A NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PIANO

By Stuart Isacoff (Knopf, 361 pages, $30)

Taste in music, like taste in literature, is profoundly subjective. Yet it can be said with a high degree of confidence that no instrument matches the piano in its capacity to evoke the entire spectrum of emotion, to transport its listener to sublime realms. Certainly Stuart Isacoff would agree. He states in this wonderfully eclectic, crisply written book that the piano is "the most important instrument ever created." Isacoff flavors his narrative with piquant vignettes and insightful anecdotes that illuminate the lives -- and distinctive styles -- of the great pianists and composers. Here are Liszt, Mozart, Bach, Rachmaninoff, Debussy, Ravel -- the list is extensive. So, too, is the treatment of performers such as Arthur Rubinstein, Vladimir Horowitz, the irascible Glenn Gould, Murray Perahia, Fats Waller, Duke Ellington and even Jerry Lee Lewis (you'll love the story of his memorable finale to "Great Balls of Fire"). Virtually every page of this passionate, entertaining and pleasingly illustrated survey has something new to tell us, to inspire us, to make us want to listen yet again -- this time with greater insight -- to favorite performances. What a sparkling companion to great music this book is.

MICHAEL J. BONAFIELD, News copy editor

THE BOY: A HOLOCAUST STORY

By Dan Porat (Hill and Wang, 262 pages, $16 paperback)

Anyone who has even a glancing familiarity with world history has seen many of the 60 black-and-white photos at the core of this chilling book by Dan Porat, a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who teaches classes on representations of the Holocaust. The photos were taken by Nazis who inexplicably wanted to record their ghoulish work during some of the most shameful moments in human history, the 1943 siege of the Warsaw Ghetto. In many, tattered, terrified Jews, their hands held high, walk to their deaths at gunpoint down smoke-filled streets. In one, Jews hurl themselves from balconies in burning buildings to escape an even more horrible fate. In another, three female Jewish partisans, flushed from a cellar, stand with heads held high seconds before being shot. In another, the ragged bodies of men, women and children lie burning in the heap, a common practice after street executions. Porat zeroes in on the stories of three Nazis and two Jews who appear in the photos, employing a narrative style that uses some imaginary license but is based on extensive research. At the heart of these intertwined tales is a young boy who appears in the Nazi collection's most famous photo. You'd recognize his image immediately -- a terrified, dark-eyed child in a newsman's cap, his thin, knobby knees shaking and his trembling hands held high. What happened to the boy? Many Porat talked with said he had survived -- he was here, he was there. One man claimed to be him. The truth is more complex. An excellent, vividly readable story that zeroes in on the roles played by a few individuals in a monstrous drama.

PAMELA MILLER, NIGHT METRO EDITOR