Ron Chaplin inquired as to the merits of Ted Libby's "The NPR Guide to
Building a Classical CD Collection," to which Todd Townsend replied:

>I have it and don't find it particularly helpful even for the novice.
>To say that it doesnt' dig too deeply into the repetoire would be an
>understatement....When I first started listening to classical music, I
>found Jim Svedjas book to be much more helpful, and dependable

I also have the book, and am certainly a novice by the standards of this
list (maybe 200 CM CDs).  I would word my response differently, though...

Anyone who is on this list almost certainly doesn't need that book.
However, there are lots of people who are not from another planet, but
can name more Beatles albums than composers whose names start with B.
For those folks (and I was one), it might be a decent starter book.  I
still look at it once in a while.  Don't know the Svedjas book, so I can't
compare.  But my conclusion for Ron is about the same as Todd's - probably
not something you need.

I might be opening a can of worms with this, but if you want to drop $20 on
such a book, maybe the Grammophone Guide is a better choice.  It doesn't
try to explain the merits of any pieces, but rather spends its space
recommending recordings.  However, since it's edited down much more than,
say, the Penguin guides, it lists mainly "major" pieces by given composers
and lists fewer composers than Penguin.

William Jenks
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