(++++) VARIETIES OF KEYBOARD EXCELLENCE

Ravel: Piano Concerto in G; Piano Concerto for the Left Hand; Debussy: Fantaisie for Piano and Orchestra; Massenet: Deux Impromptus; Toccata; Deux Pièces pour piano; Valse folle. Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, piano; BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Yan Pascal Tortelier. Chandos. $19.99 (SACD).

Pierné: Piano Concerto; Marche des petits soldats de plomb; Divertissements sur un Thème Pastoral; Ramuntcho Suites Nos. 1 and 2. Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, piano; BBC Philharmonic conducted by Juanjo Mena. Chandos. $18.99.

Bach: Partitas Nos. 3, 4 and 6. Jeremy Denk, piano. Azica. $16.99.

Bach: French Suites Nos. 1-6; Overture in the French Style in B minor; Italian Concerto. András Schiff, piano. EuroArts. $34.99 (2 DVDs).

     Anyone interested in the contrast between the French school of piano writing and playing and the German – and between the Romantic and Impressionist schools of composition and the Baroque – can get a considerable education in similarities and differences from these releases. Jean-Efflam Bavouzet is an excellent advocate of French piano music, having a sure touch, a fine sense of color, and an unerring ability to bring out the harmonic flavor as well as the melodic interest of the works on two new Chandos discs. Bavouzet handles the two Ravel piano concertos especially well, emphasizing not only their long lines and elegant craftsmanship but also a great deal of drama – more than is sometimes heard in these works. The BBC Symphony under Yan Pascal Tortelier backs him up very well, if perhaps not entirely idiomatically – the conducting is a bit more foursquare than Bavouzet’s very fluid pianism. Nevertheless, the combination is a very effective one, as it also is in Debussy’s Fantaisie, which is really a concerto in all but name (and in fact lasts longer than either Ravel concerto). Here the thematic flow is particularly effective, with Bavouzet playing the work with élan, and the very fine SACD sound helping the interplay between piano and orchestra come through to excellent effect. As encores, Bavouzet offers half a dozen short works by Jules Massenet, playing all of them with delicacy, rhythmic vitality and a fine sense of both sound and style.

     Gabriel Pierné (1863-1937) was a contemporary of Ravel, Debussy and Massenet, but his music is much less known – which is, on the basis of a new Chandos recording, something of a shame. Pierné’s only piano concerto is an early work, dating to 1886, and is more traditional in the Romantic mode than the piano-and-orchestra works of Ravel and Debussy, but Bavouzet makes a strong case for this well-constructed concerto, showing that it is surely worthy of something better than complete obscurity. Ramuntcho is a stage work from 1908, from which Pierné created two orchestral suites in 1910, and these are quite attractive as performed by the BBC Philharmonic under Juanjo Mena: colorfully orchestrated, rhythmically interesting and quite clearly designed in theatrical mode. The Pierné disc also includes the late (1932) Divertissements sur un Thème Pastoral, which is an effective and stylish orchestral work, if not one with a wholly original sound. And one of Pierné’s most famous works – famous for a time, anyway – is also here: Marche des petits soldats de plomb (“March of the Little Lead Soldiers”), heard first on the CD but in the past often used as a concert encore. It is an effective miniature that will inevitably remind some listeners of Gounod’s charming Funeral March of a Marionette, whose piquancy it does not quite match. It would have been interesting to hear more of Pierné’s music for piano and orchestra on the CD – such as his Scherzo-caprice or Fantaisie-ballet – but perhaps those will appear on a future Chandos release featuring Bavouzet’s knowing and elegant pianism.

     The technique required to play Bach on piano is quite different from Bavouzet’s for newer French music – and indeed, although it has become commonplace to hear piano versions of Bach’s harpsichord pieces, even the best piano versions will by no means be to everyone’s taste. Bach did have some familiarity with very early fortepianos, and it may be historically justifiable to play some of his works on them, but modern instruments like those used by Jeremy Denk and András Schiff in two new recordings are another matter. These releases are only for listeners who are fans of the artists and who not only accept but actually revel in the use of modern pianos for Bach interpretation – for both Denk and Schiff play with skill and sensitivity, but there is never any doubt in these performances that modern pianos, with all their tonal and harmonic capabilities, are being used. With that caveat for historically minded listeners, the performances themselves are quite good, with both pianists doing an especially fine job with the suites’ dances. There has been an increasing realization in recent years that these dance movements – which make up the majority of every suite Bach wrote – are by no means always lightweight, and are certainly intended to have all the rhythmic vitality of the dances themselves. Denk does an especially fine job of contrasting the slow Sarabande movements of the three Partitas with the faster surrounding movements, with the Sarabande from Partita No. 6 especially broad and heartfelt. The opening movements in these three works – the short Fantasia in No. 3 and much longer Ouverture in No. 4 and Toccata in No. 6 – provide strong contrast to the lighter dance movements, and Denk is quite adept at drawing out the different moods.

     Schiff does an equally fine job in the French Suites, delving perhaps a little more deeply into the emotional side of the music than does Denk, while playing with equal flair and a good understanding of most period practices. The dual-DVD Schiff set raises the usual question about the attractiveness of visual performances of classical works to an unusual degree, since here we have a single player at a keyboard for more than two hours, with a director choosing a variety of shots to try to keep the visuals interesting – thus distracting from a listener’s focus on the music itself and providing an experience very different from what one would have in attending a solo recital. This type of recording is very much a matter of taste: it is certainly not badly done, but whether the visuals add anything significant to the performance is entirely an individual matter. One thing that does add value here, though, is a half-hour “explanation” of Bach that Schiff offers in addition to the performances themselves. This provides some genuine insight into how Schiff sees the Baroque master and his music, and helps explain a number of Schiff’s performance choices. Although not integral to the musical material, this discussion actually adds more to the performances than do the visuals of Schiff’s playing. Certainly fans of Schiff’s carefully considered approach to Bach will find the DVDs interesting and valuable; and even those who are not familiar with Schiff’s considerable knowledge and ability will be impressed with his understanding of the music he plays and the composer who created it.

(++++) ANIMALS ALL OVER

Raven: A Trickster Tale from the Pacific Northwest. By Gerald McDermott. Harcourt. $17.

Those Darn Squirrels! By Adam Rubin. Illustrated by Daniel Salmieri. Clarion. $16.

Flappy and Scrappy. By Arthur Yorinks. Pictures by Aleksey and Olga Ivanov. Harper. $3.99.

     Here are some timeless tales that are fun in any year, in any season. Raven, a Caldecott Honor Book, is a wonderful retelling of Native American legends about the bird-shaped trickster who, along with other animal tricksters such as Coyote and Anansi the spider, manages to do good for people in addition to making mischief. The story is about how Raven brings light to a world in which humans have been living in perpetual darkness. Raven is extraordinarily clever, discovering that light comes from the house of Sky Chief and then insinuating himself into the home by turning himself into a pine needle that Sky Chief’s daughter unknowingly drinks – resulting in her giving birth to a child who is actually Raven in boy-child disguise. And a most endearing child Raven turns out to be, so completely charming his mother and Sky Chief, his grandfather, that eventually he is allowed to approach a big glowing box…in which is a smaller glowing box…in which is a still smaller one…in which there turns out to be a ball of light – the sun. Raven promptly grabs it, changes back into bird form, and flies off, placing the sun in the sky to bring light to the world. This thoroughly absurd and thoroughly charming story is especially interesting as Gerald McDermott tells it, because his illustrations are simply wonderful. Raven appears in stylized form on many totem poles, and McDermott turns him into a totem-pole carving come to life, in bright colors that look just like those of recently painted wood. Raven’s shape and colors persist when he transforms himself into a pine needle and a boy, so he is always recognizable to readers – although not to Sky Chief, his daughter or the elders invited to Sky Chief’s house. Raven’s colors glow more brilliantly than ever when he grabs the sun, making a fine contrast to the earth tones of the other characters and showing at once his difference from them and his cunning and brilliance. In this tale, although not in all the stories about him, Raven is helpful and heroic – and, in the guise of a child, an absolute delight to see.

     Equally well illustrated and much funnier, Those Darn Squirrels! is a book whose silly premise is complemented by hilarious drawings that will have young children (and their parents) laughing out loud. Adam Rubin tells the tale of Old Man Fookwire (what a name!), who doesn’t like much of anything except his snacks of cottage cheese and pepper…his painting (he isn’t good at it)…and birds. So he builds bird feeders – which turn out to be very tempting to squirrels, who hatch a multiplicity of plots to get the birdseed. Rubin makes the story more and more absurd, starting from the reasonable proposition that “squirrels are the cleverest of all the woodland creatures” and interpreting the statement in ridiculous ways: his squirrels make box kites, do math on an abacus, and wear adorable hard hats while hatching their food-stealing plans. In fact, everything about the squirrels looks adorable, thanks to Daniel Salmieri’s willingness to treat them with just as much absurdity as Rubin does. The whole book takes on a surrealistic tone and appearance, as Old Man Fookwire eventually creates a Rube Goldberg-ish “veritable fortress around his birdfeeders,” leading the “floogle bird” to snort “nah, nah, nah, nah, nah” at the squirrels and the squirrels to decide to launch themselves by air over the Fookwire contraption (a decision made after a night of drinking cherry cola and eating salt-and-vinegar chips). And even this is not the height of absurdity in Those Darn Squirrels! No, that height is attained after the birds fly away for the winter, the squirrels realize that Old Man Fookwire misses them, and so the squirrels dress up as birds to try to make amends for their thieving ways. The illustration of the disguised squirrels is hysterically funny, and is the climax of the book – whose denouement then shows that the squirrels’ personalities and Fookwire’s have not really changed…but it’s all right that they haven’t. Hilarious.

     Flappy and Scrappy, a Level 2 book in the “I Can Read!” series, is a different sort of animal-focused work – more conventional in writing and illustration, and less distinguished, even though many kids will enjoy it; it gets a (+++) rating. Arthur Yorinks’ book includes three short chapters about two canine friends. In one, Flappy, a collie, thinks other farm animals are insulting him when they are simply greeting him while their mouths are full. In another, the two friends find a way to play ball together. And in the last chapter, Scrappy – a sort-of-poodle mixed breed – has an unhappy birthday, with no one congratulating him, until Flappy makes everything all right at the end. The dogs do not have much individual character, and the illustrations by Aleksey and Olga Ivanov are serviceable but not especially distinctive. Still, the stories will be enjoyable for dog-loving developing readers (the book targets kids ages 4-8), and the underlying message of friendship is certainly an unexceptionable one.

(++++) SF FROM START TO NOT-YET-FINISHED

The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction. Edited by Arthur B. Evans, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr., Joan Gordon, Veronica Hollinger, Rob Latham and Carol McGuirk. Wesleyan University Press. $39.95.

     Here is a thick, educationally oriented SF anthology that transcends its academic purpose to become an excellent introduction to science fiction, in all its guises, from the mid-19^th century to the present. The six editors of the journal Science Fiction Studies have here assembled a collection of short stories representing, collectively, many of the best writers and many of the most trenchant themes of the SF field. Beginning, rather arbitrarily, with Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Rappaccini’s Daughter” of 1844, and continuing, also rather arbitrarily, through Ted Chiang’s “Exhalation” of 2008, the book presents 52 stories by such giants of the field as Isaac Asimov, Fritz Leiber, Ray Bradbury, Robert A. Heinlein, Harlan Ellison, Frank Herbert, Philip K. Dick and James Tiptree Jr. It also includes stories by some SF oddballs, such as the wonderful R.A. Lafferty and Alfred Bester. Readers unfamiliar with the enormous stylistic and topical variety of SF will find here a veritable feast of works by Stanislaw Lem, Ursula K. LeGuin, Kate Wilhelm, James Patrick Kelly, William Gibson, Samuel R. Delany and Frederik Pohl.

     The “academic-ness” of the collection comes through in some pleasant ways: in addition to the chronological table of contents, there are separate ones by topic (“Alien Encounters,” “Evolution and Environment,” and so on), so interested readers can focus on specific fields of interest to SF writers. And the introductions to the stories blithely toss out authors’ full names in addition to the names’ more-common forms with initials – Catherine Lucille Moore, James Graham Ballard, Clifford Donald Simak – although a few authors retain any mystery their initials may invite, such as Arthur C. Clarke. On the negative side of academia, the book’s general introduction and some of its specific ones may be off-putting to readers seeking, at least in the beginning, to enjoy this genre and form their own opinions, as in the note that SF’s “linguistic openness or indeterminacy means that sf always operates at a sentence-by sentence level in the subjunctive mode,” or the comment that readers must “negotiate the distance between the estranged world of an sf story and their own reality – a process in which they must reconstruct an absent paradigm and decode the text’s subjunctivity.”

     Still, it is possible to skip the general introduction altogether and go straight to the stories – and that may be a good idea. A more serious criticism of this generally thoughtful and well-assembled book is that its early authors are chosen rather arbitrarily (no Edgar Allan Poe, for example), and that it leaves out some of the giants of the field, such as A.E. van Vogt and Fredric Brown. The latter omission is particularly odd, since Brown was the greatest master of the short-short story (one or two pages), and this volume includes five blank pages after its 767 pages of text – plenty of room for a Brown short-short. Nor is this the only oddity: the introduction to James Patrick Kelly’s 1995 story, “Think Like a Dinosaur,” notes that “its most striking feature” is the way in which Kelly makes use of “one of the field’s most famous examples of hard sf, Tom Godwin’s ‘The Cold Equations’ (1954)” – but the Godwin story is not in the anthology.

     Readers, however, are unlikely to care very much about such matters, especially if they are unfamiliar with SF and therefore have no way of knowing what is missing in this anthology. What is not missing is a sense of the many ways in which the field has changed over the years – how it has, indeed, developed on multiple levels from the time of such very early SF authors as Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. Readers who already know SF will find this collection less useful than will people new to the field, because the editors include story after story that has been anthologized and re-anthologized – these are mainstream selections within the genre. Still, there is something to be said, even for longtime SF readers, in favor of having a single book containing such gems as Stanley Weinbaum’s “A Martian Odyssey,” Cordwainer Smith’s “The Game of Rat and Dragon,” J.G. Ballard “The Cage of Sand,” Joanna Russ’ “When It Changed,” and many more. The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction can be used as the basis of a course in the genre – in fact, there is a free online teacher’s guide available at www.wesleyan.edu/wespress/sfanthologyguide. But it can also be used simply as an excellent compendium of top-notch stories by an amazingly diverse set of writers whose interests, concerns and styles are all over the map – not only the map of Earth but also the map of the stars and beyond.

(+++) ALONG FAIRY-TALE TRAILS

Warrior Princess, Book Two: Destiny’s Path. By Frewin Jones. HarperTeen. $8.99.

Warrior Princess, Book Three: The Emerald Flame. By Frewin Jones. HarperTeen. $16.99.

Alberic the Wise and Other Journeys. By Norton Juster. Illustrated by Domenico Gnoli. Yearling. $5.99.

     Adventures in the fairy-tale realm, sometimes disguised as historical or pseudo-historical fiction, retain considerable popularity for teenage readers. The Warrior Princess books, featuring a headstrong 15-year-old who is said to be destined to save medieval Wales from the depredations of the Saxons, are effective enough in taking Branwen ap Griffith along familiar paths of destiny, and are exciting enough to keep teen readers turning their pages; but they are not especially creative in plot or scene-setting, as Frewin Jones relies on familiar characters and entities to surround Branwen, challenge her, help her and guide her. The second book, Destiny’s Path, has Branwen, not surprisingly, rebelling against the notion that she is destined to be Wales’ savior. The Shining Ones, the land’s ancient gods, have chosen her, but she does not feel ready to be a leader and is not sure she wants the assignment. This is typical self-doubt for the hero or heroine of an epic fantasy, and the Shining Ones counter it in a typical way: by showing Branwen the horrible fate of her friends and her country if she refuses to accept her destiny. Yet still Branwen hesitates, so the Shining Ones send her a half-human helper (again, a standard character in stories of this sort). This is Blodwedd, who is part owl (or, as Branwen puts it, “nothing more than an owl wrapped in human shape, save for her eyes”), and who is charged with making sure that Branwen treads the right path. By the end of the book, Branwen has accepted what she must do, although with misgivings – again, a typical stance for the protagonist of such a tale. Branwen is an action heroine when she must be – her knifing to death of a powerful Saxon invader, followed by her throwing an ax to kill another, makes her battlefield prowess abundantly clear. But her future looks bleak as Destiny’s Path, originally published in 2009 and now available in paperback, comes to an end.

     In The Emerald Flame – the title refers to what Branwen herself will come to be called – Branwen has fully (if still somewhat reluctantly) accepted her role as her land’s savior, and has embarked on a supernaturally tinged quest to rescue the spirit of the wind. She has also begun having romantic feelings for Iwan, who is traveling with her. So Branwen – again, in a typical setup for this sort of quest – must find ways to balance her heart and her mind, growing into her destiny and into womanhood as well. Branwen must also face a variety of grave dangers, the worst of which is betrayal by someone on whom she has come to rely. And then she must arrange for a climactic battle not only between herself and an old enemy but also between the opposing gods of two sides. When that battle is won, at least for a time, Branwen again shows her self-reliance and insistence on living her own life, telling the Shining Ones, who threaten her if she does not obey them at once, that they “‘must act as you see fit. …Neither by coercion nor threats will you deflect me from the duty I have set myself.’” And so she grows still further into her ordained role, insisting to herself at the last, “I shall walk the path of my destiny – but I shall do it in my own way.” True enough; but it is a way that many central characters of many other epic quests have taken many times before.

     Warrior Princess repeatedly insists on its uniqueness, even as it follows familiar threads of plot and characterization. In contrast, Alberic the Wise and Other Journeys accepts fairy-tale conventions at face value and simply tries to develop them in some new ways. Norton Juster, best known as author of The Phantom Tollbooth (1961), created this slim, three-story volume four years later, with a different illustrator (Domenico Gnoli, not Jules Feiffer). Unfortunately, this later book has almost none of the charm and wit of the earlier one, and proves much heavier going than fairy tales usually do. The problem is that Juster, whose insouciance and frequent puns made The Phantom Tollbooth such a delight, decides in Alberic the Wise that he is going to create something Serious and Meaningful (you can almost hear the capital letters). What he ends up doing is creating something Peculiar and often Dull. The title story is about a young man “who knew nothing at all,” who gets interested in traveling and learning things, who fails at multiple endeavors, and who is eventually acclaimed wise when he starts telling people everything he has done and learned. Then he finds that acclamation is also unsatisfying, ending up, now an old man, going back on the road. This is followed by “She Cries No More,” a tale in which a young boy named Claude, who doesn’t care about much of anything (and who is, in this respect alone, similar to Milo of tollbooth fame), gets mysteriously pulled into a picture at a museum, where he meets a girl from olden times and finds he cares a lot about what happens in the picture’s world. But the story has neither sense nor charm: somehow Claude takes over whole armies, fights great battles, plots strategies and inspires troops, then has his whole world collapse when he thinks he has imagined everything. The story just doesn’t work. The best tale here is the final one, “Two Kings,” which is the only story with a modicum of wit and amusement. It is about the poorest king in the world, known as King RNP, and the richest, King Magnus, and how each decides to journey to the other’s kingdom to find out if everything is as miserable – or as wonderful – as in his own land. The story is all about role reversal and finding what you expect to find, and much of it is amusing – although the ending, in which Juster refuses to button up the story as any good fairy tale ought to be pulled together, is a disappointment. Alberic the Wise and Other Journeys is a mere 88 pages long, and a number of those pages are taken up by Gnoli’s very detailed but not very inspiring illustrations. But the book somehow seems much longer, lacking the very lilt and lightness that continue to make the fairy tales of long ago (and such modern ones as The Phantom Tollbooth) so appealing.

(+++) OVERDOING – AND CUTTING BACK

We Have Met the Enemy: Self-Control in an Age of Excess. By Daniel Akst. Penguin. $26.95.

Appetite for Reduction: 125 Fast & Filling Low-Fat Vegan Recipes. By Isa Chandra Moskowitz. Da Capo. $19.95.

     Daniel Akst likes to make his points through unexpected juxtapositions: Sigmund Freud and Billy Wilder, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and SpongeBob SquarePants. He is a clever writer, and one with a certain superficial historical perspective for his analyses: the contrast between Greek sophrosyne (a kind of subordination of appetite) and akrasia (lack of self-command), between the well-known writings of Thorstein Veblen and the less-known ones of his contemporary and fellow economist, Simon Patten. He analyzes Sigmund Freud’s fondness for cigars in the context of “the way in which [Freud’s] life and thought bring together so many of the issues involved in grappling with the problem of self-control in the modern world.” He talks about covenant marriage, evolutionary imperatives, an accident that drove an iron bar into the brain of a man named Phineas Gage, the relationship between women’s clothing and makeup and their menstrual cycles, the writings of physician/economist John Rae on the ways in which deferred gratification is by definition at war with the desire for immediate consumption. Indeed, Akst writes about so many things, in such a scattershot fashion, with such stylistic skill, that it may take a reader of We Have Met the Enemy a while to figure out that the book’s underlying premise is really quite simple, even simplistic, and that Akst has no particularly new ideas of his own about it. Akst’s topic, shorn of all the gimmicks through which he addresses it, is the consumerist society, particularly the American variety: overeating, overbuying, overdoing in every possible way, ignoring the future for the pleasures of the present. Dubious pleasures at that, or so Akst argues. His book’s title is taken from Walt Kelly’s famous line in Pogo, “We have met the enemy and he is us,” which Kelly originally presented as, “We shall meet the enemy, and not only may he be ours, he may be us” – recalling Oliver Hazard Perry’s remark after winning the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812, “We have met the enemy and they are ours.” The metamorphosis of this statement – although not discussed by Akst – would work as a metaphor for the same things Akst does talk about: changes in tastes, economies, social mores, the notions of freedom and free choice, and more. There is nothing particularly new in the examples that Akst trots forth; his book is less a look behind the headlines than a compendium of them. Americans buy too much, eat too much, care too little about the future because they are so preoccupied with the present – nothing surprising here. Indeed, as Akst’s historical examples show, the fundamental dispute between today and tomorrow, between immediate gratification and postponement, is as old as any post-subsistence Western economy. So how do we stop “discounting the future” (that being the heading of one portion of a chapter here)? Akst says this is not easy (well, duh): “There are no patients [sic] rights organizations for the victims of excessive farsightedness, no fund-raising 5K runs or colored wristbands, or emotionally greedy magazine ads from which the cautious eyes of the excessively prudent stare out at us, pleading mutely for rescue.” Yes, yes, very well put, very entertainingly said, but what are we to do to break the hold of today’s pleasures over tomorrow’s more-prudent gratification? Akst’s answer is – well, he doesn’t really have an answer. He likes government supervision and believes we should “demand that government do more to protect us from ourselves” (a dubious proposition at best, given government’s own propensity for stuffing its maw in the present while ignoring the future). He likes what he calls “soft paternalism,” which means “present[ing] choices so that the indisputably better option is more likely to be selected” (and who decides what is indisputably better?). But ultimately, he says – correctly if not very helpfully – that self-control is an individual matter, citing one of his favorite characters to make the point: “It’s much better, like Odysseus, to row right past the cattle of the sun god than to count on controlling the hunger that could lead to a fatal barbecue.” Again, nicely put; but how to do it? Well, “the best way to uphold one’s desired desires is to form a habit,” so “our likelihood of following through on our intentions is a function of the extent to which we habitually do so.” We need to develop good habits that “lower the psychic cost of doing the right thing” – an admirable goal toward whose attainment Akst offers few useful instructions. To be fair, no one else has quite figured out how to reverse history and get Americans to become more frugal and less consumption-oriented, either – although, on the basis of savings rates in the last few years, the recent major recession has had more than a little effect. But economic and social shock therapy is more than Akst, or anyone else, is willing to recommend. We Have Met the Enemy sets forth a number of societal issues clearly and often entertainingly, but those seeking solutions are left at the end knowing only that they must look for and find them within.

     The American penchant for overeating is but one matter that Akst discusses, but it is one that has spawned a veritable flood of weight-reduction books, ideas, blogs, seminars and who know what else. Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s Appetite for Reduction is a perfectly reasonable entry in the field: it will make no converts to vegetarianism, much less a vegan lifestyle, and does not pretend to advocacy. Instead, it simply presents the promised 125 recipes for people who already choose this type of diet, with various “tip” boxes giving nutritional and other supplementary information. This is Moskowitz’s sixth vegan-focused book, counting three co-written with Terry Hope Romero, and it moves along like a well-oiled machine, starting with salads and continuing with side dishes, beans (a mainstay of this type of cooking), tofu and tempeh, soups, stews and more. Moskowitz cultivates a chatty style: “Cashews and other nuts get a bad rap ‘cause of the fat content, but much of it is healthy [sic] monounsaturated fat.” And some of her tips are particularly useful, as when she explains that bulgur “is usually found in bulk bins or at a Mediterranean supermarket, but even though it is cracked wheat, it is always labeled ‘bulgur.’ If something is simply labeled ‘cracked wheat,’ that means it has not been parboiled and the cooking time will be much longer.” As for the recipes themselves, they are perfectly fine for vegan cooking: garlicky mushrooms & kale, orange-scented broccoli, polenta stuffing, tortilla soup, curried black-eyed peas with plantains, etc. The book contains only a few photographs of the dishes, but they certainly make the food look good. The chapter introductions are less useful: “Tofu is like that friend who always knows exactly what to say. So versatile and accommodating, tofu is there when you need her.” Still, readers may enjoy these asides while pulling together the ingredients of a recipe or waiting for something to finish cooking. Appetite for Reduction is not groundbreaking or even very surprising, but it contains solid information and a variety of recipes that vegans will find tasty.

(+++) THE SOLOIST’S THE THING

Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto in E Minor; Tchaikovsky: Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello—first movement. Isaac Stern, violin; Israel Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Leonard Bernstein; Vladimir Horowitz, piano; Mstislav Rostropovich, cello. Sony. $11.98.

Bach: Harpsichord Concertos Nos. 1 and 5; English Suite No. 3; “Ich ruf zu Dir, Herr Jesu Christ” (arr. Busoni); “Nun freut euch, lieben Christen gmein” (arr. Kempff); “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” (arr. Hess). Simone Dinnerstein, piano; Kammerorchester Staatskapelle Berlin. Sony. $11.98.

Savage Nightingale. Darynn Zimmer, soprano; Eliot Fisk, guitar; Rex Benincasa, percussion; Jed Distler, piano. Labor Records. $16.99.

Mahler: Symphony No. 4; Rückert-Lieder. Magdalena Kožená, mezzo-soprano; Lucerne Festival Orchestra conducted by Claudio Abbado. EuroArts DVD. $24.99.

     Sometimes the primary reason to buy a CD is not the music it contains but the soloist highlighted on the disc. That is surely the case for a new release of two old performances, one of them partial, featuring violinist Isaac Stern. Entitled “Keeping the Doors Open,” the CD of Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky honors the 90^th anniversary of Stern’s birth (he died in 2001) and the 50^th anniversary of Stern’s successful effort to save Carnegie Hall, whose closing and demolition is now unimaginable but was a real possibility in 1960 until Stern – abetted by Eleanor Roosevelt, Leonard Bernstein, Pablo Casals, Vladimir Horowitz, Dame Myra Hess, Jascha Heifetz and others – spearheaded a movement to preserve the building and keep the concert space open. That bit of history provides a good marketing impetus for this CD, but in fact the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto performance heard here was not recorded in Carnegie Hall but in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv – and not in 1960 but in 1967. The performance, which is a very good if not truly outstanding one (the Israel Philharmonic provides fine but not especially noteworthy accompaniment), has never been released digitally before, and some collectors may well want it for that reason. More will be interested in it for Stern’s lovely handling of the solo part. And surely some will want to hear Stern, Horowitz and Rostropovich play Tchaikovsky, in a performance that was recorded at Carnegie Hall (in 1976). This is a wonderful rendition of the Pezzo elegiaco first movement of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio, but it is only the first movement, so the recording is as frustrating as it is impressive. The whole disc, although expertly played, cannot be recommended for the music on it – rather, it is a collector’s item for Stern aficionados, who will also surely enjoy the period photos included in the CD’s booklet.

     Simone Dinnerstein’s new Bach CD is a feast for her fans but, again, not a disc to be chosen strictly on the basis of the repertoire. The two harpsichord concertos played here (and coyly described as “keyboard” concertos) sound quite lovely, but not quite idiomatic, in Dinnerstein’s carefully considered recording. Bach’s contrapuntal lines are the key to his music, and the harpsichord’s lack of a sustaining pedal helps bring those lines out clearly and cleanly; but the piano’s struck (rather than plucked) strings and pedal arrangement create sonic blurring that softens Bach’s lines, muddies his fugues and generally makes the music, for all its wonders, sound like something other than what Bach intended it to be. This does not mean that Dinnerstein and other pianists inevitably do Bach an injustice in their playing – indeed, Dinnerstein, although she does not eschew pedal use, is less focused on it than are some other pianists, and the music benefits to the extent that she holds back. The concertos, thanks to the light touch of the orchestral accompaniment, come off quite well here; the English Suite No. 3 rather less so. The short, well-known works that fill out the CD, in their well-known arrangements by noted pianists of the past, sound less like Bach and more like encores, which is how they are usually played today and more or less how they function here. Dinnerstein has a good sense of Bach’s style and a better sense of effective piano presentation; this CD lives up to its somewhat odd title, “Bach: A Strange Beauty,” because its beauties are indeed rather odd in the context of Bach’s music and his time. The disc will please Dinnerstein’s fans even though it is scarcely a first choice for the Bach works it contains.

     The title of Savage Nightingale makes it clear that this CD is all about its performers – in particular, soprano Darynn Zimmer – more than about the music. The album title itself is an English translation of the name of one of the songs here, “Rossignolet sauvage.” Zimmer is classically trained and often sings opera; her soprano is pleasant and well-modulated. But this album falls squarely in “crossover” territory. There is some flamenco: “El Café de Chinitas” and “Anda Jaleo!” There is a Native American song: “From the Land of the Sky-blue Water.” There is medieval French love music, too – in short, the 14 tracks offer an assortment of material in various languages, from various time periods. Zimmer’s voice is what pulls everything together – that and the arrangements for guitar, piano and percussion (guitarist Eliot Fisk is, like Zimmer, classically trained). There is little connection among the songs, although several are among the 300 composed by Charles Wakefield Cadman (1881-1946). This is strictly a CD for listeners who have heard and enjoyed Zimmer’s voice already – whether in opera or in other music – and would like to listen to her interpretations of a variety of short works in multiple styles but similar arrangements.

     Vocal interpretation is also the main reason people will be interested in the new Lucerne Festival DVD featuring Claudio Abbado conducting Mahler. The real attraction here is not so much Abbado – although he does a generally fine job with the Symphony No. 4 and the accompaniments to the Rückert-Lieder – but Czech mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená. Her handling of the songs is quite moving: hers is a voice of much richness and warmth, and she brings the sound of genuine passion to these works. “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen” (“I Am Lost to the World”), in particular, is handled with sensitivity and understanding. The symphony, in contrast, is a bit of a letdown: Abbado conducts it with care, shaping the music well and letting the climaxes burst forth, especially the blazing opening of the gates of Heaven in the third movement. But in the finale, the rich texture of Kožená’s voice does not fit the music particularly well. This movement is cast as a child’s view of Heaven, brimming with naiveté and a sense of wonder (Leonard Bernstein actually tried having a boy soprano sing it). Kožená simply sounds too mature for the music: there is great beauty in her voice, but for that very reason, the magic of Mahler’s scene-setting is diminished beneath the vocal loveliness. This is by no means a bad performance, but it is one not quite in keeping with what the composer was looking for. As for the value of having this music on DVD rather than CD – that is, of course, an individual decision. There is something inherently interesting in seeing a live performance such as this one as the audience saw it – but of course home viewers do not really see it that way, since the chosen camera angles, closeups and other effects do not duplicate the concert-going experience and may even detract from enjoyment of the music. Of course, the option to close one’s eyes is always there – but it is there as well when listening to a CD or, for that matter, when attending a concert.

(++++) THAT’S MY BABY

All the Things I Love about You. By LeUyen Pham. Balzer+Bray/HarperCollins. $14.99.

The Quiet Book. By Deborah Underwood. Illustrated by Renata Liwska. Houghton Mifflin. $12.95.

Sweet Moon Baby: An Adoption Tale. By Karen Henry Clark. Illustrated by Patrice Barton. Knopf. $17.99.

The Baby-Sitters Club #5: Dawn and the Impossible Three. By Ann M. Martin. Scholastic. $5.99.

     There are so many things to love about babies and young children, and so many ways to express that love! LeUyen Pham, a well-known children’s-book illustrator, shows that she can write as sensitively as she draws in All the Things I Love about You. Instead of dwelling on typical things to love about children – soft skin, wiggly toes and the like – Pham picks items that parents alone would likely find lovable: “the way your hair looks in the morning” (a complete mess, sticking straight up); the struggle to get pajamas off; “how you eat” (speaking of a complete mess…); and so on. Pham, the mother of two young boys, surely got some of her ideas from them: “I love how you skip the letter ‘Y’ in the alphabet because Z is so much fun to say.” And she consistently brings humor to everyday family life – for example, by saying how much she likes to hear “mama” but would rather hear “papa” sometimes (as in the middle of the night). Pham’s illustrations, not surprisingly, are picture-perfect: she captures both the child’s expressions and the mother’s with skill, humor and piquancy. Although intended for ages 4-8, this is a book that parents will enjoy as much as their children will.

     Parents also enjoy having kids be a little less rambunctious than is the boy in Pham’s book. The Quiet Book is worth reading together when things get a little out of hand. Deborah Underwood’s idea is very clever: “There are many kinds of quiet.” With simple language and lovely anthropomorphic-animal illustrations by Renata Liwska (the characters look liked stuffed toys come to life), The Quiet Book mentions “don’t scare the robin quiet” (which you would expect to show a bird singing in a tree, but which actually shows one sitting on a small hill, playing a flute); “thinking of a good reason you were drawing on the wall quiet” (a scene of understandable embarrassment); “first look at your new hairstyle quiet” (the barber is a stork, the child getting a haircut a porcupine); “do iguanas bite? quiet” (this iguana has red stripes and is bouncing a ball); and so forth. Every page is offbeat and unusual, with the final charmer being “sound asleep quiet” – in which the iguana is cuddling its own tiny teddy bear. Simple, yes; and simply delightful.

     Much more complicated – although, again, intended for ages 4-8 – is Sweet Moon Baby, which will delight any family that has adopted a child from overseas. Karen Henry Clark weaves a kind of mystic fable here, about gently interwoven lives beneath the moon. One life is that of a “perfect” baby girl, born in China to parents who cannot afford to care for her. The other is that of a husband and wife who “could not sleep” because “they wanted a daughter.” Each life story is packed with fairy-tale elements. The baby is placed in a basket, which is put in a river and floats away, protected by a turtle, monkey, panda and other animals. The husband and wife try to bring a baby to themselves by planting a garden and fruit trees and by building a home, but “still, she never came.” So the would-be parents chase a shooting star, look through “moonlit flower beds,” searching farther and farther until “at last they sailed down a shimmering path on a wide river,” the very river where the baby in the basket is waiting for them. The story is beautifully told and, although at odds with the reality of many adoptions, will make a wonderful tale for any newly expanded family – especially because Patrice Barton weaves such lovely pictures into it, the last of which shows the now-older child in a room whose furnishings replicate scenes from the early fairy-tale adventure (such as a stuffed turtle, money and panda).

     Babies, of course, need baby-sitters, for however much parents love their children, they do want some time for adult things once in a while. And it is the adventures of The Baby-Sitters Club that are recounted in the well-known series by Ann M. Martin, which is now being reissued in paperback. The fifth book in the sequence, Dawn and the Impossible Three, originally dates to 1987 and somewhat shows its age, especially in its portrayal of the title character, who has recently relocated from California and fits neatly into the state’s stereotypes (her mom makes tofu-ginger salad, and the two of them eat raw honey with the comb scooped out, “high-fiber wheat-and-bran” bread, and organic peanut butter). The book, which gets a (+++) rating, shows Dawn trying to prove herself as the newest member of the sitting club by taking on the very challenging assignment of sitting for the Barrett kids, who are completely out of control (and whose mom is not much better). There is also a subplot, or simultaneous plot, involving club founder Kristy’s worry about possibly having to drop out of the group after her mother’s remarriage – and the group’s pledge to dissolve the club if she leaves it. There are some mild frights, even a brief worry about a child possibly missing because of a bitter divorce, but nothing too scary, and of course all works out well in the end. Martin’s series, cemented by the reliable bond of preteen-girl friendship, wears well on an interpersonal level even if some of its specifics seem a little old by now.

(+++) COUPLED AND UNCOUPLED

If You Loved Me, You’d Think This Was Cute. By Nick Galifianakis. Andrews McMeel. $12.99.

Women Are from Venus, Men Are Idiots. By John McPherson. Andrews McMeel. $9.99.

     Wow, is the first collection of cartoons by Nick Galifianakis a mixed bag. He does some of the mixing himself – giving sections titles such as “The Bastard Files” and “Finding the One(s).” But this collection of single-panel cartoons, although it contains some real gems on the unending war between the sexes and its occasional truces, is also rather mixed up, and Galifianakis must bear the responsibility for that even if he did not exactly intend it. These cartoons were originally accompaniments to the Washington Post advice column by Carolyn Hax, “Tell Me About It.” They do stand on their own – sometimes hilariously, sometimes tellingly, sometimes lamely. But the way this book is set up is peculiar. Hax is Galifianakis’ ex-wife – a fact never mentioned in the book. The parting certainly seems amicable – she contributes an introduction to the book, and he compliments “Carolyn and Kenny” (Hax’s second husband) in his own introduction. But wouldn’t a direct reference to the context in which the cartoons were created be appropriate, given that the panels are all about people getting together, breaking up and everything in between? And just to get to those cartoons, assuming a reader takes the book sequentially, means going through five introductions: a forward by actor Zach Galifianakis, the cartoonist’s cousin; the intro by Hax; a three-page set of acknowledgments; a dedication page; and Nick Galifianakis’ own introduction. That intro is mostly about his dog, Zuzu, model for a recurring dog character in the panels. Zuzu died in August, but her death is not mentioned, although her illness is. This is perhaps an unfortunate reality of the timing of the book’s publication, but even if so, it really is unfortunate. As for the arrangement of the panels: while most sections make sense, there is one called “When We’re Five We’re All Artists” that sticks out like two sore thumbs, with panels on left-hand pages and blowups of details from those panels on right-hand ones. What is that all about? Galifianakis does not explain. And yet, and yet…there are some simply wonderful cartoons here, in which Galifianakis has clearly taken the pulse of modern dating, cohabiting, marriage and breakups; and the art work itself is exceptionally good – Galifianakis has an immediately recognizable style that is quite distinct from those of all other current cartoonists. Using several recurring or similar male characters and a wide variety of female ones, he rings changes on such old standbys of advice-to-the-lovelorn as fairy tales, Bridezilla stories, in-laws, friends vs. lovers, and much more. His captions capture only part of the effect of his cartoons – the drawings and captions are much better together than separately, even when both are good in themselves. Marriage counselor to man: “Interesting. What about that, Phil? How do you feel about becoming someone else entirely?” She to him: “I know you have your own ways of showing love. I like mine better.” He to her, in bed, as he types on his laptop: “You’re right, I am married to my job. But that makes you my torrid affair on the side.” Princess to frog: “I’ve heard the stories. I know you’re going to be handsome – but how do I know you’re not dull?” Girlfriend to girlfriend: “I always have sex on the first date. Rules out the jerks who rule out women who have sex on the first date.” There is quite obviously a contemporary spin to these panels that would make them inappropriate for, say Dear Abby. But that is exactly why so many of them are so good. Galifianakis does repeat himself a little too closely sometimes, probably because some panels went with similar letters in Hax’s column. For example, there are two nearly identical drawings here of Zuzu sitting on a couch, speaking to a woman. First caption: “Hey, until he follows you around every morning with a little plastic bag, I think we both know who’s calling the shots.” Second: “Uh, hello. He tells me things. I’m his dog.” Both captions work, but the repeated art is irritating. In fact, a number of presentation elements of this book are irritating – but not nearly enough to undercut the effectiveness of Galifianakis’ excellent art and his very pointed perspective on men and women. And dogs.

     The perspective is somewhat more old-fashioned and played for more traditional laughs in John McPherson’s Close to Home panels, a selection of which may be found in a new small hardcover gift book called Women Are from Venus, Men Are Idiots. It may be better to think twice, or three times, about the right person to whom to give it, though. Since 1992, McPherson has presented his perpetually unattractive urban and suburban couples in snapshots of life-as-it-may-not-be-but-very-nearly-is. This book features opposing magnets to be worn by two teenage daters, to keep them 18 inches apart at all times; a woman whose online profile says she likes men in uniform – and who gets matched with a garbage collector; a chore-a-day calendar for the reluctant-to-work-around-the-house husband; fake cobwebs to be used by the man whose wife takes too long to get ready to go out; a collection of toenail clippers from around the world, intended to impress a date; a chiropractic ad inside a honeymoon suite, in case carrying the bride over the threshold proves a bit too much for the groom; and more. Most of the panels are mildly amusing; few, if any, are laugh-out-loud funny (although if you know someone who does find them that funny, that’s the person to whom to give the book). McPherson is usually at his best with the book titles (this book’s title is taken from a book that appears in one panel), signs and stickers that provoke stares of bemusement from his characters – such as a bumper sticker that proclaims, “My Husband Was Inmate of the Month at Hillman Penitentiary.” Just how close to home is that supposed to be?

(+++) MUSICALLY SPEAKING

John Lennon: Life Is What Happens—Music, Memories & Memorabilia. By John M. Borack. Krause Publications. $26.99.

The Wit and Wisdom of Ozzy Osbourne. By Dave Thompson. Krause Publications. $12.99.

     Rock stars are among the royalty that most Americans admire – almost among the gods that Americans worship. In a nation without a hereditary aristocracy, performers (in movies, on TV, in sports, or on concert stages) become the focus of shared experience in a way that royalty does in other countries. So books about these “royals” are perpetually popular. Oh – and it helps a lot if the “royals” are British, since Americans have an ongoing love affair with our cousins across the pond (where, in contrast, the actual royal family is seen with something of a jaundiced eye these days). So here we have two books about British entertainers, each of them focusing on its subject as a thinker and an artist, inflating the person into something approaching divinity through a hagiographic approach that makes John Lennon and Ozzy Osbourne out to be far more than “mere” entertainers.

     This works better for Lennon. There is ample evidence that Lennon was a deeper thinker than most pop-music performers, even if his thoughts were scarcely profound in a philosophical sense and were very much of their time (the drug-fueled 1960s). John M. Borack’s book about Lennon has the look of a scrapbook, filled with illustrations and memorabilia, with minimal text running around the pictured material and appearing as captions. That is a particularly effective approach for telling about Lennon’s life. There are Lennon quotations sprinkled everywhere: “Part of me suspects that I’m a loser and the other part of me thinks I’m God Almighty.” “Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives.” “Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.” And, on the end of the Beatles: “It’s only a rock group that split up, it’s nothing important.” But of course, this book and many like it – and the continuing adoration of Beatles fans throughout the world – say that everything about the Beatles and about Lennon is important. And not just about the Beatles: there is plenty here about Lennon and Yoko Ono; there are the inevitable pages about Lennon’s murder by Mark David Chapman; and there is the equally inevitable (and rather overdone) end-of-book proclamation by Borack that Lennon was “a complex human being,” “a man who stood proudly for what he believed in,” and someone whose “importance and influence on music and society cannot be overstated.” Well, yeah, they can be, and often are – including here. Certainly Lennon’s contributions as an entertainer, as a musician, were huge, although many of today’s young music fans know neither his name nor that of the Beatles (popular music was never really intended to stand the test of time). As Beatles fans age and die, Lennon’s importance is guaranteed to diminish; but it is those very fans who will most enjoy this compendium of Beatles thoughts and artifacts. The pictures really are the most attractive elements of the book – including photos of memorabilia with their approximate current value listed. A Lennon Halloween costume, including mask, for example, sold recently for $334.60; a die-cast Yellow Submarine by Corgi went for more than $100; a poster for the movie “How I Won the War” (starring Lennon and Michael Crawford) fetched $34 in 2009. And then there are the many, many photos of Lennon, the Beatles and those in Lennon’s orbit: album covers, press-conference pictures, Lennon’s psychedelically painted Rolls-Royce, a pair of Lennon’s eyeglasses, a Beatles button vending machine, a check signed by Lennon – the book is a feast for the eye and will be a delight for fans of Lennon and/or the Beatles, even if it never attains the level of seriousness or profundity toward which Borack seems to strive.

     There is much less to Ozzy Osbourne than there was to Lennon, but to his credit, Osbourne does not have grandiose views of himself or his music. He knows he is an entertainer – although he probably would not say “merely” an entertainer – and his comments on his life and music reflect that. Dave Thompson’s book is almost all Osbourne quotations: Thompson himself provides a general introduction and short intros to the individual chapters. Thompson’s writing, while serviceable, is not the reason anyone will buy the book. Osbourne’s fans will want it strictly for the comments: “My mother was an amateur singer, my father was an amateur drunk.” “My idea of heaven is feeling good. A place where people are all right to each other. This world scares the shit out of me.” “I once tried transcendental meditation, but I got fed up and smoked a joint.” “I would never urinate at the Alamo at nine o’clock in the morning dressed in a woman’s evening dress sober.” “If I had done everything they said I’ve done, I’d be dead.” It is hard to know how many things Osbourne says are sincere and how many are designed to pump up his self-proclaimed image (which has changed somewhat over time, but not all that much). It won’t matter much to buyers of the book, anyway. The lists of Osbourne accomplishments – discography, “Greatest Riffs on Earth,” platinum-selling albums, and so on – will be a bonus. And the photos will be an additional draw: lots of devilish-looking stuff, some shots of Osbourne making music, a few family and TV pictures, etc. The Wit and Wisdom of Ozzy Osbourne does have some flashes of wit, although saying that anything in it is “wisdom” would be more than a bit of a stretch. But fans won’t mind; nor, it seems certain, will Osbourne, whose final quotation here says, in part, “Everything that I have ever wanted to have has come from rock and roll.” This may not be wise, but it is reasonably self-aware.

(+++) HEALTH MATTERS

Return to Fitness: Getting Back in Shape after Injury, Illness, or Prolonged Inactivity. By Bill Katovsky. Da Capo. $16.95.

Hard Sell: Now a Major Motion Picture—Love & Other Drugs. By Jamie Reidy. Andrews McMeel. $12.99.

Be Healthy! It’s a Girl Thing: Food, Fitness, and Feeling Great. By Mavis Jukes and Lilian Cheung, D.Sc., R.D. Knopf. $12.99.

     Although everyone wants to be healthy, the word “health” means different things to different people, and different things to the same person at different times in his or her life. Return to Fitness is specifically for once-active people who have, for any one of various reasons, fallen into inactivity – and want to get back to being the fit selves they used to be. Bill Katovsky, founder of Tri-Athlete Magazine, bases the book on his own “steady erosion of motivation that ended in my losing all interest in exercise” for nearly a decade after previously being a multisport athlete. He intends this background to be inspirational, and in some ways it is, but it is also likely to be off-putting to the vast majority of people, who were never at Ironman fitness levels and would simply like to improve their overall physical health as they age. Katovsky’s book is less for them than it is for once-dedicated athletes who have fallen by the wayside. He talks about how the body changes with age, how to build or rebuild an exercise program without overdoing things at first, and what sorts of goals it makes sense to set. Through interviews with fitness and nutrition experts, coaches and others, Katovsky comes up with suggested exercise and nutrition programs that he recommends – and also offers some recommended by others, such as astronaut Jerry Linenger. The book is partly written in generalities and partly in specifics – such as a fairly detailed discussion of the controversy among runners about whether to stretch or not before working out (Katovsky says “it all depends on your sport,” which is a little wishy-washy). There are discussions here of all sorts of hurts, from overuse injuries to cardiac arrest to mental issues such as depression. Katovsky is a little blasé and simplistic about mental matters: depression “fears change. It craves stasis. That’s why depressives like to sleep in.” Indeed, he tends to a fairly simplified view of exercise in general, saying that it can be difficult to get back to it – but then making recommendations whose underlying assumption seems to be that, once you get motivated, it need not be that hard after all. Katovsky gets points for enthusiasm, but seems not fully aware of the fact that for many people, the desire to exercise is minimal if it exists at all. Even his “Motivation” chapter, which focuses on health clubs, personal trainers and various groups (bike, running, triathlon), is superficial: “Sacrificing your workout so you can answer all those emails is a mistake. …This will only jeopardize your return to fitness.” Katovsky’s book will be best for people who have in the past been quite athletic but have gotten away from the habit – not for those who are struggling to make exercise a significant part of their life.

     One significant part of life that most people will try to recapture if they lose it is their sex life, and that is what Hard Sell is in part about. The new paperback version of James Reidy’s 2005 book is very oddly titled: the hardcover was called Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman, but the second part of that title now appears in an oval on the cover, with Hard Sell now followed by either one or two subtitles…or something. The content is clearer than the title, though, and a lot more straightforward. Reidy was a “detail man” – a medical sales representative – for Pfizer, the world’s largest pharmaceutical company and the maker of Viagra, from 1995 to 2000. The book is really about the training and work of detail men (some of whom are women), but since sex sells, the Viagra angle gets top billing. However, there is plenty of behind-the-scenes information to go around: “In the pediatric marketplace especially, branding took greater precedence as companies sought to establish ‘mascots’ with which children could identify.” “The one thing a rep learned in pharmaceutical training was that her drug(s) were the best.” There is nothing the slightest bit surprising here, despite the breezy style in which Reidy delivers the information. Reidy seems genuinely proud of the many ways he found to milk his employer: “Fortunately for me, the limits of the system allowed the company to get fleeced. …For the savvy slacker…this requirement [of close attention to keeping receipts] allowed us to verify we were working when we were not working.” Reidy admits he was (and perhaps still is) a “lazy, sneaky guy,” and his stories of getting what he did not merit wear thin very quickly. He comes across as thoroughly amoral: “Staring at mediocre sales and undesirable number-one rankings didn’t deter me from thinking I deserved to get promoted.” Everything Reidy says sounds like something that could easily be said by Sammy Glick of What Makes Sammy Run? “Hot girls moved product. This is a law of nature, like short guys make better jockeys.” “The company’s inability to correctly predict how much of the product would be sold could result in huge moneymaking opportunities.” Reidy eventually decides to write a tell-all – that would be this book – and quit Pfizer, and his epilogue (in two parts) is full of self-satisfaction and self-justification. Hard Sell is an entertaining read by a thoroughly unpleasant human being who appears to have no respect for his employer, his fellow workers, the doctors attempting to improve people’s health (sexual and otherwise), and the patients worried and even desperate about their physical well-being. Nor does he appear (this is scarcely a surprise) to have any respect for himself, either.

     In contrast, self-respect and concern for one’s health are what Be Healthy! is all about. Intended for girls ages 10 and older, who are reaching or recently reached puberty, the book is focused primarily on food and nutrition, from the basics of “How Food Works” (one chapter title) to information on vitamins and minerals, lactose intolerance and vegetarianism, Internet health-related sites (and how to know which ones to trust), good and bad fats, and more. Each topic is covered in a short series of paragraphs, so the book provides much information but does not seem daunting to read. It includes a clever “Cactus Plan” rather than a food pyramid, indicating not only what it is best to eat and in what quantities, but also what sorts of activities are healthful (aerobic exercise, muscle strengthening) and which ones should be limited (TV and screen time). The book is not specifically a guide to puberty, but there are many references to it: “It’s important to understand that an appropriate plan for many overweight adolescents is to maintain your current weight.” Food-borne illness, shopping guidelines, ingredients lists, stretching, cardiovascular activity and more – there is at least a little bit here on many, many topics. Indeed, that is the book’s weakness: it does not prioritize among the many elements it discusses, so it may be hard for preteens and young teenagers to figure out what is more important and what is less so – and it is certainly not practical to treat everything here as equally significant. There are also some overdone attempts to write in ways thought to appeal to this age group: “Chillin’ Like a Villain?” “Yakkity Yak – Don’t Talk Back!” And some statements are just too simplistic to be appealing: “”Beauty Is Defined in So Many Ways.” “People Are Varied. We’re Supposed to Be.” Nevertheless, as a nutritional primer and a basic guidebook for girls in the target age range, Be Healthy! can be a good start – and its recommended followups with doctors and other healthcare providers make good sense.

(++++) EASIER HARDWARE

Microsoft Arc Touch Mouse. Windows 7, Vista or XP (excluding XP 64 bit). Microsoft. $69.95.

Microsoft LifeCam Studio. Windows 7, Vista or XP/SP2. Microsoft. $99.95.

     Microsoft Hardware remains a kind of “little engine that could” within what is, lest we forget, the world’s largest software company. Never a huge profit center for the company – although it is profitable – and never a big drain on resources within the context of so gigantic a parent firm, the hardware division has chugged along for many years, consistently producing top-quality, innovatively engineered products that are increasingly designed for niches within the computing world and that fill those niches with both style and substance. The Microsoft Arc Touch Mouse is a perfect example of Microsoft Hardware at its cleverest. There is nothing else on the market like it. It lies absolutely flat, looking very much like an iPad or small iPhone (clearly by design, although Microsoft engineers would not likely admit that they were following the design lead of arch-rival Apple). It is solid black, shiny at the top and matte, with a velvety feel, at the bottom. It weighs almost nothing (well, a couple of ounces) and fits easily in a pocket or purse – and it works like an iPad or iPhone, operating in ways never seen before in mouse design.

     To turn the mouse on, you bend it. Yes, bend the whole thing in the middle – the tough metal spring, similar to ones that have proved functional and highly durable in previous Arc Mouse designs, is invisible within the body of the mouse. The Arc Touch Mouse uses a tiny transceiver, identical to the one that comes with Microsoft’s Arc Keyboard line, to connect to a laptop through a USB port. And laptops or netbooks are the units for which it is intended – the whole design shrieks portability (or rather whispers it: this mouse is elegant and understated, not loud at all). The mouse uses Microsoft’s trademarked “BlueTrack” technology, which lets it perform on all sorts of surfaces. And how it performs is really what sets the Arc Touch Mouse apart. The left side of the glossy black part of the mouse is for left clicks, the right side for right clicks (these areas are addressable, as are all the input portions of the mouse, but few users are likely to change their default settings). Between the left-hand and right-hand sides is a rectangular grey flush-with-the-surface button with a small raised line in the middle. This flat surface takes the place of a scroll wheel and does more than any scroll wheel on the market currently can. Gently flicking a finger up or down scrolls up or down – as on Apple’s products – while tapping at the top or bottom of the button pages up or down. And tapping in the middle, where the line crosses the button? A double tap on that line creates what Microsoft calls a “middle click,” which can do all sorts of things (and, like all other areas of the mouse, is addressable by the user). The default setting is worth keeping for a while, because “middle click” does different things under different circumstances. Microsoft points out that, in Internet Explorer, it opens a link in a new tab – without mentioning that it does the same thing in Firefox, IE’s biggest competitor. So it is worth fooling around with “middle click” for a while, just to see what it will do and where. It does nothing at all in some circumstances, though, and if those are important to you, just reconfigure what the button does or turn off “middle click” altogether. If you keep it, however, also try double clicking and holding – then you get what Microsoft calls “middle drag,” which can give you the AutoScroll feature or, again, something else, depending on the program. Using this mouse and exploring its possibilities is actually fun – something users will rarely find with input devices these days – and the slick, elegant design makes the Arc Touch Mouse a pleasure to carry around rather than a burden (the transceiver, incidentally, adheres to a magnetized area on the back for transport; and the mouse runs on two AAA batteries, which should last for months – Microsoft supplies the first pair). The one irritating thing about the Arc Touch Mouse is an odd little dull clicking sound, like that made by the spokes of a wheel when something slightly obstructs them, that you hear whenever scrolling up or down with the central button. Probably intended to be a variation on the clicking of a traditional mouse wheel, the sound is almost subliminal at first, but if you do a lot of scrolling, it can become a little grating – and cannot be turned off. Silent scrolling would have been better; but everything else here is so good that few users are likely to complain.

     Nor will there be many complaints about the excellent Microsoft LifeCam Studio – except about the price, which is distinctly high. This is a product for a more limited audience than the Microsoft Arc Mouse, because built-in video cameras are standard on so many PCs these days and are low-cost options on most of the rest. The built-in cameras, though, have plenty of limitations: their quality is not high, their field of view is usually small, and if you want to show someone (say, on Skype) something outside the camera’s view, you have to turn or pick up the whole computer – an irritant, and potentially a risk if you need to carry it to display what you want to show. Any external video camera eliminates at least some of the problems with the built-ins, but the Microsoft LifeCam Studio does so with more elegance and better engineering than others. It is, in fact, over-engineered, having a 1080p HD sensor – which will produce better video than most computers and computer users will ever need, and better than many units will be able to display. The camera is packed with features that require close integration of the computer user with Microsoft offerings for maximum usefulness – making it an excellent buy if you want those features and a less-excellent one if you do not. In particular, Microsoft LifeCam Studio is designed for full compatibility with Windows Live Messenger 2011, whose HD widescreen video calling lets users share photos while chatting and leave video messages instead of voicemail. These are very nice features if you want a Microsoft-intensive video-calling experience. If not, Microsoft LifeCam Studio offers fewer benefits – although it does work just fine with Skype, Yahoo! Messenger and AOL Instant Messenger. And by any standards, its capabilities are impressive; in fact, in many ways it is as good as a standalone video camera. Its 16:9 widescreen video recording works smoothly; its microphone has noticeably higher fidelity than those of other cameras intended for use with computers; and it even has a tripod-compatible stand in addition to the flexible one that lets you position it anywhere on a notebook or desktop PC. Yes, the tripod stand works, and yes, the camera does a fine job of producing video when used on a standalone basis. Microsoft Hardware also stands behind its products: both Microsoft LifeCam Studio and Microsoft Arc Mouse come with three-year warranties.

     Cost may be an issue for some users considering Microsoft Arc Mouse, but is unlikely to be a determining factor in whether or not to buy it – it works so well, has such interesting features and, to be blunt about it, looks so cool and so much like an Apple-designed product that its price will likely be only a minor element for many people contemplating a notebook-mouse purchase. Microsoft LifeCam Studio, though, is a more complex case. If you are committed to a Microsoft online experience, and in particular to Windows Live Messenger 2011, the camera will add a great deal to your daily online life. If you are lukewarm about using Microsoft’s software for most online purposes, but want a camera that can easily double as an offline video camera under many conditions, that too would be a good reason to consider Microsoft LifeCam Studio. But if all you are looking for is a good-quality webcam to replace a lower-quality built-in – or to use with a computer that does not have a built-in at all – then this Microsoft powerhouse will likely be too full-featured and too costly to be a worthwhile purchase. Even if that is the case, though, you will likely find yourself admiring it when you choose something else – because both the camera and the Microsoft Arc Mouse are strong evidence that the company, often referred to in investment circles as “Mr. Softy,” has hardware ideas that are as good as those of anyone else in the business, and often noticeably better.

(++++) USES OF THE PAST

Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 2 (“Lobgesang”). Ruth Ziesak and Moja Erdmann, sopranos; Christian Elsner, tenor; MDR Radio Choir and MDR Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jun Märkl. Naxos. $8.99.

Lyapunov: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2; Rhapsody on Ukrainian Themes. Shorena Tsintsabadze, piano; Russian Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Dmitry Yablonsky. Naxos. $8.99.

Johann Strauss Sr. Edition, Volume 17. Slovak Sinfonietta Žilina conducted by Christian Pollack. Marco Polo. $8.99.

     Looking backward, to a greater or lesser degree, and then reinterpreting the past, can play a large part in composers’ creations. Mendelssohn’s symphony-cantata (as he himself styled it), the “Lobgesang” (“Hymn of Praise”), dates to 1840 and was consciously modeled on Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, first performed in 1824. But Mendelssohn reduced Beethoven’s very substantial first three movements to mere introductory material for the vocal sections; so, although the “Lobgesang” runs about 70 minutes – more or less as long as Beethoven’s Ninth – nearly 45 minutes of Mendelssohn’s work is vocal, compared with only 25 minutes of Beethoven’s. Nevertheless, there are fascinating parallels between the two pieces, not least because they use the trappings of religion to celebrate entirely secular matters: for Beethoven, joy; for Mendelssohn, the invention of the printing press, whose 400^th anniversary was the occasion for the creation of the “Lobgesang.” Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 2 is by far his longest and least frequently performed, but Jun Märkl and the forces of Middle German Radio make so strong a case for it that one hopes the work will return to the popularity it enjoyed at its debut (although the need for chorus and three soloists admittedly makes it harder and more costly to perform than are Mendelssohn’s purely orchestral symphonies). Märkl does a fine job of highlighting the work’s careful structure, in which the opening and closing use nearly identical music (looking ahead to Bruckner), while the vocal passages expertly mix choral sections with soprano and tenor solos, soprano-tenor duets, and one duet for two sopranos. The text, taken from the Lutheran Bible, is somewhat repetitious and not of much interest in itself – it is all variations on praise to God – but Mendelssohn finds so many different ways to set similar words that the work’s interest never flags. The “Lobgesang” is a fascinating piece on many levels, looking at both music and technology in a rear-view mirror while containing some forward-looking elements and some very fine vocal writing. It is well worth greater familiarity than it has had in recent times.

     The music of Sergey Lyapunov is of somewhat less interest – it is easier to see why it has gone through a long period of benign neglect. Lyapunov (1859-1924) was so strongly influenced by Mily Balakirev (1837-1910) that he never seems to have developed a voice uniquely his own: both his piano concertos and his Rhapsody on Ukrainian Themes clearly look back at Balakirev’s music – in fact, Balakirev himself made many suggestions for Lyapunov’s Piano Concerto No. 1 and may have had a hand in composing, or at least revising, the finished product. When Lyapunov does not seem to be channeling Balakirev, he tends to sound much like Alexander Glazunov, who was his contemporary, living from 1865 to 1936, but whose music (itself largely neglected nowadays) bears a more personal stamp. Yet Lyapunov’s music, derivative though it is, ought not to be casually and totally dismissed. He has a very strong sense of structure – both his piano concertos are in a single movement – and a real flair for virtuoso piano writing, shown in the many cadenzas within the concertos and the Rhapsody. Furthermore, although Lyapunov’s themes are often strongly Russian, almost self-consciously so (no surprise, given Balakirev’s influence on him), his treatment of them is invariably skillful, and his harmonic progressions are logical, well planned out and very satisfying to the ear. The three Lyapunov works here will sound even more old-fashioned to listeners who know their dates – the first concerto was written in 1890, the second in 1909, and the Rhapsody in 1907. But if they seem to look back to an earlier time and the works of earlier composers, it is worth noting that they were by no means the last Russian concertos to do so: one need think only of Rachmaninoff. Shorena Tsintsabadze plays all the works idiomatically and skillfully, and Dmitry Yablonsky, who is making something of a specialty of rediscovering less-known Russian music, conducts with flair and a sure hand.

     The “looking backward” elements of the music of Johann Strauss Sr. actually glance only a short time into the past, to Austrian Ländler and the works of Strauss’ onetime boss and later competitor, Joseph Lanner. Strauss took the rather foursquare dance music of Lanner, and his fairly straightforward joining together of folk tunes into extended sequences, and created works that were through-composed, tailored to the taste of the Viennese public, and frequently based on popular operatic tunes – the pop music of Strauss’ time. Strauss’ sons, Johann Jr. and Josef, would later look back at their father’s approach to music and develop it much further, creating genuinely symphonic works and (especially in Josef’s case) frequently ones with a depth of emotion and bittersweet sound that Johann Sr. never attained or, for that matter, sought. All is pleasantry, lilt and easy flow in Strauss Sr.’s music, as is abundantly demonstrated in the excellent ongoing Marco Polo series devoted to it. The 17^th volume features nine works from 1843 and 1844, all played with great style and sensitivity by the Slovak Sinfonietta Žilina under Christian Pollack. This 35-member orchestra and this conductor have made this type of music a specialty, and the delicacy and bounce of Strauss Sr.’s works come through clearly from start to finish. Volume 17 is interesting for its inclusion of four quadrilles: Volksgarten-Quadrille, Redoute-Quadrille, Orpheus-Quadrille and Fest-Quadrille. The quadrille is very formulaic, the music looping back on itself repeatedly and staying in pretty much the same tempo throughout. This makes quadrilles eminently danceable but generally less interesting to hear than waltzes and polkas. There is only one polka on this CD – Salon-Polka – and it is a fine one, quick and witty. There are three waltzes, of which Nur Leben! (“Just Live!”) and Frohsinns-Salven (“Salvos of Gaiety”) are fairly straightforward, while Aurora-Festklänge (“Aurora’s Festive Sounds”) is more interesting, with an unusual opening that builds to a set of particularly well-constructed dance tunes. The last item here is Waldfräuleins Hochzeits-Tänze (“Forest Maiden’s Wedding Dances”), created by Strauss based on a once-popular romantic fairy tale. Contemporary reviews of Strauss Sr.’s concerts are repetitious in their fulsome praise of his music and conducting, noting again and again how well his works were received and how frequently the audiences insisted on encores. Listening to this music more than a century and a half later, it is still possible to understand why Strauss was, in his time, the equivalent of modern pop-music stars: he gave the audience exactly what it wanted, producing works of style and beauty that, even today, it is difficult to hear without wishing to get dressed for an old-fashioned ball and go dancing.