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The Book of 101 Opera Librettos

"How to Die Without a Lawyer"
by Mary Clement
ON Sale!
Death and taxes may be absolutes in life, but there's no excuse for improperly preparing your estate for your death and posthumously pummeling your heirs with your taxes. Even worse, contends Mary Clement, an attorney who specializes in end-of-life issues, is paying too much for associated legal help--either while you're alive or after you're gone. In "How to Die Without a Lawyer," she accordingly "reveals the secrets of trusts and estate law, enabling you, the reader, to produce the same work as the professionals, without the legal fees and with the added benefit of your estate being more financially advantageous to your beneficiaries than to your lawyer." Chapters deal with everything involved in creating, revoking, or changing wills (how to inventory your property, forgive a debt, designate a fiduciary), taking precautions against mental incapacity (living wills, health-care proxies, do-not-resuscitate orders), and avoiding probate (pay-on-death designations, gifts for education or medical expenses, living trusts). Appendices offer sample documents, including wills and clauses for them that fit different circumstances. Primarily designed for those planning estate preparation on their own, the book also should prove useful to anyone who will seek legal assistance but would like to become as informed as possible in advance of the process.
"Be Prepared: The Complete Financial, Legal, and Practical
Guide for Living with a Life-Challenging Condition" by David S. Landay
ON Sale!
Coming off the deaths of his father following a bout with lung cancer, a loved one who was diagnosed with leukemia, and a number of friends who contracted HIV, attorney David S. Landay wrote "Be Prepared" for people facing life-challenging conditions. The book is organized and presented in a tone Landay says is necessary for anyone facing an uncertain future. As such, he repeatedly emphasizes a need to both expect the best and prepare for the worst. He covers a variety of topics, including drugs and treatments, nutrition and exercise, taxes, new uses of existing assets, and estate planning. Being proactive is a consistent theme and is particularly relevant in areas such as medical power of attorney, living wills, do-not-resuscitate orders, durable power of attorney, and preneed decisions about children. Of course, when it comes to an area such as money, it's tempting to assume that much of this information is already presented in other reputable books on financial planning that cover areas such as life, disability, and health insurance. But Landay makes a point of noting that some of his concepts for people with life-challenging conditions appear to fly against conventional wisdom. He calls attention to those concepts with a special symbol and refers to them as CASH: Conventional Advice Switched on its Head. (Examples: As long as you have a taxable income, it is advisable to continue to invest in retirement accounts; even if you don't have health insurance, there are still ways to get it; disability does not generally happen overnight; Medicaid covers more long-term care than Medicare.) And the book is certainly unique in its compilation of advice in a variety of areas (medical, financial, and legal), all aimed at informing people facing critical decisions. In the end, it's hard to know if "Be Prepared" is a truly proactive tool, or the type of resource people won't turn to until a crisis strikes. In that sense, it's much like earthquake preparation guides that go unnoticed until the big one hits. Nevertheless, Landay's effort is a sobering reminder both that poor health can send our lives spiraling out of control and that a little planning ahead can bring pride, dignity, and a sense of power to an otherwise compromised life.
"World Desk Reference"
ON Sale!
Set aside a little extra time when you're looking up information from the "DK World Desk Reference"--you won't be able to keep yourself from browsing. The large, gorgeous pages are colorful and well designed, and while the facts you need are readily available, their neighbors are clamoring for your attention, too. Beginning with a set of physical, historical, and economic maps of the world and its continents, the "Desk Reference" quickly gets to its heart: several pages devoted to each nation of the world (as of the year 2000), from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Clear, detailed maps, synopses of political, economic, environmental, historical, and demographic information, and exquisitely helpful charts bring each country to life and serve as a brief but thorough lesson on its place in the world. The four-page spread on Yugoslavia will help you understand the situation there better and faster than a pile of history textbooks, and your awareness of the importance of groups such as the G7, WTO, and IMF will expand tremendously after just a few minutes of browsing. Despite its entertainment and educational value, though, the "DK World Desk Reference" is also a sharply focused reference tool: The index and gazetteer will bring you to the right page without fail time and again.
"Dictionary of the Performing Arts"
by Frank Ledlie Moore and Mary Varchaver
ON Sale!
Music, dance, acting, film, television, and other creative endeavors--each develops its own jargon to communicate within the field. There's plenty of overlap in this terminology, and this often creates a confusing mess when artists try to work together. The "Dictionary of the Performing Arts" aims to help professionals, students, and critics understand each other by providing comprehensive, cross-discipline definitions of thousands of performance- related terms. Each word is followed by short or medium-length explanations of its meaning as used by different performers and technicians. "Fade," for example, has related but different meanings to people working in audio, lighting, and motion pictures, while a "stage manager" is the same to any variety of live performance. Including terms from circus, vaudeville, opera, classical Greek and Asian theater, the dictionary covers vast tracts of artistic territory--not many reference works contain extensive definitions of both "pas de deux" and "heavy metal" (though the latter curiously refers to Jimi Hendrix as one of its "greatest exponents"). Whether you're a scholar or a showboat, the "Dictionary of the Performing Arts" will come in handy when you need to make sense of the language of creation.
"The Oxford Companion to the Year"
by Bonnie Blackburn, Leofranc Holford-Stevens,
ON Sale!
"The Oxford Companion to the Year" is one of those splendid volumes that should have a permanent place in every personal reference library, next to a well- thumbed Brewer's. The main body of the book gives a huge amount of historical and folkloric information on every day of the year (including, yes, February 30, which has happened three times); the days of the week, months, and seasons; and the major feast days and festivals in a wide variety of different cultures. This is the section that most readers will find the most fascinating; its 658 pages provide endless browsing. The second part concentrates on the making of calendars over the centuries: how our own complex calendar evolved with its irregular month lengths and its rules for when leap years occur, plus details of the calendars of many other cultures--Chinese, Hindu, Muslim, and many more--all trying to find a regular system that can cope with the fact that the roughly 29- and-one-half-day lunar month and the roughly 365-and-one-quarter-day solar year simply can't be meshed. Bonnie Blackburn and Leofranc Holford-Strevens must be congratulated on the huge amount of work this book must have taken, and on such splendid results.

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NEW REFERENCE BOOKS

WHAT WE'RE READING
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"Word Court"
by Barbara Wallraff
Your price
She's the Judge Judy of grammarians. Barbara Wallraff's language column in the Atlantic Monthly dispenses "grammar with an attitude." Her new book "Word Court," presents the best of this popular column, along with healthy doses of wit, charm, and good sense. Seldom has a grammar book been such a pleasure to read.
"Atlas of the Prehistoric World"
by Douglas Palmer
Your price
Not to be critical or anything, but the earth is hardly the spring chicken it was 4.6 billion years ago. Continents have shifted, merged, and split apart. Seas have turned to land and land has been submerged by sea. The "Atlas of the Prehistoric World" forms a digest of what is known so far about the history of the earth, enhanced with brilliant maps, photographs, and illustrations and explained in lucid, enjoyable prose.
"Nolo's Deposition Handbook"
by Paul Bergman and Albert J. Moore
Your price
Being deposed can be a confusing, Kafkaesque experience, but "Nolo's Deposition Handbook" takes much of the fear and uncertainty out of the process. Authors (and attorneys) Paul Bergman and Albert Moore do a commendable job of dealing with real-life issues, such as what to do--and not to do--in preparation and how to deal with the trick questions that many lawyers just love to ask.
BOOK COLLECTOR'S GUIDES
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Love rare books? Whether you collect incunabula or modern first editions, building a truly great collection of rare books is no easy task, but we've put together a list of identification and price guides to help you separate the wheat from the chaff. Who knows? Your next flea market find may turn out to be worth a bundle! Your price

THE KAPLAN ADVANTAGE
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For decades, Kaplan has been the leader in test-prep books. Preparing for the TOEFL, LSAT, or others, over 3 million students have looked to Kaplan to help them achieve the best possible scores. If you're preparing for a big exam this year, have a look at our list of Kaplan's latest prep books--after all, you can never be too prepared, can you? Your price

EDITOR'S CHOICE
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When Henry Petroski's "The Book on the Bookshelf" first landed on my desk, I was dubious. "An entire book about bookshelves? Sounds about as exciting as the history of the paper clip." An evening perusing the book soon made me change my mind. Petroski's charming and erudite history of book storage is really an analysis of our drive to categorize and store information for quick access. And as Petroski clearly shows, when it come to our quest for knowledge, we humans can be amazingly resourceful. Your price

NEW AND NOTABLE
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"A Perfect Home Wedding: Inspirations for Planning Your Special Day" by Kerry Eielson Your price
Those contemplating an at-home wedding will find that "A Perfect Home Wedding" addresses those special concerns in a friendly, realistic way, so that, hopefully, even if the special day doesn't go off without a hitch, you'll be prepared for every possibility.
"Penguin Dictionary of American Folklore"
by Alan Axelrod and Harry Oster
Your price
The A-to-Z design of the "Penguin Dictionary of American Folklore" enables fast access if you know what you want to look up, but it also provides seemingly endless opportunities for happy browsing.

MORE REFERENCE BOOKS Listings

Greetings from acoustiCDigest associate of Amazon.com with Reference Editor, Perry M. Atterberry.
This past year has been a particularly good for reference books. We've seen some incredibly lush, beautiful coffee-table books come in, as well as some very handy titles for the reference purists out there. Out of all these riches, though, 10 books stood head and shoulders above others in their respective fields. Below is our selection for the top 10 reference books of 1999.
1. "The Hutchinson Encyclopedia of the Renaissance"
by David Rundle
Check it out here
The 15th and 16th centuries marked a turning point for Western culture--when "civilization progressed from monochrome to technicolour," as Oxford historian Dr. David Rundle puts it. His new book, "The Hutchinson Encyclopedia of the Renaissance," gives the reader a new perspective on the pioneers of our now thoroughly explored cultural territory, and may just provide a map of what lies ahead.
2. "Encarta World English Dictionary"
Edited by Anne Soukhanov
Check it out here
While becoming the world's new lingua franca, English has been changing at breakneck speed. The "Encarta World English Dictionary" covers all the new developments in the language thoroughly and efficiently, creating a reference tool for anyone hooked into the global culture. We're really quite "chuffed."
3. "The American Horticultural Society A-Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants"
Check it out here
The undisputed gardening-reference champion, "The American Horticultural Society A-Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants" weighs in with more than 15,000 entries and 6,000 photos and illustrations of North American plants, trees, and flowers. It includes answers for every gardening question, from light requirements to heirloom-seed varieties.
4. "Sleeping Dogs Don't Lay"
by Richard Lederer and Richard Dowis
Check it out here
In "Sleeping Dogs Don't Lay," indefatigable verbivores Richard Lederer and Richard Dowis present a quick-and-dirty grammar guide, tip a few sacred cows, and even offer some helpful hints on orthography and punctuation. Now, if only they could do the actual writing for us.
5. "Random House Webster's Quotationary"
edited by Leonard Roy Frank
Check it out here
Looking for a pithy quote for your next speech? Maybe you're just curious about who said, "Great minds are like eagles, and build their nest in some lofty solitude" (Schopenhauer, if you really must know). Random House Webster's "Quotationary" offers over 20,000 quotations by everyone from Edward Abbey to Emile Zola.
6. "Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary"
Check it out here
Inveterate logophiles that we are, we love the 100th-anniversary edition of "Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary." With over 200,000 entries, authoritative usage guides, etymologies, and synonym paragraphs, this dictionary, we think, would make Noah proud.
7. "Why I Write"
edited by Will Blythe
Check it out here
Will Blythe gathers 25 essays detailing the joy of writing by fiction writers as diverse as David Foster Wallace, Ann Patchett, and Terry McMillan in "Why I Write." More than a meditation on the art of writing, "Why I Write" celebrates fiction's power to inspire, challenge, and liberate our imaginations.
8. "DK Millennium World Atlas"
Check it out here
The "DK Millennium World Atlas" is a big, lush book, at home whether displayed on a coffee table or on a library's reference shelf. State-of-the-art cartography has never looked so good.
9. "Webster's New World Roget's A-Z Thesaurus"
Check it out here
Need a word in a hurry? Look no further than "Webster's New World Roget's A-Z Thesaurus." Combining the traditional Roget's-style thematic index with the convenient alphabetic organization of the modern lexicon, it's a veritable orgy of synonymy.
10. "Ultimate Visual Dictionary 2000"
Check it out here
Curious about the inner workings of a jet? Wonder how crystals are formed? You'll find this and more wonderfully deconstructed information in "Ultimate Visual Dictionary 2000."

"American Jewish Desk Reference"
Check it out here
From Bella Abzug to Mortimer Zuckerman, from the first bat mitzvah in America to the curious "Vulcan shalom," the American Jewish Historical Society's "American Jewish Desk Reference" offers a fascinating A-to-Z look at Jewish life in the United States.
"Informatica 1.0"
By Peter M. Black
Check it out here
The Internet is still a wild, chaotic place, and you can spend many hours searching fruitlessly for the information you need. But fear not! Peter M. Black has done all the legwork for you and brings you the coolest stuff on the Web in "Informatica 1.0."
"Africana"
edited by Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Check it out here
A splendidly packaged reference work that will adorn libraries and homes for years to come, "Africana" defines the black experience in the same sweeping way that the "Encyclopedia Britannica" defined Euro-American civilization. More important for young readers, the magnificent collection shows that Africans and the continent's descendants are a truly global people who have made tremendous contributions to human civilization.
"A History of Mathematics"
by Carl B. Boyer and Uta C. Merzbach
ON Sale!
First published in 1968, "A History of Mathematics" is a tour de force of intellectual history. In just over 600 pages, Boyer surveys mathematical thought from ancient Mesopotamia right up through modern times. Though it does presuppose some knowledge of the field, the interested layperson will have no trouble following along.
"Dictionary of Imaginary Places"
by Alberto Manguel and Gianni Guadalupi
Check it out here
Like an ordinary geographical dictionary, "The Dictionary of Imaginary Places" contains alphabetically organized entries for more than a thousand locales. In this case, however, the locales in question are far from ordinary--they range from the orc-ridden wastes of Tolkien's Middle-Earth to the languorous shores of Homer's Island of the Lotus-Eaters. This handsome and whimsically charming book, adorned with fanciful line drawings and maps, is rich with enough fictive detail to please the most inveterate reader.
"Encyclopedia of Hell"
by Miriam Van Scott
Check it out here
From the fire-and-brimstone pit of medieval Christianity to icy Niflheim, the German underworld for anyone who didn't die in battle, Mirima Van Scott's "Encyclopedia of Hell" offers a wide-ranging, multicultural look at the dark side of the afterlife.
"Early American Furniture: a Practical Guide"
by John Obbard
Check it out here
Don't get taken in by fakes and imitations! "Early American Furniture: a Practical Guide" is essential reading for anyone interested in collecting and caring for Early American furniture.
"Maloney's Antiques & Collectibles Resource Directory"
by David J. Maloney
Check it out here
If you are serious about antiques and collectibles, you'll want to pick up the latest edition of "Maloney's Antiques & Collectibles Resource Directory." With thousands of listing for clubs, contacts, periodicals, and Web sites, you'll always know where to go to find the perfect addition to your collection.
"Your Secrets Are My Business"
by Kevin McKeown and Dave Stern
Check it out here
With the crime of identity theft on the rise, we all need to be more cautious with our private information. In "Your Secrets Are My Business," security experts Kevin McKeown and Dave Stern show you the most common ways your secrets are stolen, and what you can do to prevent theft.
"Ultimate Visual Dictionary 2000"
DK Publishing
Check it out here
Curious about the inner workings of a jet? You'll find this and more wonderfully deconstructed information in DK's "Ultimate Visual Dictionary 2000."
"DK Millennium World Atlas"
DK Publishing
Check it out here
The "DK Millennium World Atlas" is a big, lush book, just as much at home on a coffee table as a library's reference shelf. State-of-the-art cartography has never looked so good.
"Dictionary of Languages"
by Andrew Dalby
Check it out here
Andrew Dalby's "Dictionary of Languages" is an essential ready reference for anyone interested in the languages of the world. Dalby, honorary librarian at the Institute of Linguistics and a regular contributor to the journal The Linguist, has done a marvelous job of collecting information on over 400 languages into one volume. Though rather light on hard linguistic information, the dictionary does cover the history and social background of each language, and is one of the few reference works on languages that gives equal time to more obscure ones, such as Maba (spoken in Chad) and Sorbian (spoken in Germany). The perfect book for quick information or for an afternoon of pleasant browsing.
"Webster's New World College Dictionary"
Check it out here
Is "legislator" pronounced with an "er" sound at the end or an "or"? Is the Jewish festival of lights spelled "Chanukah," "Hanuka," or "Hanukkah"? With "Webster's New World College Dictionary," which promises to describe rather than prescribe, you can take your pick. Easy to use and understand, "Webster's New World College Dictionary" is a fine addition to any high school or college student's desk set.
"Sin and Syntax"
by Constance Hale
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You gotta love a grammar guide that calls verbs "moody little suckers" and adverbs "promiscuous." Constance Hale ("Wired Style") relishes prose that is deliberate, beautiful, and bold. In "Sin and Syntax," Hale offers liberating advice for the struggling writer: Go ahead and break the rules, she says; just know the rules first, and know why you are breaking them.
"An Incomplete Education"
by Judy Jones and William Wilson
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You'll find everything you forgot from school--as well as plenty you never even learned--in "An Incomplete Education," an all-purpose reference book, an instant classic when it first appeared in 1987. The updated version takes a whirlwind tour through 12 different disciplines, from American studies to philosophy to world history.