This is a fascinating and beautifully illustrated culturalhistory of ideas about what might exist under the Earth's surface.Beliefs in mysterious Underworlds are as old as humanity. From theancient Sumerians to Incas to modern Christians, nearly everyculture has had its special version. However, the idea that theearth has a hollow interior where strange lands, creatures andcivilizations may exist was first proposed as a scientific theoryin 1692 by Sir Edmund Halley (of Halley's Comet fame). Since then,it has been used as a popular literary motif by writers as variedas Edgar Allen Poe, Jules Verne, Lewis Carroll, L Frank Baum andEdgar Rice Burroughs to name a few. "Hollow Earth" traces thisnotion through the centuries and cultures, exploring how each era'srelationship to the notion of a hollow earth reflected itsparticular hopes, fears and values. Lavishly illustratedthroughout, it features a wide collection of artwork includingBosch's inspired surreal nightmares of Hell, seventeenth-centurymaps and dia

In this compulsively readable, fascinating, and provocativeguide to classical music, Norman Lebrecht, one of the world's mostwidely read cultural commentators tells the story of the rise ofthe classical recording industry from Caruso's first notes to theheyday of Bernstein, Glenn Gould, Callas, and von Karajan. Lebrechtcompellingly demonstrates that classical recording has reached itsend point-but this is not simply an expos? of decline and fall. Itis, for the first time, the full story of a minor art form,analyzing the cultural revolution wrought by Schnabel, Toscanini,Callas, Rattle, the Three Tenors, and Charlotte Church. It is thestory of how stars were made and broken by the record business; howa war criminal conspired with a concentration-camp victim to createa record empire; and how advancing technology, boardroom wars,public credulity and unscrupulous exploitation shaped the musicalbackdrop to our modern lives. The book ends with a suitable shrineto classical recording: the author's critical selectio

"Until a few years ago," notes journalist-consultant UdayanGupta, "venture capitalists were hardly on anyone's radar screen."That's not the case these days, as financiers who used to workbehind the scenes now regularly set markets afire with their publicsupport of high-profile technology and Internet stocks. In DoneDeals, Gupta allows 35 of the brightest stars in what has become a$30-billion-a-year business to tell their own stories in their ownwords. We get to see exactly what they were thinking when theybacked such endeavors as Intel, eBay, Excite, Genentech, and 3Com.Gupta's intention is to demonstrate how the industry has changedover the past half-century and how it differs today among itsvarious forms. He achieves this beautifully by dividing thefirst-person accounts into thematically attuned sections that focuson dealmakers of the future (such as Mitch Kapor of AccelPartners), early pioneers (including the late Benno Schmidt of J.H.Whitney Co.), West Coast veterans (such as Don Valentine ofSequ