Art: A New History, Paul Johnson An exciting tour of art through the ages that almost doubles as a history of the world. As usual, Johnson, a painter himself, is perceptive, controversial, and compulsively readable. This oversized volume includes many illustrations. "While his narrative is for the most part a conventional journey through the canon, his headlong pace, quirky views and pungent prose make it anything but dull."—Publisher's Weekly "Thrilling in its scope, fluency, and zest."—Booklist GET IT
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The Solti Collection - Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 Ode to Joy "This is the music that comes to mind when we read about the concertos of Richard Halley in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged," says Chris Brown. "The poem sung in the famous final movement is authored by Schiller, the dramatist in whom Rand sensed 'an enormous hero worship.' " GET IT
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Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 Choral / Karajan A version of Symphony No. 9 that is also recommended. GET IT
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Beethoven Symphony No. 3 "Eroica"; Egmont Overture "The title says it all: 'Heroic,' " says Chris Brown. "Often regarded as the work in which Beethoven officially broke with Classicism and found his own Romantic voice, many were scandalized when it was first performed--too emotional, people thought." This may have been the work H.L. Mencken had in mind when he said of Beethoven: "His emotions at their highest level were almost godlike. He gave music a sort of Alpine grandeur." Recording by Sir Georg Solti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. GET IT
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Beethoven: The Nine Symphonies "Each of Beethoven's symphonies is a treasure...so why not just grab them all?" Chris Brown wants to know. "Grand, bombastic, triumphant music with almost zilch malevolence. Difficult struggle at times, yes. Defeat? Never!" By Sir Georg Solti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. GET IT
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Chopin Piano Concerto No. 1 and No. 2 "This CD features amazing performances of both these works," says Chris Brown. A live recording of Krystian Zimmerman on piano and conducting the Polish Festival Orchestra. GET IT
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Dvorak Symphony No. 9 "From the New World" "America inspired this magnificent symphony, which evokes images of the American West. It is thematically related to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, but in a decidedly American musical dialect that recalls the best of Aaron Copeland. A phenomenal recording by Sir Georg Solti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra."--Chris Brown. GET IT
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Pavarotti's Opera Made Easy – My Favorite Puccini "A great introduction to opera in general and to Puccini in particular. Luciano Pavarotti includes all the obligatory Puccini 'standards' as well as some very good but lesser known arias. Generally, best-of CDs take material out of context, but not this series. And Pavarotti does know his opera, having sung the lead tenor role of almost every opera in the repertoire!"--Chris Brown. GET IT
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Puccini: La Boheme - Complete After a performance of La Boheme in the 1960s, Ayn Rand exclaimed, "I haven't seen it since Russia--and I've always loved it so. It's wonderful!" GET IT
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Puccini: La Boheme - Highlights Cheaper, streamlined version. Conducted by Sir Georg Solti, with Placido Domingo and Sherrill Milnes. GET IT
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Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 Possibly Ayn Rand's favorite piece of music, the Concerto No. 2, premiered in 1901 to rave reviews. GET IT
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Rachmaninoff Symphony No. 2
The composer's most popular orchestral work, first performed in St. Petersburg in 1908. Declares Chris Brown: "The second and fourth movements are merry, soaring, and jubilant; the first and the third are wonderfully contemplative. Rachmaninoff's opulent melodies shine through. This recording also showcases a stellar performance by Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, and includes the brief Isle of the Dead." GET IT
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The Romantic Manifesto: A Philosophy of Literature, Ayn Rand "One of the distinguishing characteristics of a work of art (including literature) is that it serves no practical, material end, but is an end in itself; it serves no purpose other than contemplation--and the pleasure of that contmeplation is so intense, so deeply personal that a man experiences it as a self-sufficient, self-justifying primary.... Art does have a purpose and does serve a human need; only it is not a material need, but a need of man's consciousness."—Ayn Rand, "The Psycho-Epistemology of Art," in The Romantic Manifesto GET IT
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Sgambati/Rheinberger: Piano Concertos We can't find the recording of "Giovanni Sgambati, Piano Concerto In C Minor, op. 15" that Roy A. Childs, Jr. praises as "[uniting] two of the greatest discoveries of today's 'Romantic Revival': the dynamic piano concerto of the neglected Italian Romantic composer Giovanni Sgambati, and the flamboyant pianism of the brilliant 58-year-old Cuban-born pianist, Jorge Bolet." So get this CD with Sgambati, Rheinberger, and pianist Bolet instead. It too has Opus 15. Roy says that Bolet's approach to pianism "combines the most dramatic and spontaneous thundering with a sensitively poetic coaxing of sounds from the piano.... You owe it to yourself to experience the pleasure of this music; it is dramatic, alive, exciting." GET IT
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Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 "Completed in 1875, the Concerto No. 1 was initially declared unplayable by the director of the Moscow Conservatory to whom Tchaikovsky first showed it. The heroic first movement mentioned by Rand gives way to the contemplative second, and finally a merry third. This is a live recording of the Berlin Philharmonic led by one of the greatest conductors, Herbert Von Karajan. The recording also includes lovely piano pieces by Alexander Scriabin."--Chris Brown GET IT
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Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6 The composer's last work, performed just before his death in 1893. "The structure is patterned after the life of a person. The first movement plays out variations on a beautiful, confident melody. The second and third are lively, the third in particular resembling a triumphant march. The fourth movement, representing death, is lovely if a bit melancholy."--Chris Brown GET IT
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Verdi: Rigoletto – Highlights Based on the Victor Hugo play "The King Amuses Himself." Includes the familiar and rousing "La Donna e Mobile" and other melodies both light-hearted and tragic. GET IT
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What Art Is: The Esthetic Theory of Ayn Rand, Louis Torres, Michelle Marder Kamhi The first full-length study of Ayn Rand's theory of art, as laid out mostly in Rand's Romantic Manifesto. "For too long, Ayn Rand's philosophy of art has been relegated to a footnote or an afterthought. This long-awaited book--rumors of which have been flying about Objectivist circles for years--will change all that with a vengeance.... A brilliant exploration of Rand's positive theory that is both critical and sympathetic, both detailed and sweeping."—Chris Matthew Sciabarra, author of Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical GET IT
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BELIEF
The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, Eric Hoffer Hoffer argues that the fanatical True Believer is someone with a wasted or failed life who wants, for that reason, to submerge and forget his self in a Cause. Says Hoffer: "A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business." GET IT BEST OF
Food Network Best Of The Best Of, Jill Cordes, Marc Silverstein All about the country's best restaurants, as determined by the hosts of a popular show on cuisine. "On their Food Network show, The Best Of, Cordes and Silverstein travel across the United States, highlighting the restaurants that serve up the best grub in each locale. Divided into seven regional sections, and by state within those sections, the book is a compressed version of the show, briefly profiling each restaurant, the people who run it and the food that has made it a local favorite."—Publisher's Weekly GET IT BUSINESS
CUSTOMER SERVICE
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The Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition (20 Volume Set), A. Simpson, Edmund S. Weiner, eds. "Listen: the OED is priceless. The only disadvantage it's got is that the entries are so interesting and chocked with subsidiary info that sometimes what was originally supposed to be a quick one-word dash to the dictionary becomes a two-hour perusal of cross-references and ramifications and etymologies and the sorts of illustrative sentences that make your saliva flow with sheer interest."—David Foster Wallace GET IT The Professor and the Madman, Simon Winchester The story of the Civil War veteran and asylum inmate in helping create the Oxford English Dictionary. One of many volunteers who collected definitions and citations, W.C. Minor had submitted more than 10,000 entries before the OED committee found out, in their desire to honor him, exactly who he was. GET IT Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Fifth Edition (Thumb Indexed, 2 Volumes), William R. Trumble, Lesley Brown, Angus Stevenson, Judith Siefring, eds. The OED may be priceless, as David Foster Wallace says, but it is also a bit pricey for some. If you can't yet indulge the luxury of the 20 volumes, but you still love to lap up words, the more affordable Short OED may be for you. GET IT Shorter Oxford English Dictionary: Version 2.0 (CD-ROM), William Little, ed. According to the publisher: "This CD-ROM version of the newly updated edition of The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary enables users to perform fast and comprehensive searches of more than half a million definitions, augmented with thousands of new words and meanings. Furnished with a new design, this electronic version of the Shorter OED provides extensive coverage of world English as well as comprehensive coverage of scientific and technical English. Advanced search options allow users to carry out flexible searches for headwords, abbreviations, derivatives, phrases, references, and other words forms, or to filter searches by part of speech, label, or date." Yummy. GET IT HISTORY
Modern Times, Paul Johnson "Modern Times is probably the best survey of the twentieth century now available—and it gives pleasure instead of pain. Paul Johnson covers the whole world, from America to India, from China to Africa, from the center of Europe to Africa. Art, culture, politics and wars are all part of the terrain. He organizes his material into sparkling chapters with titles like 'The First Despotic Utopias,' 'Waiting for Hitler,' 'The High Noon of Aggression,' 'Experimenting with Half Mankind,' and 'Peace by Terror.' The new chapter, on 'The Recovery of Freedom,' is itself worth the price of admission. Modern Times is a high spirited work of great excitement and importance; books like this come along only once in a great while."—Roy A. Childs, Jr. GET IT
LAW
LITERATURE
MAKING MONEY
MEMOIR
The Complete Essays of Montaigne, translator, Donald M. Frame Leisurely, self-revelatory and provocative musings on everything from friendship and conversation to old age, Cicero, smells, and judging happiness.... Although he wrote in the 16th century, Montaigne often sounds remarkably modern, as if he had picked up some pointers on the art of the essay from E.B. White. Of course the reverse must be true. "Montaigne resists simple definitions. He is the first essayist, a skeptic, an acute student of himself and of man, a champion of a man-based morality, a vivid and charming stylist, and many other things besides."—Donald M. Frame GET IT The Cambridge Companion to Montaigne, Ullrich Langer An "international team of contributors" explore Montaigne's philosophical thought and its cultural and intellectual context. GET IT Montaigne: A Biography, Donald M. Frame A life of the influential essayist by one of his major translators. GET IT
NEWS
OTHER
PHILOSOPHY
POLITICS
PRIVACY
3M Notebook Privacy Filter for 14.1" Screens This filter is for you if you take your laptop onto the plane or into Internet cafes and prefer to keep what's on your monitor hidden from busybodies. With the filter hooding your monitor, you can see what's on the screen when looking at it dead-on—but it appears black to persons viewing it from an angle. GET IT
The End of Privacy, Charles J. Sykes Tells the story "of citizens who have had their conversations monitored, movements spied upon, medical and financial records accessed, sexual preferences revealed, homes invaded, possessions confiscated, and even lives threatened—all in the name of some alleged higher social or governmental good." GET IT
How to Be Invisible, J.J. Luna Advice from a man who learned to be invisible in Franco's Spain. Do you know the one thing you must never do if you wish to achieve a bare-bones level of privacy? GET IT
National Identification Systems: Essays in Opposition, Carl Watner, Wendy McElroy The history of national ID; the ins and outs of surveillance technology; how people resist being tracked. GET IT
PSYCHOLOGY
PUNDITRY
SCIENCE
SELF-HELP
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwell Per blogger Paul English (whose site became inaccessible when ABC News reported about his collation of end-runs around company voicemail), Blink "is a cool new book from the author of Tipping Point [that] explores the ability of people to make extremely rapid decisions and analyzes what causes some of those decisions to be correct or not." GET IT
Looking Out For #1, Robert J. Ringer An accessible, realistic approach to self-help written in an engagingly informal style. GET IT
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