A mixture of light short works and serious stories highlights Mark Murphy's second collection of House of Java. In the first volume, Murphy's strongest story focused on a female protagonist which he developed throughout the story.

Again, the standout story has a strong female lead that guides the story. Jill, a clerk at a comic shop, draws the attention of an eccentric named "Steven." Steven dresses oddly and obsesses over unique things such as old romance comics and black and white films and tv shows. In his own way he is trying to build a relationship with Jill, who truly likes him, but not romatically. When he finally makes a move and she turns him down and she has the opportunity to remark on how men and women deal with friendships and relationships. Murphy does a good job telling the story through the female narrator.

In "May 27th," Murphy focuses on another female character, Connie, a college student who is about to graduate and has an internship working in a prison program. There she works with a repeat drug offender, Ray, who is trying to avoid jail and do something positive with his life. Separately and together, Connie and Ray make small steps to better understand themselves and their place.

"Tide Pools" looks at the relationship between a townie who longs to leave the West Coast tourist trap where she leaves, but can't get up the strength to do so on her own. When an outsider comes to the town to study the local marine biology, she sees her chance to get out, but will she be able to make that decision? Again, Murphy does a good job of showing his characters taking small advances towards change.

The darkest story, "The Burial," is saved for last. While I felt it lacked the emotional punch that Murphy was looking for, it was an ambitious story as Murphy juggled numerous characters and details. In the hands of another writer or with more room in which to work, this could have been a great story.

Although he hasn't entirely abandoned the coffee shop as a setting, there are a only a few short pieces that are played for laughs in this collection. It might be nice if Murphy collected these stories together. While they (and another two pieces called The Paper Route), cleanse the palate for the more serious works contained in the book, a more cohesive tone might also work to his advantage. As it is now, they act more like a one shot that interrupts your favorite comics story-arc.

Perhaps it is because I read this so soon after Adrian Tomine's Summer Blonde, but I felt that the stories and the artwork lacked the maturity that could have elevated this work. As it is, it is still interesting reading and a good use of the medium to expand the stories told to those that develop character over plot.

Macdonald, Kevin and Cousins, Mark, Imagining Reality: The Faber Book of Documentary, Faber and Faber, 1996.

"Imagining Reality" is a book of short, sharp readings by filmmakers and critics about documentary film from its beginnings with Edison and Lumière, to the feature documentary "Crumb" (1995). After years of seeming neglect through the middle of this century, documentary film is again undergoing a wholesome reassessment by a new plethora of practitioners, commentators and academic scrutineers. We can hope that this will contribute to the long-standing integrity and innovation in this form of film, which founded the beginnings of cinema. It all began in 1895 with Lumière's patrons diving under their seats as a locomotive rushed towards them on the screen. The fiction film then took over in 1903, coincidentally, with the intervention of film editing techniques.

The literature about documentary of recent years is preoccupied by the questions of where to now, the imminent death of the documentary and how close to the "truth" is this film genre? After this questioning and the continual pushing of the boundaries of form, style and means of expression the documentary is still very, very alive. Heated debate continues for definitions of the very essence and nature of the genre. Many of the innovations introduced over the years by documentarists have been quickly adapted into mainstream television and feature films.

Recent titles of books about documentary film express this lively debate: "Representing Reality", "Blurred Boundaries", "Claiming the Real", "Theorizing Documentary", "Fields of Vision", "The Art of Record", "Documentary Dilemmas", "Framer Framed", "Innovation in Ethnographic Film", "New Challenges for Documentary" and the book that is the subject of this review "Imagining Reality: The Faber Book of Documentary". If "Imagining Reality" had been published before the debates raised in the recent books mentioned above, it could well have been titled Imaging Reality.

The editors of "Imagining Reality", Kevin Macdonald and Mark Cousins from the UK have made a careful, considered and very readable compendium from which to consider the major issues concerning documentary. It is a book that should interest all, especially documentary aficionados. It will also become a valuable resource for teaching about documentary film. However, from an Australian point of view their book seriously underestimates our contribution to this exciting film genre. There is no mention of any Australian films or filmmakers throughout the book. It is a serious failing. Another area found wanting is a consideration of the impact over the last forty years of films by women that provide a unique perspective on the human condition.

Although they acknowledge it in the preface, the editors have excluded the now controversial area of ethnographic film and the issues of "representation", "rights" and "reflexivity" relevant to all forms of documentary. The current debate on "reflexivity"; the open positioning and acknowledging of the filmmaker's views (and sometimes themselves, e.g. Broomfield, Mike Rubbo, or Alby Mangels) in the body of the film. In this way further layers of "truth" are manipulated by the filmmakers, as they provide the viewer with information concerning who they are and why they are making a film. The very humorous piece in this book on the British filmmaker, Nick Broomfield broaches the issue, but we miss a follow-through.

Opinion is now leaning towards the view that documentary film is as much a fiction as any other fiction. Yet practitioners of the documentary are generally well aware that from idea to final mix, their film is the product of the process of many thousands of selective decisions. These many decisions will, they hope, create a realistic re-creation and representation of the mood, atmosphere and meaning of the actual events that they are shooting and then editing into their final product.

The new development of small hand carried camcorders in the Hi-8 and digital format has allowed both non-professional and professional film-makers to make low-budget, credible and often unusually intimate stories such as the "Video Diaries" series that were produced and broadcast recently by the BBC and SBS-TV. I would have enjoyed a more detailed investigation here.

Despite these limitations "Imagining Reality" remains a fascinating read as many of the selections chosen have not been published in such an accessible form before. There are incisive and new insights into the greats of documentary such as Flaherty, Ivens, Balázs, Vertog, Grierson, Wright, John Huston, Reifenthahl, Jennings, Warhol, Welles, Ophüls, Malle, Marker, Leacock, Rouch, the Maysles brothers, Wiseman, De Antonio, Morris, Loach and Pennebaker. What a roll call, and what fascinating reading they provide! Documentary, we realize, can be all things to all.

As the Canadian turned French filmmaker Chris Marker comments, near the end of this book, we are in a technological age during which "rarely has Reality needed so much to be imagined".

John Darling Documentary filmmaker and Lecturer in Media Studies, Murdoch University, 1997

This is an excellent book to read if you are searching for more information about Indian movements west and the details of the movements. I bought the book specifically to find out more about the Cherokee East Indians and their movement west to Join the Oklahoma and Texas Indians already in place. John Ross, of course went to Washington, and tried to use his understanding and influence to affect the longevity of the Cherokee nation. Unfortunately, Andrew Jackson and his Federal Troops saw the world differently and Cherokees were being driven out of Georgia with the discovery of gold. Other tribes were dispersed as well. The movement west was called by some, the Trail of Tears of 1838, but this book describes in detail a larger period of time with a much wider scope to include many tribes, and the details of their destinations and their plight in arriving there. The book is candid about the people who became interlopers, i.e., became so normal to see about the place that they were put to work and became tribal members. Many had married indian women, and the author details that many had no skills to speak of. In fact, the author details, many became blacksmiths for lack of any other trade and the Indians welcomed them to their homeplace to practice such trades. Todays excellent automobile mechanics are of Cherokee or other Indian Ancestory and they possess uncanny analytical skills which are probably due to the Indian Ancestory. You will enjoy reading the book because it has new points of view which you will probably not see in other Indian publications , and it will, no doubt, help you to answer your Indian questions.

Orphaned in the desolate Lost Ghetto of Mekanus, Jurdan and Sarann have fought for survival every day since their childhood. Struggling to deal with the threats of Nocturnals and the deadly street gangs who dominate the ghetto, the pair plot a dangerous plan to lead them out of the Lost Ghetto and into the greater world of Aden, a world they know nothing of. There they encounter allies and enemies, discover that the world is not how they believed it to be, and find a cause that is greater than themselves. Indomitable Thunder is one of three novels set in the intriguing world of Aden, first seen in the bestselling computer game Thunderscape. The world Sarann and Jurdan belong to is a fascinating one, and Acres captures the feel of it extremely well. The characters react in believable ways, and almost everyone can identify with someone in the book. The plot against Lord Urbane's secret project is well-laid out, although the conclusion of the novel seemed somewhat rushed. If Acres had an additional twenty or thirty pages to flesh things out, then this could easily have been a 4 or 5 star book. As it is, I enjoyed it quite a bit, and was surprised to see how quickly I finished it. If you enjoy this book, I recommend the other two Aden novels: Darkfall by Shane Hensley and The Sentinel, the author of which escapes me at the moment.

This book is probably okay for junior-level undergraduate students who are writing their music papers, but will be too simplified for the more advanced music students who want to produce a good essay/term paper. The parts on 'Documentation' and 'Bibliography' tend to be incomprehensive and outdated. Very often, additional manuals are needed to supplement the lack of information, particularly when it comes to 'Citations.'

this book opens with blackwood's great story: the wendigo. B is the master of the setting, noone can create the background and atmosphere like him. a very well written story from Brennan here. and Meloff's story is also an interesting read. derleth is at his best here. i don''t care that much for the guy, have never considered him to be HPL's great successor or anything, but he knows how to write, and i have always considered his story about Ithaqua to be his best contribution. the rest of the stories are well written. i don't think any of chaosium's anthologies contains of so much good writing than this. but good is not great. and the rest of the stories never turns out to be really good. the suspence killed by irrelevant writing going on for too long, mostly. sad. but the book is still wort reading

Chapters grouped by genre or theme rather than by culture group. Nonfiction in "Arts," "Ceremonies and Celebrations," "People to Know" and "Places to Go" are some the themes the books centers on. A valuable resource if you need to know about ways to use multicultural literature in the classroom. Fiction areas are divided mainly by grade level.

The book does a fine job of expounding on the tactics of the ambusher. The main focus is on the methods of the VC in the Vietnam War. With respect to the VC the authors give an excellent breakdown of ambush categories and countermeasures. The discussion of the urban ambush or kidnapping is somewhat lacking. While the general comments regarding jungle ambushes can be applied to urban situations there is little material specifically about urban ambushes. The latter part of the book is a summary of some famous terrorist and Vietnam ambushes. The terrorist attacks featured range from the early 1980s to the mid 1990s. These summaries are without much detail and it's not always clear how the general ambush definitions provided by the authors relate to them. The only dissappointment lies in the insufficient exposition of modern urban ambushes and their countermeasures. It's probably an excellent study of jungle warfare by the Viet Cong. Perhaps the scope and purpose of the book are not well defined in that the book purports to be a definitive guide for both urban and jungle ambushes. Sabin Smith

Although this book had many strong points, it didn't live up to the standards set by the first three. The plot becomes is less intense as the rest and the characters lose something.

This interesting craft book is part of the American Girls Pastimes series, and focuses on the sort of crafts that would have been done during the time of Kirsten Larson, 1854. The book has five chapters, each with three or four crafts: A Frontier Household (braided mat, dried herbs and flowers, and onion-skin dye), A Stitch in Time (patchwork pillow, bunny pincushion, and quilted potholder), Pioneer Playthings (yarn doll, chromatrope toy, and magic wallet), Swedish Traditions (midsummer wreath, Dala horse, and stenciled box), and Arts From the Indians (leather pouch, clay bead necklace, calendar stick, and owner stick). Each of these crafts is covered in one to two pages, and includes a list of materials needed and step-by-step instructions.

It's rather hard to rate this book. Some of the crafts are fun and well spelled out, whereas others are not. For example, the directions for making the Dala horse can be boiled down to "1) model a horse out of clay, 2) paint it red, and 3) paint traditional designs on it." I'm sorry, but these instructions are way too little to help in making such a thing.

So, I would suggest that you get this book through your local public library, rather than spending your own money on it. My daughter and I give it a very guarded recommendation.