Music Book Books

I already loved Tori, I'll admit it. But her honesty in telling her life stories, even when they didn't always show her in the best light, made me respect her more than ever. The 90210 gossip was priceless, of course, but my favorite part was reading about the development of her relationship with Dean. It was a fun and touching read. Can't wait for Mommywood!

I never thought I would want to read a book like this, but after seeing Tori's reality show (yes I got sucked into that too) I wanted to read it and it was a really great read...it gives a great peek into a life that you hear about via the media...but this was her perspective and helps one understand who she is now and how her life isn't at all what you would assume.

This book was exactly what I was hoping it would be...full of details and lots of personal insights. I will read her next book! More 90210 gossip, please!

I really Enjoyed this book Tori is funny and honest.She is a down to earth person which a lot of other celebrties should take a cue from her.Tori is a strong independent woman she may have a famous father but she has proven she can get things done on her own and in her own terms.She has struggled with her relationship with her mother and has learned from this relastionship not what to do with her own children.This book I have recommened to all my friends and family and thjey all loved it and so will you enjoy

This book by Tori Spelling was absolutley fantastic I read the whole thing in less then 6 hours. It was uplifting, funny and at times a bit sad. It really gave me a chance to know not just the actress that Tori is but her as a person and what a wonderful person she is. This book is a **** (four star) in my book anytime:-)

On pg. 53, the author writes "We encourage you to think for yourself and make your own decision". This line reflects why I would not recommend this read. the women who wrote this leave no room for you to form your own decision on their radical rules to becoming a skinny b*tch

The book basically bashes anyone who eats meat, dairy, and white bread. ok, who doesnt eat those things from time to time? its unrealistic and a good deal of the suggestions aren't backed up by credible sources (who cares is Dr. Andrew Weil says drink soy milk... who the heck is he?!!?)

Its a lighthearted read that appeals to the fashionista, jet setting type of person. and there are some good food recommendations for vegan types.

The book has some solid information, but some of the information is taken to the extreme or overgeneralized.

In general, some good considerations. I wouldn't accept the all or nothing mentality as it doesn't fit into real life business traveler needs.

the title is a misnomer. buyers could pick up the book thinking they'll be getting a round of lifestyle and nutrition tips. instead they get two women expressing their very strong views about the state of the american food industry. and while their facts are valid, there are bits and pieces that they don't identify as the minuses to being vegan... and there are more than a few.

This book is amazing - funny, educational, realistic. This book changed my life, because it actually pushed me over the edge to become a vegetarian.

Bottom line: good read, interesting, and humorous.

Everyone needs to calm down. They're writing style is not for everyone but happens to be one of my favorite things about the book. I like straight forward sassy women. I think it's great. But I also take it with a grain of salt. They do base their claims on plenty of scientific studies and research. It's all in the back of the book if you want to check it out. I now have the knowledge of what goes on in the meat, dairy, and other food industries and I will make smarter, organic, free-range, etc. decisions, or cut back on certain things. It is very informative, and I'm glad to know what these industries would rather the public not know. But I'm not giving up cheese or adopting their plan verbatim. What I really like about it is that it's not a diet. It's a lifestyle change in eating habits. As a health educator I know (and I teach others) that diets do not work, but making healthy permanent change does. I enjoyed the book tremendously, but I would never recommend it to my mother (even though she would agree with all of their claims) or some other old fashioned, easily shocked person because of their straight talk. Some people just can't handle it.

I think the subject of the book is good, however a big part of dicovering your strengths is taking the on line strength finder quiz. Unfortunatley for me the code provided on the inside of the jacket is either invalid or has been used by someone already.
So as I read this book I will be left to wonder "what are my strengths..."

[As a corporate human resources director, I often work on developing the latent talents and skills of various managers. Years ago, I taught a class where I had each participant to look into a hand-held mirror and ask the question, "Would you want to work for this person?"

This book takes this exercise to a completely different level. To discover your own inner strengths (and weakness) ensures that you will become the very best manager possible. As a fan of First, Break All the Rules, I was very satisfied that this follow-up was as timely and useful as the first book. I highly recommend you purchase a copy of this book for yourself and for all of your managers. Michael L. Gooch, SPHR Author of
[ASIN:1897326882 Wingtips with Spurs]]

Nice concept that could have been handled with a 10 page paper. Clearly authors had to have some volume to prove value so they drone on and on and on. Very tedious reading. Then at every turn they continue to try to sell other products or services. The major killer is having an online exam to evalute your strengths; however, the code is only good once - so DON'T buy a used book as your code will be invalid. If the exam is a work related exercise, you'll be forced to buy a new book just for the code. Also, DON'T let your spouse read the book. If you do, they'll want to take the exam and suprise suprise, you would need another new book just to take the test.

The book is very interesting and very effective. The internet test is very accurate. Nevertheless each strength profile should be discussed more in depth. Let's say you get an idea of who you are but you would like to get more of it. Anyway, the price is worth the stuff you find in the book!

I wish my husband could have read it and used the code. I had gone on a job interview before reading this book and one of the questions they asked me, was what strategies would I use in a certain situation. And all I thought was that is THE dumbest question ever, how am I going to answer that, it all depends, I hate that word strategy.... you get the idea. Then as I was reading through the strengths book, I thought that would be so be ironic if one of my strengths was strategic. Well, sure enough that was the number one answer on my quiz results. So I am still laughing about that. So my strategy is to read through my strengths and understand them well enough and look at where I use those strengths and then try to improve on them. I would have given this 5 stars but since my hubby has to buy his own book, I only gave it 4.

This book sets the stage for a utopian society, and it's very believable. Who's to say that this couldn't really happen sometime in the future? However, what I really liked about this book, is that once Jonas found himself, he wasn't afraid to take action and stand up for what he knew was right. Loved it. The first time I read it was the sixth grade, and I still enjoy it. It's one of my favorite books of all time, it's a relatively quick read for an adult, but it really makes you think.

The Giver presents the reader to a dystopian society that has forayed the people's right to CHOICE in an odious fashion; but nonetheless, it can at times be furtively appealing in an hypnotic way. To analyze this society initially it is quite inscrutable to identify how a people could so ardently support such an articulated "guidance." While this book is merely fiction, it indeed sheds light on an ideology that either is intrinsically intelligent, or it is quite eloquently repugnant to the nebulous of human desire, freedom to endeavor. Being a Constitutionalist I prefer the latter rather than the former. To have one's perspective sculpted and wrought by a fashion of governmental control by means of familial degradation and division from a biological existence, sexual drive altered by compulsory pharmaceuticals, intricate scheduling of one's day, standards and virtues that are ubiquitous, one all encompassing day of "birth", population control, genetic manipulation, and procuring children and spouses by application and approval only, is quite destitute of any CHOICE. Is this inane? Is this madness? Or, if freedom was not known in the context that of which is lain before us in the U.S. Constitution-which both Republicrats and Demopublicans are obscuring-would this dystopia be so divisive? The society in this book is something one could indeed marvel by pretext to the actual context due to the lack of tyrannical behavior. We must not be disillusioned. We must not allow the propagators' evidence and statistical datum to dissuade us from having the penchant to pursue freedom as a virtue over security. For such a society in essence, no matter success, does indeed revoke the core and foundations of an inalienable right that our predecessors have fought eons for-FREEDOM! Articulating political structure is arduous and elicits much dissension along the way; however, do not let that make one despondent or draw forth consternation or political apathy. For if political structure, by and for the people, becomes a derelict, then for our children FREEDOM will be merely a vestige. Or, perhaps a more formidable coin, an antiquated myth.

Lowry has definitely deserved to be upon the list of writer's that has hit a symphonic political note. While not as fecundated as George Orwell's (Eric Blair) writing, she has a latent exhortation for us, or at least for me. The book also has a rendition upon perspective of reality and that will certainly shift the tides of what constitutes this book's yield. I would suggest everyone to read this book, along with other dystopian and utopian classics. Each of those titles have their own way of exorcising the demons from both forms of society.

The end did irritate me slightly, I wanted a more pronounced and clarified ending. Nonetheless, following with the book's thesis, THE MATTER OF CHOICE, Lowry leaves it to the reader to bestow your interpretation; which is elating for some and exacerbating for others. My ending was grim which was evoked by random forethought rather than by intention.

As a teacher of learning disabled students...I can say that all of my pupils loved this book. Some of the ideas might need a bit of explaining, but it is a story that kids can really get into.

It's a bit difficult to put into words how I felt about Lowry's The Giver. The first thing that came to mind and just wouldn't go away is "horrific". And though one can't really be caught surprised with the unfolding of events since Lowry, as a measure of her skill as a storyteller, quite expertly built up the climax, there's still a part of me that kept thinking, "Surely it wouldn't be so bad..."

Of course, it was inevitable that this seemingly eerily perfect world she created would topple. And it was all brought about by the power of memories and one's yearning for love. It made me realize that I've never felt so perplexed and awed by a story in a long while.

Certainly dialectic and begging for a multitude of interpretations, The Giver is another one of those worthy reads that dared to explore, among other things, the boundaries of threshold a person can reach, along with one's capacity to break free of bonds just to truly realize what it is to be human.

The reviews of The Giver are absolutely hilarious. People, this is a book marketed to young adults; don't let it kick you around. The author, Lois Lowry, expects the reader to make inferences at certain points throughout the novel. You are going to have to turn your brain on and do a little teeny tiny bit of thinking. But that's okay! Just take a deep breath and try to remain calm. You will make it out alive, trust me.

Seriously, the reader response to this book is almost as fascinating as the book itself. When the adults responding here are not complaining about The Giver being hard to understand, they are objecting to its violent content. Isn't that a little like saying our government's anti-drug commercials are too shocking for TV? When authors write about totalitarian societies, they usually try to frighten the reader into guarding against the emergence of such horrors in real life. It's ironic how the reviewers here, in their responses, betray the habit of being spoon fed their truth in much the same way as the characters in this novel. The members of Jonas' community cannot think for themselves, and the reviewers of this book can't even puzzle out the climax. Not only that, but their aversion to The Giver's violent content is exactly the kind of attitude that would lead to a safety-obsessed world like the one Lowry envisioned.

I'm awarding The Giver three stars. It's an overall decent dystopian novel, but it's flawed in that it doesn't stand out as particularly memorable. A story like Animal Farm, by contrast, sticks with you for the rest of your life. Authors who write about totalitarianism probably want to make a deep impact on their audience and drive home a message. If the message doesn't stick, the book is a failure (at least to a degree). Nevertheless, all in all The Giver is a worthwhile read for all age groups.

Oh, what does it matter if I write a review about this book or if I don't write a review about this book? Nothing will change. It won't have any affect on anything. In 100 years, I'll be dead, and what difference would it have made if I gave a writeup, or I didn't?

Is anyone ever actually going to read my opinion? And if they do, does my opinion really matter, on a cosmic, macro level? The world will keep on turning, and the sun will keep on burning, and the universe will keep....universing.

It doesn't even matter if you read this book or you don't; if you like it or you don't. It's just an abstract story about a guy, that never actually happened. Not that it would matter even if it had.

I think to say some one doesn't like some one because they can't REALLY grasp/understand it is one of the most arrogant things some one can do, usually; but in this case its necessary. The Stanger is nothing short of life-changing. Simple fact. People that don't admit it are either too stupid, too jealous, or too afraid to come to terms with it.

I say too afraid because of the implications of a philosophy so obviously true. I say too jealous because most of this book seems like things a lot of people think but never end up saying and, well, getting so much credit for. And I say stupid because this book is great and screw them.

Fast shipping and the book was in excellent condition for what I paid for. Would recommend :)

This novel is absurd. This is not arguable. The point of this novel is that you react to it -- you see Meursault and his absurd way of going about life, and you feel the need to change your own.

(This is a review of the Matthew Ward translation; black an dwhite cover)

This is a newish translation, done by an American rather than the British translation that had previously been the only English version of this French classic. It seems Camus was heavily influenced by American literature of the period -- Hemmingway, Faulkner and others -- and had written The Stranger, the first half especially, to reflect those stylistic sensibilities. The translator argues in his forward that much of that was lost in the British translation. And so here, it is restored.

The result is a matter-of-fact tone more in keeping with our unlikable protagonist, the distant, somewhat bitter Meursault. His almost emotionless life and anti-social tone are stark and ugly, traits that drag him beneath the waves when he is put on trial for murder. As always, The Stranger is compelling reading, but also frustrating, because it is so impossible to care for the main character in the final chapters.

Camus' timeless classic remains as essential today as it was when released, while this new translation gets us a bit closer to the stylistic approach he allegedly wanted. Essential reading.

As the drum, drum, drumming in the air grew louder the usual pregame roar in Ball One Ballpark in Phoenix softened and attention swung to a pre-game show by the Bashas' Bears High School drumline.

They are good. The driving pulse of a drumline, like the beat of a powwow drum circle, is captivating, dynamic, addictive and hypnotic. Music and its rhythms enchant and entrap our souls, and this book offers a fascinating look at "Why" it has such impact. There are many books about music, but this is a fresh look by a skilled writer about why instead of merely the how, what, when and where of musical notes.

Unlike usual textbooks which are heavy on being textbooks and light on understanding, Levitin has experience enough to explain his subject. Humans are said to be the only species that laughs at itself, or needs to; likewise, we are the only species that creates original music, or has the ability to do so, or perhaps the need, and certainly the desire.

Levitin, a professional musician and successful record producer, now runs a laboratory for music perception, cognition and expertise at McGill University. He is a rare academic, solidly grounded in the everyday world of his specialty instead of mere bookish theory. He is a professional who relates to his fellow artists and thus knows how to express basic ideas and themes in words everyone can understand.

Six songs? I'd add a few, such as the Bears' drumline. Even though a drumline is not melodic, it has a powerful rhythmic appeal. It's an example of how music is more than notes on a scale, and how basic the appeal of rhythm and music is to our senses.

Levitin offers some very basic ideas to understand our need and appeal for music, using wit, charm and personal anecdotes. He's been there and walked the walk ... in his case played the notes professionally ... it gives his thoughts and ideas a perfect pitch.

Exquisitely written, it is really about ourselves because we are such a musical species. It makes me wonder: What if humans had never learned to talk, but merely communicate through music? It seems far more reasonable than merely talking without understanding -- at which we're all too expert.

What then the Bears' drumline? Their rhythms are among the most powerful ideas ever expressed. Like Irish step dancing, a powerful expression of unity without using a word, music can be a dynamic expression of human emotions, ideas and spirit.

Fortunately, Levitin is admirably skilled in his use of words; every bit as good as the Bears' drumline or Beethoven's Sixth.

This fascinating book explores the powerful force music has played in shaping our common humanity. It's evolution, with a backbeat. Author Levitin makes the case that six basic types of songs have existed throughout the course of human history, all over the world. Mankind, apparently, shares a soundtrack.

The six broad categories of music are songs about friendship, joy, comfort, knowledge, religion and love. Each has a different function, but all serve to bind us together. They make us stronger as a species.

Levitin, a musician and scientist, cites anthropologists, evolutionary biologists, neurosurgeons, psychologists, and many famous musicians in this book. He includes lyrics from a great range of songs, including "At Seventeen," "The Hokey Pokey," "I Walk the Line," "Twist and Shout," and "Log Blues" from Ren & Stimpy.

Music can be so evocative. A snippet of song can take you back to the exact moment you heard it in childhood or high school or whenever. It's like there is a direct link that exists in the human brain between music and memory.

This books tells us that Americans spend more money on music than they do on prescription drugs or sex, and the average American hears more than five hours of music per day. It's obviously important to us. After reading The World in Six Songs, you'll have a much better idea why.

Here's the chapter list:

1. Taking It from the Top or "The Hills Are Alive..."
2. Friendship or "War (What Is It Good For)?"
3. Joy or "Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut"
4. Comfort or "Before There Was Prozac, There Was You"
5. Knowledge or "I Need to Know"
6. Religion or "People Get Ready"
7. Love or "Bring `Em All In"

This is a fun book to read and act out. We sing the song, bounce with the bus, tell everyone to move on back with the driver, etc. The book is very little, which makes it good for carrying around but a little harder to see the details of the pictures.

My daugther loves this book. It is a great book that promotes early literacy, great rhyming, makes her laugh and smile everytime we sing this song.

I love this book. My four month old grandson loves it also. It is small enough for his little hands.He turns the pages for me . In one word GREAT!

My daughter is 18 months old and this is her favorite book. She brings it to me to read 10 times a day. It also happens to be her favorite song. It's fun and I highly recommend this sturdy little board book.

My 14-month old grandson loved this book. Maybe it's because it's usually read in a "sing-song" way but he had us read it to him over and over. He actually sat still while it was being read and that doesn't always happen!!! I would recommend it for young children. I read it to my own children. It will be around for a long time.

This is one of the most profound books on spirituality I have ever come across. For those who are questioning your faith and feel there is nothing in Christiandom that can help you find the answers to why you feel so miserable, why things don't seem to be going your way, this is the book for you. It has no answers, per say, but it does tell of one man's quest to find the living God and some of the revelations he came to while on that quest. A must have for any Christian library.

I found myself laughing aloud one minute and welling with tears the next. This readable collection of thoughts on being Christian is compelling and inviting. It stretches the imagination of what could be and helps to expose some deeply guarded pharisaical practices in church culture. It will be offensive to some who are used to reading "Christian" books.

This is a book well worth reading. It is appropriate for late teens and early twenties since it covers life in a university. It has a great spiritual depth and we have used is as the basis of study in a small group of men. I recommend it highly.

When I read Don Miller's thoughts on human personality and relationship, it is not exaggerating to rate them as powerful as those of C.S. Lewis, Dietrich Bonhoffer and Francis Schaeffer. But to run an apple-to-apple comparison, I would pick Lewis in this case for a comparison study, because Miller is not a minister. While Lewis is excellent in using illustrations and allegories to get his points across which might be ambiguous and challenging to understand, particularly when one is not familiar with the literatures he used as references, Miller, while equally personal, sharp and hilarious, is surprisingly and impressively much more articulate in conveying and in the presentation of his observation and analysis from his own experience and interaction with his acquaintances. He nails it when he speaks about human depravity, loneliness, and money (somewhat naïve, but still worth pondering),

"I remember a particular midnight, three weeks into our stay, walking into a meadow surrounded by thick aspens and above me all that glorious heaven glowing, and I felt like I was part of it, what with the trees clapping hands and me feeling like I was floating there beneath the endlessness, I looked up so long I felt like I was in space. Light. No money and no anxiety" (p.199).

"When I was in love, I hardly thought of myself. When I was in love, there was somebody in the world who was more important than me. I think being in love is an opposite of loneliness, but not the opposite. There are other things I now crave when I am lonely, like community, like friendship, like family. [The words alone, lonely and loneliness] say that we are human; they are like the words `hunger' and `thirst.' But they are not words about the body, they are words about the soul.

When you live on your own for a long time, however, your personality changes because you go so much into yourself you lose the ability to be social, to understand what is and isn't normal behavior. There is an entire world inside yourself, and if you let yourself, you can get so deep inside it you will forget the way to the surface...the soul needs to interact with other people to be healthy.

And what is sad, what is very sad, is that we are proud people, and because we have sensitive egos and so many of us live our lives in front of our televisions (I might add Internet, blogs, computers, and video games), not having to deal with real people who might hurt us or offend us, we float along on our couches like astronauts moving aimlessly through the Milky Way, hardly interacting with other human beings at all" (p.151-152, 154, 172).

With this said, however, Miller's theology, which I consider as a close representation of the theology of the emergent church, is shallow, if not faulty. It is a humanistic, anthropocentric theology, where the gospel has been turned into a social gospel, and Christianity as a means to turn the world into an utopia at the expense of neglecting the fundamental issues of sin, the attributes of God; particularly the justice and holiness and glory of God, the authority of Scriptures and the cross of Jesus Christ, the latter being the linchpin of the gospel. He did so by eliminating these and substituting them with a false notion of the love of God, which is common in the emergent camp (the name Brian McLaren usually pops up when the word "emergent" is mentioned).

One might challenge my statement about Miller's theology and accuse it as if I were beating a dead horse considering the sub-title of the book is "Non-religious thoughts on Christian Spirituality." However, this sub-title both sounds like an oxymoron and is inconsistent with what Miller actually does. How can one write about Christian Spirituality without being religious? These two are inseparable. Moreover, despite "non-religious" claim, he does talk about the Bible, God, Jesus Christ, prayer and love. How can one write about these altogether and not be religious? Impossible. Perhaps Miller is trying not to scare anyone away by not giving a religious impression on his book, but it doesn't work. If it is Christian, then it must be religious. He tries not to sound religious but he can't help sounding religious as he discusses Christianity, yet ironically, by violating this non-religious claim by writing religiously anyway about Christianity, he doesn't present Christianity rightly as the Bible teaches, but a heavily diluted version of it, so thoroughly diluted that it barely resembles orthodox Christianity that the Bible teaches. From this perspective, this book is a mess. Though Miller does an excellent job in describing the problems with humanity as well as with the so-called fundamentalist Christianity, but sadly he does not go to the bottom of them, that the true gospel points out and the remedy thereof. Consider for examples,

"Loneliness is something that happens to us, but I think it is something we can move ourselves out of. I think a person who is lonely should dig into a community, give himself to a community, humble himself before his friends, initiate community, teach people to care for each other. Jesus does not want us floating through space or sitting in front of our televisions. Jesus wants us interacting, eating together, laughing together, praying together. Loneliness is something that came with the Fall. If loving other people is a bit of heaven then certainly isolation is a bit of hell, and to that degree, here on earth, we decide in which state we would like to live.

... I should have people around bugging me and getting under my skin because without people I could not grow in God, and I could not grow as a human. We are born into families,... and we are needy at first as children because God wants us together, living among one another, not hiding ourselves under logs like fungus. You are not a fungus... you are human, and you need other people in your life in order to be healthy" (p. 173).

Just like Lewis, Miller is a great writer-psychiatrist-philosopher, but a horrible theologian. My suggestion is to read Miller with caution, disregard his views on theology, learn from his analysis on humanity and combine it with John Piper's Desiring God.

I must say that I am most troubled in my spirit that so many people gave this book a five star rating. I wonder if this guy has ever even picked up a Bible. The only reason I gave it one star is because I could not give it zero.

All I can really say about the book is that the god portrayed in it is not the God of the Bible. When I first began to read, I was impressed with the fact that Donald Miller has actually felt conviction for his sin and I was truly encouraged. Though after continuing on, I realized that it was not a conviction that produced a true repentance which leads to life, but just an emotional and romantic "poor me" story which unfortunately leads to death.

What shocks and concerns me is that someone who hates God as much as Donald Miller does can actually call himself a Christian. This is our fault brothers. This is our fault for being so complacent. If we don't take a stand against this type of humanistic nonsense, this is the "Christianity" that we can expect to keep seeing.

Filled with non-historical half-truths, this is just another postmodern, psychological self-help book which prostitutes Christian terminology to its own demise.

It's time to wake up.

This was a fascinating book more so because I am a deafened adult. I had my memories when I lost all hearing in 1977. Experiences I've had since seem weird to me because I remember. Now I understand why. This is a very informative book from both the music lover and indifferent listener points of view.

In the first chapter, he made some statements about music that I know to be wrong, so I was tempted to quit, but I thought that perhaps he may still have something interesting to say--I think of the difference between a "satellite view" map and a "street view" map. He has had many interesting things to say, and I am even suspicious that his "errors" at the beginning were an intentional simplification. Even though written for the "layman," it's still pretty heavy reading--and much more focused on the brain's processes than on how music works.
A bit heavy on name-dropping (he started out as a producer), and more "don't know what's happening here" than I hoped for (but I appreciate the honesty). Interesting--but perhaps specialized: it could easily be a different book than you're expecting.

This book was found, as many of my great finds, on the shelves of a used-book store. The book has traveled around in my car with me as I go from school to my job as a voice teacher. It has been loaned out to music professors, and is now very well worn.

I strongly recommend this book for musicians and music lovers alike. It is beautifully written in a way that nearly anyone can understand, with common examples of music from classical to popular music styles.

An excellent introduction into the technical side of how the brain processes music.

The story about Petr Janata and the barn owls is worth the price of the book alone.

Thanks for a great resource Mr. Levitin.

One can't expect a thorough look into the interplay of phychology, mind-body mechanics, and music in a shory popular book. That being said, this was an entertaining romp through the field.

The first seventy or so pages was essentially an introduction to music theory and how the mind can proces music as, well, music. For those with a music background it will be tedious and won't tell you much that you don't already know, but for someone who has only touched on it it will be like drinking from a firehose with all the information in the pages.

The rest of the book deals more directly with why certain music is liked, how it most likely evolfved, and the practical utility of music in society and individual survival. If you're ever wondering why there are still oldies stations around, it's because of all the boomers who have an emotional attachment to music of their youth, the time when music tastes are most aggressively defined.

One annoyance was the infantile critique of mind-body interplay, where he ascribes to the opinion of Dennitt that the brain creates the mind. There's not enough room in the review to state why that is incorrect, but it shouldn't have even delved on this weighty topic. Overall though, there wasn't much blanket overgeneralization that plagues many popular science books, though the meanderings of the authors was at times tiring.

Overall, pretty good, and a quick read for someone interested in the topic.

I was disappointed with the book I received only because it wasn't the ISBN number that I ordered. I placed the correct ISBN number in and it pulled up the correct book, however, it was not the book with the CD set. I placed the ISBN number in for the book with the CD set. The book I received had a TOTALLY different ISBN number for it. I am TRULY disappointed with this and will probably never order from Amazon again.

I've seen the unabridged version of this book and it's as big as an encyclopedia. The Brief Edition does well to summarize the important points in music history; though the meat of the book is centered in the classical (Renaissance, Baroque, Romantic, Classical, Opera) and merely touches on the more modern componets like jazz and rock. Still, the book and accompanying CD are excellent for those wanting to get a light but informative immersion in the classic music world and learn a little bit about its most famous composers.