I am a photographer and a fan of Hove Foto Books and purchased this book when I bought a used Canon EOS 620 body.

The books is extremely clear, and gives detailed instructions on everything from abbreviations used in the camera's Owner's Manual to replacing the battery. It goes into detail not only about what functions the camera has and how to use them, but also explains situations where you might choose to use the various functions.

It then goes into photography technique in general, with emphasis on how to use this specific camera to take excellent photographs.

This is a rare book that is suitable for an amateur with a new toy, but also detailed enough to help a professional photographer. I recommend this book very highly.

In his insightful and scholarly new book, The Control Of Biblical Meaning: Canon As Semiotic Mechanism, George Aichele (Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Adrian College in Adrian, Michigan) presents and responds to a series of key and seminal questions associated with the canon of the Bible. Professor Aichele is articulate and informative as he examines how the canon influences the meaning of the texts which compose it; whether texts can be "liberated" from the canon and what such liberation would do to both them and to the canon that contains them; what canonical status implies about the texts included in the Bible (as well as texts that excluded); and how canon influences or creates ideology and culture within the Christian community. The Control Of Biblical Meaning is fascinating, erudite treatise that is both "user friendly" and very highly recommended for personal as well as academically oriented biblical studies curriculum supplementation and reading lists.

A simple message of hope and love during what has to be a period of tremendous loss and grief for any one who loses a loved one. Accompanied by beautiful, yet simple, illustrations, that convey the tone of Canon Henry Scott Hollands' message-that there is life after the loss of a loved one- that you do move on with your life. This is a comforting and moving piece of prose for anyone who is dealing with the death of a loved one. It is a fine example of the work of Canon Henry Scott Holland. I highly reccomend this book!

Having taught B&F in my early 17th cent. drama class, I can recommend Wit without Money and, to some extent, The Wild-Goose Chase. I would not bother with Wife for a Month, one of the weakest and poorly written of their collaborations. Nevertheless, this is a handy book.

This is the only complete commentary on the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches in the English language. For this reason, it presents a valuable resource not only Eastern Catholic canonists, but Latin Catholic canonists as well, as increasingly the Church is seeing many crossover issues that affect both Eastern and Latin Catholics. Thus it is important that the canonist have a good understanding of Eastern Canon Law, since both sets of law must be respected.

The author is one of the most respected Eastern canonists in the English-speaking world, and thus his complete commentary proves helpful in that it is easy to read, the history behind the canon is explained, and one is given an Eastern sense of the canon being commentated upon. My only complaint was that the actual canons themselves were not included, and thus I strong suggest one also pick up a copy of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches upon which this commentary is based.

Since first encountering this work during graduate school, I have never seen its topical equal. Vodola ably presents the matter of excommunication from its Old Testament roots through its "high point" during the late medieval Church. Accessible for non-canon lawyers, with plenty of scholarly apparatus for specialists, reading this book was both a personal pleasure and a historian's feast. I have recemmended the book many times over the years. Those who read or consulted it were never disappointed.

Todd McGowan has made a monumental contribution to our understanding of the canon controversies, and done it with an admirable and astonishing brevity and focus. The readings of particular authors, contextualized with respect to their moment of entry into the canon of literary studies (and with respect to a number of other interesting and provocative issues), are a model of what cultural studies can be, when undertaken by someone with an authentic concern for how literature functions vis-a-vis the social (symbolic) order . What should especially not be overlooked,in my opinion, is McGowan's immeasurable --and, again, marvellously condensed-- contribution to our understanding of the dilemma between essentialistic, rational, enlightenment-based notions of the self versus postmodern dissolution of the self into what are often celebrated by theorists (of all stripes) today under the banner of "multiple subject positions," or some related notion of "discursively-determined subjectivity" (see the last chapter for a terse tour-de-force critique of this dilemma). It must be stressed that McGowan's deployment of Lacanian concepts is not obscured by excessive jargon or mathematical abstractions. He not only wields such terminology with expertise, but makes psychoanalytic concepts intelligible and politically relevant. I highly recommend this excellent book.

You don't need to know New Testament Greek to follow Trobisch's arguments. Although an astute reader and clever interpreter of textual evidence, Trobisch spares us the usual myopia and nit picking textual critics like to heap upon their readers. He avoids discussions of authorial authenticity that so easily put many people on the defensive. Instead, he helps the reader appreciate larger redactional issues of how the different components of the New Testament relate to one another. By making comparisons to familiar modern publishing practices, Trobisch makes his arguments easily accessible to the modern reader (for example, he shows how the decisions publishers and editors make and the conventions they establish can affect the final form of the text as much, perhaps, as those of the authors.) There's much here I'll want to re-examine when I've done more reading in this area, but on my first read-through I found Trobisch's thesis exciting and refreshing. This book has certainly changed the way I'll be reading the New Testament from now on.

Trobisch's aim was "to describe the history of the Canonial Edition by analyzing the oldest existing copies and tracing the edition back to the time and place of first publication. With this method, Greek manuscripts became more important witnesses than the lists of canonical writings, quotes from biblical literature, and debates about the authenticity of certain writings, translations, and so on." (p. 37) By doing this, Trobisch is able to draw some interesting conclusions: (1) that the editors of the New Testament took great care in naming the different sections of the Bible, and in doing so validated, rather than minimized, the place of the Old Testament in the Christian Bible, (2) that the sequence of the four Gospels as we have it today is a tradition of long-standing, and one that makes good sense even though it means separating Luke from Acts (his explanation of the role of John 21 in this regard is truly fascinating, p. 96ff), (3) that the "first edition" of the New Testament would have positioned the General Letters after Acts and before the Letters of Paul (the logic being, in part, that the first half of Acts introduces the reader to Peter, John and James, and it is only in the second part that Acts starts to focus on the missionary efforts of Paul), (4) that the editors used an elegant system of internal cross referencing to validate both the authority of the leaders in Jerusalem and of Paul (this seeming harmony serving as a unified barrier against Marcionite error), and (5)that the editors managed to straddle the potentially devisive issue of the date upon which Easter should be celebrated by including both the Synoptic and Johannine traditions. Just to name a few! And don't skip the fascinating discussion of the codex ("bound book") v. the scroll in the establishment of the Canonical Edition of the Bible (p. 69-77).

I must admit the flow of Trobisch's argument was so engrossing that I never really examined the endnotes. But they're there and they're detailed. The bibliography is substantial, too (but be warned, it includes a high percentage of German works).

This book is truly worth the investment (both in money and in the time you'll spend digging into it). Treat yourself!

Since the nineteeenth century, the absolute integrity of the text of the Pentateuch as the letter-for -letter accurate revelatory message of the Divine to Moses on Mount Sinai has been an article of faith for Orthodox Judaism. Prof. Levy shows with meticulous scholarship that from early Rabbinic times onwards, through the Middle Ages and even into more modern times many rabbinic scholars acknowledged and discussed the variations in the Masoretic and other texts of the 5 Books ( particularly in the context of the accuracy of the Scrolls used in synagogue). What was commonplace discussion in early times turned into sensation in our own times; what was never at issue turned into heresy, and, conversely, a view that was never espoused turned into an article of faith. The book is a superbly documented window onto the history of Judaism, and on to the history of the transmission of texts, with restrained but pointed relevance to some contemporary causes celebre - eg Bible Codes, whose basic premise this books elegantly demolishes. Should be in every theological and Jewish library!

This outstanding contribution to scholarship in the history of law and religion analyzes the interplay between Christian theological norms and Western legal principles in family life. Departing from Voltaire's quip that the Christian family is either "a little church, a little state, or a little club," John Witte, Jr., Jonas Robitscher Professor of Law and Ethics at Emory University School of Law examines the theology and law of the family in the Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist, Anglican, and Enlightenment traditions.

The account begins with the development of the medieval Catholic canon law of marriage in an effort to combat the phenomenon of "secret marriage." Indeed, Witte reveals that prior to the systematization of the canon law and the sacraments, couples could proclaim themselves to be married with none of the public ceremonies, present witnesses, and festive celebrations that would become the classic wedding accoutrements in subsequent centuries. Given the disarray of the canon law and the sacramental system before this medieval synthesis, any couple who thought they were married probably were married.

The social and covenantal dimensions of marriage replaced the sacramental dimension as the hallmarks of the theology of the family in the Protestant Reformation, which Witte examines in its Lutheran and Calvinistic expressions. It was in this era that many of the trappings of the modern wedding, such as witnesses and church ceremonies, came into existence. The Anglican tradition encompassed the sacramental, social, and covenantal models in a commonwealth model that linked the common good of the couple, their children, the church, and the state in a model that became increasingly egalitarian and democratized, tracking political progress within the British commonwealth.

The ironic result of the development of marriage law and theology in the Christian West is that the move toward greater regulation and publicity in the Catholic, Reformation, and Anglican traditions was eventually largely overturned by the Enlightenment notions of contract and rights. Marriage came to be conceived largely as a private and completely voluntary contract--a bargain struck seemingly at arm's length by parties seeking the most intimate of associations. The Enlightenment model is, in essence, the model that is our legacy in the present day. It is this journey from sacrament to contract that characterizes marriage in the West and has led us to where we are today in the law and lore of marriage and family. Witte's work is a remarkable chronicle of the social practices, legal doctrines, and theological foundations encountered along the way.