I went to high school with Darcey Steinke. I lived down the street from her (past the bottom of the hill, where our streets joined). I don't have any reviews to share. I just wanted to congratulate her on her overwhelming success. Darcey, congratulations, and remember coach "Disco" Lindsey in a future book, please.

The Rev. Cannon Al Colton was a lawyer, priest and scholar. He lived his life all over the western Unites States, particularly in San Francisco and Salt Lake City. Al was the most powerful preacher I have ever heard. I was only six years old the last time I heard him preach, but I still remember it. He stood in the pulpit at the Cathedral Church of St. Mark in Salt Lake City, Utah. He was a large man, and everything that left his mouth did so with a vigor and life of its own. His words could move a group of people, and his ideas could change the opinions of even the most rigid person. This book is a collection of Sermons written and preached by Al between 1962 and 1988. In reading the book three sermons stand out. The first was written and delivered on Palm Sunday, 1968; four days after the death of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. The second was delivered three days after the death of Robert Kennedy, and the third was his farewell letter to the people of the Cathedral Church Mark and others in the Episcopal Diocese of Utah, shortly before his untimely death. All three of those are extremely powerful, and all three evoke strong emotions. Any preacher worth his salt knows that if they do not evoke emotions from the congregation they haven't done their job. Al Colton personified the powerful preacher, great priest, strong layer, and a devoted family man.

A great overview of the history of the origin of the individual componants as well as a great deal of information of the most important people in each of the books of the bible.

This book is only an index, and one must have the British (not the American) translation of the 1983 Code of Canon Law in order to use it properly. That said, this small book is probably the best index of canonical topics available in English. It's quite easy to use. Note: those who get the major British commentary, "The Canon Law: Letter & Spirit" (avail. 1996), will no longer need this separate index volume.

This book is a classic. It is a must have for any religion student, women's studies major or African American studies major. Dr. Cannon's writing is beautifully poetic and extremely intellectually stimulating. Her work is rooted in social ethics and deeply sensitive to race, class and gender struggles on multiple levels. As a former student of the author I can also say that this book mirrors her dynamic teaching style of presenting an issue- like an onion peeling back the layers leaving the reader thirsting for more information resulting in tangeting research endeavors, conversations with others and probing for how similar contemporarious issues are developing in modern society right down to local level. I read this book cover to cover and would recommend it highly to anyone who encounters it. They will walk away with a gift only Dr Cannon could give. She is a profound ethicist and gifted educator who ministers to the call for social justice with passion and has the ability to make you think harder than you ever have before. Her book accomplishes this task and her grasp of language and critical concepts pushes the reader to wrap their brain around ideas and statements in a way that will forever change how one digests the written word.

This is, put simply, a Very Useful Book. It seems to be mostly aimed at people used to traditional literary criticism, who are interested in the whole new & exciting thang that is Cultural Studies - reading and interpreting all sorts of cultural objects, from tv shows and movies, to public buildings, to cereal packets, to (and this is really where this book comes in) poems and novels and plays. It's a good, clear summary of a fascinating but often confusing field, and it's practical too if (like me) you want to start doing this cultural analysis yourself. I was saying to myself "Oh, that's right!" all the way through this book. Okay, so the guy next to me on the bus was looking at me funny, but who cares?! Since you have to live in our culture, you might as well get the tools to understand it!

This book is a beautifully written treatise on man-legislated law in the Roman Catholic Church today. It includes an invaluable historical perspective that could be complete all on its own. Father McKenna uses the ever controversial issues of confidentiality, marriage annulment and human rights, to explore the concepts of law underlying the complex workings of this universal church. Catholic Canon Law, set out in the Code of Canon Law, is probably the only universal system of law in the world. Despite the global nature and dimensions of our world today, that is a complicated concept. This dessertation sets out the map for the basic concepts and leaves the reader hoping Father McKenna explores more such issues in the future.

This humane and compassionate book is the kind of scholarship I thought had vanished in a morass of structuralism, deconstruction, hermaneutics, and the other polysyllables of Academic Mandarin.

Professor Wisse fulfills the subtitle of her book on Hebrew, Polish, English, Yiddish, Russian, and German literature dealing with Judaism and Jewish life: a journey through language and culture. It is a journey that describes life on the kibbutz, in the ghetto, in the Pale of Settlement, in the camps, and in the United States and sets all of these Jewish lives in their context of Western history and literature and politics.

I don't read or speak most of the languages in which these literatures are written. I'm not familiar with most of the texts, which is my loss. Professor Wisse manages, through quick descriptions and well-chosen quotations, to give a careful reader some notion of a field that is unfamiliar. I don't think I'll ever think of some of these writers again without thinking how they put their religion, their politics, and their lives on the line.

This is especially moving when she comes to the description of the Holocaust (Shoah in Hebrew; Khurbn in Yiddish). Most of us are familiar with the DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL (Anne Frank). What I didn't know was how many diarists whose names are unknown except to scholars and (like the Unknown Soldier) to God wrote as the means of combat available to people of the Book: keeping the record; literary resistance. Her summation of this section is memorable: "Like soldiers who die for their country, these Jews obeyed the imperative to document over the imperative to live."

Her section on Nobel Laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer combines biographical information on a famous writing family, shrewd psychoanalytic and textual criticism, and then opens up to the larger context of English literature. Her discussion of Tevye the Dairyman as a kind of inverse of King Lear is a revelation, and her comments on the vastly successful FIDDLER ON THE ROOF simultaneously set it at its rightful value as Judaism and its much larger value as a document of popular culture and a talisman for many cultures. And not much later on, she's talking about Gershom Scholem, the Cabalist scholar.

What's impressive about this entire section (in addition to what I've mentioned) is that she deals with this literature as itself, without resorting to comparisons such as "this is magical realism, only it's not Latin American."

She isn't afraid to speak with her own voice, which is one of strong convictions and considerable, balanced wit. I howled at the Yiddish version of Eliot's "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" that she quoted, and I laughed even more at the way she dealt with Leon Uris' EXODUS, which did indeed serve its purpose in keeping a Jewish spirit alive in Russia, surprisingly, but which she doesn't consider part of a Jewish canon, but as popular, not particularly well-written fiction that she refers to as winning Israel "the popularity of a dance around the golden calf."

The book is a powerful argument in favor of a culture maintaining its own culture rather than assimilating until it's gone; it's also very much a work in the making: Wisse cites a number of texts she'd have liked to include, with the inference being that there will be more.

I hope there are. And I hope that Professor Wisse produces more books of this high caliber. "As with the Bible," she concludes in her Postscript, "the world will also value what the Jews find of value to themselves."

This needs to be said. And then it needs to be applied to every culture, with the wisdom gained from books like this.

I was very much impressed with the book by Monsignor Sweeny. It is user friendly and easy to read. The book clearly explains the rights and obligations of a pastor, it should be read by every pastor, parish staff member, indeed it should be read by every parishoner. It has been of tremendous help to me in my ministry and I recommend it.

The author clearly defines how he perceives the Hebrew Bible came into being through the rivalries of the different priestly groups each pushing their own agenda. It is easy reading and very interesting. His writing also lets you know what factions Christ was up against as He began His mission. A must read for Jew or Christian.