I don't know if this applies at all U.S. outlets of Borders Books and Records, but I just got back from shopping (supposedly for Christmas presents for others, but that's another story) and discovered they're having a sale: 20% off all boxed sets of CDs. I had been eyeing a 10 CD boxed set of Bach's big sacred pieces by Karl Richter, recorded in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the versions I grew up on and still adore. It was marked $71. It includes the St. Matthew Passion, the St. John Passion, the Christmas Oratorio, the Mass in b minor, and the Magnificat. With his Munich Bach Festival forces and soloists like Fritz Wunderlich, Gundula Janowitz, Evelyn Lear, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Maurice Andre plays trumpet on the Christmas Oratorio. Classic recordings. And then I noticed the sale and quickly calculated I could get out of there with 10 CDs at Naxos prices. There went my Christmas shopping for others! I'll have to go back later for them. Now, who do I know who'd want boxes of operas and cantatas and collected symphonies and sonatas, oh my? Scott Morrison