger describes the courage and stature of Massoud, the "Lion of Panjshir." A phrase that sticks in my mind from this essay and one highlighting Junger's talent for storytelling, he describes Massoud in the following fashion--"He was not tall, but he stood as if he were."

While each essay is compelling and exciting (for non-fiction-type depiction), there is something slightly disjointed about a mutliple essay-based book. This is the ONLY reason this book did not receive 5 stars in my opinion. Overall, a thoroughly enjoyable read.

Sebastian Junger's book "Fire" is getting a lot of attention these days becasue of Junger's visit to Afghanistan in November 2000, and his visit with the military leader of the Northern Alliance, who has since been assassinated. This section, however, is only one chapter in a book that is a collection of diverse stories ranging from reportage on Western U.S. wildfires to the battlefields of Kosovo and Sierra Leonne. Junger is a good reporter and an excellent writer who knows how to make his stories come alive for the reader. He originally conceived a book in which he would report on the most dangerous jobs in the world, hence the first two chapters on Western firefighters and the third on a traditional whale hunter. Junger then discovered he had a knack as a foreign correspondent and ventured into some of the world's war zones. With all of his stories, Junger provides valuable insight for the reader, especially in his reporting on the long standing division of Cyprus, which he co-authored with another journalist.

The only drawback is that Junger's pieces are the original magazine articles and are not expanded upon for the book. The focus of each article also tends to be very narrow, especially in the foreign pieces. Junger lacks the depth of master correspondent like Thomas Friedman, and the book is fairly slight at just over 220 pages. Nevertheless, he is a skilled writer, and this makes for excellent and informative reading.