"The Best of Pif Magazine Off-Line" offers a refreshing assortment of new stories and new voices. A standout among them is Mimi Carmen's "Love Birds". Ms. Carmen's tale of an aging mother and conflicted daughter resonates with idiosyncratic vision and gritty passion. The bird imagery is breathtaking. I also very much enjoyed "23 Johnson Avenue, 1985" by Diann Blakely. If writers were race horses, and I had money, I'd bet my wad on these two.

A wonderful collection - refreshingly different, but solid. My favorite is "Love Birds" by Mimi Carmen. I'd like to read more of her work.

I am bored with many print magazines nowadays. The same things, the same things. Ho-hum. I've been following this zine for a while now, open it every month with relish. They've definitely picked a lot of their best, and Camille Renshaw's intro says a lot about WHY I don't like other magazines. Here is something worth a read, something that will make you want to get everything the magazine has put out since the beginning. There's even a rationale for professional wrestling, something that wants me to buy a tape of the event with the Undertaker/Mankind Hell in the Cell match, and I NEVER watch that stuff! You should definitely have this on your shelf--impress your friends with how in the know you are.

This lovely little volume is a gift that keeps on giving. Its essays are simple, elegant, soulful, inspiring. And thought-provoking. You may well find yourself searching your own Christmas memories, and finding gems you had long forgotten. Which is what this book is all about -- seeing, hearing, remembering those things we take for granted, and cherishing them anew. This is a book to feed the heart, and the soul. And it's just the right size for stocking stuffing!

The kind of collection that is a great gift during the holidays for anyone - it reminds us of the spirit of the season and connects us to our past, our hopes, and the more important meaning of our lives! Great gift for family members, co-workers, neighbors and for anyone on your list!!

This is one of very few books recognising the special features of French music of the Romantic Era, and in particular the important contribution of music written by Camille Saint-Saens. Following the introduction, the first chapter offers a 32-page insight into the composer's character and life. This, alone, is a rare encounter and comes eight years before the detailed biographies by Rees and Studd. The following ten chapters are split into two sections dealing with the "Concertante" works by Saint-Saens and the French Solo Concerto around the same time. Both sections are logically structured and equipped with references, comparisons and examples, while works by Lalo, Dubois, Faure, Franck, Chausson and Debussy, to mention but a few, are additionally addressed. The interested reader can gain even more knowledge by consulting the appendices complementing the main chapters. In summary, for anyone keen to explore French romantic music this is a valuable book, which has been extensively researched and clearly written.

I generally read art history as a gentle way to access historical information in a setting less dry than the average non fiction text. Michael Camille's "Glorious Visions" is a cool, soothing, and soaring text which leaves you feeling self satisfied for reading something informative. Camille challenges the usual art historical judgment that gothic art was merely a stiff forerunner to the glories of the renaissance and his book is replete with examples that Gothic art was a great artistic achievement on its own. The book describes the Gothic experience of vision, but Camille also brings modern sensibilities to bear on Gothic history. He examines art's darker side, including the cost of these fabulous works to the peasantry and the disturbing depiction of the poor and other despised groups (such as the Jews). This book is easily accessible, lavishly illustrated, and immediately compelling. Highly recommended to any student of art, history, or beauty!

For readers unfamiliar with the culture of the Middle Ages, it is surprising, and perhaps even disconcerting, to learn that a medieval manuscript of a prayer-book could contain marginal images of human excrement, or that medieval churches were frequently adorned with gargoyles depicting diabolic and uncanny figures. This book by Michael Camille, professor of art history at the University of Chicago, is devoted to explaining these strange "margins" of medieval culture. Camille essentially argues that, while such marginal images could on the face of it be interpreted as subverting the conventions of the dominating center of culture, they ultimately served to reinforce it. As the author puts it on page 127, "the edges of discourse...always return us to the rules of the center." In other words, medieval artists toyed with the margins of culture, with "otherness" and difference, yet ultimately sided with the "good" and the "normal." Interestingly enough, the marginal images which were so typical of the high Middle Ages disappeared at the beginning of the modern age. Camille suggests that the margins lost their function of hinting at the ugly reverse of mainstream culture in an age where the mainstream both asserted itself more strongly, rigorously demarcating "low" from "high" culture, and at the same time dissolved difference in the medium of bourgeois taste. Peasants and drunkards, for example, became the explicit object of a genre called the "grotesque." At the end of this fine book, Camille writes: "art collapsed inwards, to create a more literal and myopic dead-center [devoid of the medieval playfulness], taking with it edges and all" (p. 160).

Who would have thought illuminated manuscripts could be so fascinating? Camille guides us along their margins, pointing out ghouls and grotesques and creatures of medieval fancy that are at once amazing and obscene. In his story of the making of Britain's cherished Luttrell Psalter, he reveals an England rife with political strife and intrigue as it shaped itself into a young, unified nation. A beautiful book with brilliant illustrations.

I didn't find that this book had much to say. It just states what everyone already knows. "How to be the perfect mother in law", it is just like how to be the perfect anything, everyone knows how because it is just the "ideal", something that everyone wants. The author, being a relationship therapist took advantage of her position and made money off of it. She took what people were saying they wanted changed in their relationship and made a book out of it. On a better note, it was entertaining. Like listening to a comedian, something everyone knows but when you hear it you laugh--- only because it is true. If you are looking for a little entertainment read the book, if you want serious help on getting along with in-laws, find a different book.

If there is a mother-in-law in your life, or if you're a mother-in-law, get this book. Believe me, you're not going to get any better advice anywhere. Save the money you would spend on the couch -- either drinking beer, or with a therapist -- Camille Russo has the unique convergence of both experience and expertise. You can't find someone more knowledgeable about this subject if you hired a private investigator.

If common sence was money, Camille Russo would be the Bank of New York. This book is not only for mother-in-laws, but for anyone who lives in their solar system. If you have, are about to have, or once had -- and especially if you are a mother-in-law -- buy and read this book, and watch your relationships change for the better.

Many of our clients, especially those with smaller companies that are new to export, are advised by our consulting staff to read this book BEFORE they begin negotiating international contracts. We also suggest that they mark key paragraphs and review them while enroute to foreign countries. Being able to move smoothly in overseas cultures is a huge competitive advantage. It is often the difference between success and failure in international commerce. John r. Jagoe, Director, Export Institute.

The research developed by Professor Camille (Chicago University), is a good example of vitality and imagination put into the service of Art History. His most recent contribution as a book is The medieval art of love, which helps us to plunge in the world of medieval eroticism by constructing a wonderful work of synthesis which, embellished with superb illustrations, highlights the most remarkable contributions to this topic from the fields of literature, the history of mentalities and the visual arts.

The 12th and 13th centuries were baptized as "aetas ovidiana" (Traube), because of the high level reached by poets writing in Latin. I would dare to add another reason: in that time erotic literature knew a renaissance, which had as a result the eclosion of a profane iconography aimed to put in images what delighted the ears of cultivated people: we must bear in mind that the Middle Ages were an audio-visual time.

Cistercian sensibility was not alien to this process: the deep devotion that Saint Bernard felt for the Virgin explains in a good measure the new valoration of women since that time: we just have to remember that Gothic churches reserved portals to Mary. That was also the time when poems devoted to the Mother of God flourished.

Camille pulls together his book following the steps "traditionally associated with love": Visus (Love's looks), alloquium (Love's Gifts), contactus (Love's places), oscula (Love's signs) and factum (Love's goal).

With a very accesible language and an agile style, he guides us through the fascinating world of manuscripts, tapestries, jewelry or carvings devoted to eros and sexuality. Being a volume aimed to a wide audience, the author opted to limit the bibliographic references to a minimun and, consequently, he reccurs not to footnotes or erudite digressions, which allows an uninterrupted reading.

I highly recomend this work to everyone interested in being introduced in the marvelous time of idealized "courtly" Love.

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