The Record Shelf Guide to the Classical Repertoire: An Irreverent, Selective, and Highly Opinionated Recording Guide from the Host of the Record Shelf

By far the most interesting and thorough annotated discography of classical recorded CDs. I came of age listening to Jim Svejda's show on KUSC and found reading his comments about each recording more than entertaining. My well worn (and autographed) copy has served me wellover the years and although Svejda has published other, similar, books this one remains my favorite. With comments like: "Once, when filling out an application for a summer job, on that line next to "other" under the heading of Religion, I wrote Mozart. The personnel officer was not amused, but then, I hadn't intended it as a joke. For there was a time when I was convinced that Mozart was at least as divinely inspired as Moses, Christ, the Buddha, Lao-tzu, or Mohammed, and I suppose I still am. For in no other works of the human imagination can the divine spirit be heard more distinctly than in the miraculous music this often vulger, unpleasant, and difficult man produced during his pathetically brief thirty-five years. Were this book to do him justice, the section devoted to Mozart's music would take up more than half the total pages." How can you possibly go wrong?! Two thumbs waaaay up for this title.