Craig R Whitney

Even before a note is played on a massive pipe organ, the imagination is stirred by the sight of three, four or more broad keyboards stacked one above one other, panels of 20, 40 or more pullstops alongside to control an amazing variety of sounds, and a row of 30 or more foot pedals at the base of the console.

Even before a note is played on a massive pipe organ, the imagination is stirred by the sight of three, four or more broad keyboards stacked one above one other, panels of 20, 40 or more pullstops alongside to control an amazing variety of sounds, and a row of 30 or more foot pedals at the base of the console.

The Germans never cease to astound me and neither do the books that get written about them. I've been among them more often than I can count, from my birth in Berlin during the pre-Hitler 1920s, through my work as a member of U.S. Military Government following World War II, to my investigations in recent years of the terrors of the Nazi era. I was, nevertheless, stunned when I returned a few months ago after a two-year absence.

An account of contemporary American book publishing probably should be titled "A Tale of Two Industries," and it might begin with a description of this extraordinary week: It was the best of times in the worst of times. The week began with the astonishing news that "Living History," former First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton's memoir, already has earned back Simon & Schuster's $8-million advance.

With a show business smile and a striped shirt he might have borrowed from Larry David, John West could be a well-fed Westside screenwriter. Instead he's dedicated, in his own way, to the much more august art of the pipe organ. "Fifty years ago, the organ was the biggest thing going," West said this week. "It could shake the earth and rattle the walls."

In the winter of 897, the recently elected Pope Stephen VI ordered the exhumation of his predecessor Formosus, so that the dead pontiff could be tried on a variety of charges, including perjury. The proceeding against the still fully enrobed corpse is recalled in history as "the cadaver synod" and -- unsurprisingly -- ended in the silent defendant's conviction on all counts.