Paul Willis is a master craftsman when it comes to the ethnographic (as well as theoretical) imagination. Drawing on his own works (particularly Learning To Labor), Dr. Willis provides a clear and cogent analysis of symbolism in relation to commodity fetishism in everyday culture. Like Learning To Labor, this work is also theoretically dense--and I love it! Dr. Willis provides very careful and well-thought-out theoretical mapping of both modern and postmodern cultural forms. If you appreciate Paul Willis as much as I do, you got to read this one. It will make you a better critical ethnographer in an increasingly postmodern world.

I had read book after book on ethnographic method and practice while a Ph.D. student. Even several graduate courses did not make matters any better. It seemed that the space between studying the "method" of ethnography and actually writing one was vast and unknowable--until Paul Atkinson's book. I smiled the whole time while reading this text. I had found the key! By taking a textual analysis approach, Dr. Atkinson takes the reader on a journey through the textual construction of ethnographic texts. Examining some of the most important ethnographic texts in the social sciences, Dr. Atkinson explores the literary elements that go into the actual writing of ethnography. I don't know if he intended to write a methods book on "how to" write an ethnography, but, personally, it became my night time bible while conducting my Ph.D. ethnography (now released as a book: Native Americans in the Carolina Borderlands: A Critical Ethnography, Carolinas Press, 2000) By learning how ethnographies discursivly construct "reality effects" via literary deployments, one gains insight into how to write an interesting, evocative, ironic tale. We have Dr. Atkinson to thank for bringing to light how writing itself is methodology. If you are contemplating doing ethnographic research, you can't go wrong reading this text. I know that you will produce a better ethnography!

Paul Bernier's book is a piece of pleasant reading, with much content on it. For those religious people who find weekly eucaristic celebration dull and a mere performance of and empty ritual, this book presents new insight. It brings our lives back to the Eucarist, so the Eucarist will be back in our lives, actually, there's no way of separating both. It is well written, and full of hope. At the same time, it doesn't hide itself in a false romantic vision of a subjet so real for so many. Bernier's knowledge of the subject is present in every page. A well accomplished work!

This book is an excellent introduction (along with St. Nicholas Cabasilas' classic text of the thirteenth century) to Orthodox life. Specifically, this book makes clear why the Orthodox start with worship, not with a few postulates (as in Roman Catholicism/Protestantism); it also shows why the Orthodox classically do not believe that there are "seven sacraments": everything the Church does is sacred! A great book for beginners or the more advanced reader about True Christianity: the Faith of the Eight Councils!

Besides a good collection of everyday Cajun food, this book is rich in the history and lore of the area. Thanks to Eula Mae Dore and Marcelle Bienvenue, the history as well as the recipes of this area will not be lost.

This is a standard book for the study of sources of European Enlightenment and French Revolution in academic circles. The book written by a French professor is relatively easy to read and makes a great introduction to the above mentioned subjects. Whether one is in the academia or a layman, the book can prove an exciting, clarifying and intellectually stimulating book to read. If the various historical figures are unfamiliar to you, simply look them up in an Encyclopedia. They will provide adequate background. All quotes in foreign language are translated.

The authors provide an in-depth treatment of three methods for
evaluating software architectures, all of which were developed at the
Software Engineering Institute with involvement by the authors. The
methods examined are:
(1) ATAM (Architecture Tradeoff Analysis
Method)
(2) SAAM (Software Architecture Analysis Method)
(3)
ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs)

Each of the above
address software evaluations in increasing levels of detail, with the
book's main emphasis on ATAM.

What makes this book so valuable is
the fact that you can learn much about developing software
architectures from the criteria with which they are evaluated. For
example, the discussion on quality attributes is eye-opening because
what architects consider to be well formed quality attributes are
usually too vague to properly evaluate, resulting in ill defined
architectures in the first place. Knowing how to evaluate the
architecture will provide the keys for defining a solid architecture.
More important is the way the authors define the outputs of the
architecture evaluation, which gives the practicing architect a
framework for design that fully meets the evaluation criteria. The
net result is that a defined architecture will unambiguously
communicate the design to the development team, as well as to the QA
team.

I especially like the business oriented approach that
addresses the costs and benefits of evaluation, the three approaches
from which to choose that best meets technical and business goals, and
the case studies that support each of the approaches. Another strong
point about this book is architecture is also evaluated with
production in mind. Too many books only consider architecture from
the development point of view, or in rare cases, from development and
QA points of view. The evaluation techniques in this book extend to
support and maintenance. The authors make selection of the best
technique easy by comparing them in Chapter 9, and provide an approach
to implement evaluations in Chapter 10.

If you're an architect I also recommend augmenting the excellent
material in this book with Design and Use of Software Architectures by
Jan Bosch , which gives an alternate method to ATAM that is more
complete in many respects. Even if you espouse Bosch's approach,
however, the approach and techniques given in Evaluating Software
Architectures: Methods and Case Studies are complementary. I personally
recommend both books and assign equal value to them.

I am a gastroeneterologist and this book is great for someone just starting to learn about diahrrea and gastroenterology or for someone just reviewing it.

The Everlasting Sky is a reissued collection of classic essays that portray stark details of Anishinabe reservation life in Northern Minnesota, along with human histories and tragic imbalances between Anishinabe and dominant culture individuals. A recurring theme that is the search to honor the vision of the artist, particularly the Anishinabe artist, and the quest to refine or even reforge a definition of "indian," Anishinabe, and cultural art and learning. These chapters are compelling, vivid, and go beyond linear verbal traditions with their impact. They do not make for easy or comfortable reading, for the dominant culture reader. But they are treasures laced with bitterness, but treasures nevertheless. There is something medicinal and bracing about the writings of Vizenor. In his new introduction he writes about manifest manners, "the apish continuance of manifest destiny," and the educational value of daydreaming: "Ted Mahto, the literary artist and philosopher, celebrates the natural Anishinabe custom of daydreaming as 'a very constructive kind of behavior' in public schools...'We are going to have to find ways to recognize what it is that is happening to a child when he daydreams, because this kind of visual thinking,you know, might be of more value with respect to learning how to live with one another than learning how to work a mathematical problem...There is something spontaneous and religious about visual thinking which is being ignored in the public schools. (p. xiii).'"

This dialectic underlies much of The Everlasting Sky. And even that trivial insight is not key to understanding or experiencing the dazzling Anishinabe voices under Vizenor's pen. Perhaps it is necessary to allow oneself to experience the pain in it, even vicariously, to progress to something like a starting point, or common ground. Then the elusive beauty that pervades the underlying cultural vision can perhaps be glimpsed or imagined.

Though it is difficult to understand those whom we have so badly hurt, it is not a punishment to read The Everlasting Sky. Rather, it is an experience of richness, like the final series of paintings of George Morrison, that work to "create a sense of that imagic moment when the water on the horizon of the lake merges with the sky (p. x)."

Nancy Lorraine, Reviewer

This is a great book to have at your side when you are creating your own Excel Killer App. Not a reference book, this book has enough directions, instances, and full-fledge applications and Visual Basic for Applications, so that you can use them as frameworks for your own apps.