James Conlon — Music director of the Cincinnati May Festival:

        The Battle for God by Karen Armstrong (Knopf, $29.95, hardcover; Ballantine Books, $15).

        “(Ms. Armstrong) was a nun, and she left the Catholic Church. ... Her book shares the history of how fundamentalism developed a thousand years ago. She parallels Jewish fundamentalism with Christian fundamentalism and Islamic fundamentalism. This is a very profound problem — fundamentalism and modernity. I happened to have it with me on Sept. 11, and I read it on a train from Cologne (Germany) to Paris. This should be required reading for anybody and anybody who's making decisions about how we're handling all of this.”

       William Henry Caldwell

        Director of the Central State University Chorus, which performed with the Cincinnati May Festival this season, is reading two books:

        Goliath, the Life of Robert Schuller by James Penner (Diane Publishing Co., $20 hardcopy) and The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale (Fawcett, $6.99). “The latter influenced the activities of the former, who now pastors the largest television church in the nation. I am hoping to arrange for the Central State University Chorus to travel to California next year, during spring 2003 (for) an appearance at the Crystal Cathedral.” (Dr. Schuller is founder and senior pastor of Crystal Cathedral Ministries.)

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