A reading of Richard Brookhiser's recent (and highly recommended) *America's First Dynasty* sent me back to *Mont Saint Michel and Chartres*, a book I hadn't read in thirty years. I'm glad I returned to it, because a few years have, I trust, put me in a better position to appreciate what's going on in the book.

On one level, the most obvious one, Adam's book is a sometimes idiosyncratic history of Medieval art, literature, and religion that takes as its center of gravity the great Gothic cathedrals of the period--structures that Adams thinks sum up what the middle ages are all about. To read the book on this level alone is fine. It provides intriguing insights into, for example, courtly love and the cult of Mary.

But I now believe that, at a deeper level, the book is disguised autobiography on the one hand and a backhanded history of Adams's own time on the other. An at times overwhelming sense of nostalgia permeates the book. In reading Adams on the 11th century mystics, the debates of the schoolmen, the chansons of the troubadours, and the unified worldview of the middle ages, one can almost hear him sigh with longing to return to a world which, he thinks, was whole, unfractured, and pure--a world, as the medievals themselves would've said, which reflects "integritas." This reveals a great deal about the restless, unquiet nature of Henry Adams the man. But it also reveals the restless, unquiet nature of the modern era which spawned and molded him: the gilded age, the fast-paced first wave of capitalism, secularism, and consumerism, which has no center of gravity, no art, no tradition. And even though we claim to be living in a "postmodern" age, it seems to me that a great deal of the qualities Adams deplored in his own times are still with us and account for our own sense of homelessness.

*Mont Saint Michel and Chartres,* then, is more than a quaint turn-of-the-last-century history. Read correctly, it's also a mirror of our present discontent. Highly recommended.

Twenty years ago, I first read this book and was driven by Adams' compelling study of these two cathedrals to spend a decade studying Medieval and Renaissance literature. Adams at times finds his enthusiasm for his subjects embarrassing, but gives in to it nevertheless and writes a brilliant and joyous paean to these cathedrals and to the spirit that created them. Rereading this book now, twenty years later, I remember the thrill of reading it the first time, and it sparks my own enthusiasm all over again.

PR Visionaries is a remarkable piece of work! It provides you with the techniques and secrets of the best and leading members of the industry, from Ketchum, Porter Novelli, Brodeur Worldwide, and other leading players.

While strong on the strategic side, PR Visionaries is a bit weaker on the tactical side. I don't hold the editors responsible for this, however, as this is not a how-to manual, per se. For the tactical side, I found Guerrilla PR: Wired by Michael Levine to be a more than adequate resource.

PR Visionaries, as the title says, has the giants of the public relations industry tell you how to get noticed, build a brand, develop and protect a reputation, and how to be effective with key opinion-leaders, including the CEO. While it might be overly dramatic to say the book spills their secrets, PR Visionaries covers the various facets on how to successfully manage a powerful public relations campaign on all levels, one that clearly resonates with key stakeholders and publics.

It was with great anticipation that i awaited the arrival of this book, being a great fan of Cassavettes, a man who in my mind is truly a saint. But whilst reading its opening chapter one fine spring evening, and quite content with the sentiments expressed thus far, i couldn't help but feel somewhat cheated, that Carney's ideas weren't surprising or particularly revealing in any way. A rather shocking sentiment given the brutal, challenging, and often heartbreaking nature of the work this man was writing about.

Upon further reading though i realized it was not so much what Carney was trying to say (or what he was neglecting) that bothered me, but rather the way it was written, the way he had chosen to outline his information. The book is about three-hundred pages long, but would only make fifty pages or so of good tight writing. Its prose is extremely repetitive. The problem being he decided to review each movie individually, drawing pretty much the same conclusions for each film (for honestly it could be argued that Cassavettes made the same movie over and over again), when he should have divided his chapters according to theme, and applied the films themselves to his conclusions. As it stands now if you read the chapter on Faces there is no point in reading the one on Love Streams because Carney makes the exact same points in virtually identical language. Extend this through the six films collected in this book and you are in for one exhaustingly boring read.

I would however recommend the new Cassavetes on Cassavetes, also compiled by Carney, but written primarily in John's own voice, as expressed in numerous interviews.

It was with great anticipation that i awaited the arrival of this book, being a loving fan of Cassavettes, a man who in my mind is something of a saint. But whilst reading its opening chapter one fine spring evening, and quite content with the sentiments expressed thus far, i couldn't help but feel somewhat cheated, that Carney's ideas weren't surprising or particularly revealing of the films in any way. A rather shocking sentiment given the brutal, challenging, and often heartbreaking nature of the work this man was writing about.

Upon further reading though i realized it was not so much what Carney was trying to say (or what he was neglecting) that bothered me, but rather the way it was written, the way he had chosen to outline his information. The book is about three-hundred pages long, but would only make fifty pages or so of good tight writing. Its prose is extremely repetitive. The problem being he decided to review each movie individually, drawing pretty much the same conclusions for each film (for honestly it could be argued that Cassavettes made the same movie over and over again), when he should have divided his chapters according to theme, and applying the films themselves to his conclusions. As it stands now if you read the chapter on Faces there is no point in reading the one on Love Streams because Carney makes the exact same points in virtually identical language. Extend this through six films total and you are in for one exhaustingly boring book.

I would however recommend the new Cassavetes on Cassavetes, also by Carney, but written primarily in John's own voice, as expressed in numerous interviews.

I'm not sure what book the reviewer below this read, but I don't know how many times I'd have to read about films that completely re-imagine the way I (and our popular culture) see the world and my own experience before I'd feel "bored" or anything less than inspired and envigorated. In fact, I read this book very often - not just to gain information, like a dictionary or an encyclopedia, giving me facts and figure data I didn't have before, but as mental calethenics, or something like spiritual openess training. This is a much more meaningful and important activity than thematic comparison and contrsating, no matter how technically interesting that is. As the concepts and points of view on the world process thru my brain as I read them off the page, I gain new abilities to understand and see - and this takes work, and often repetition. So I reccomend anyone who reads this book and hopes to gain insight, not just into Cassavetes and his films, but into their own personal attitudes, to keep themselves OPEN, as Cassavetes explicitly did in every frame of film he exposed, and to always give the artist (or author) the benefit of the doubt before passing judgement based on arbitrary ulterior motives (which, naturally, we all have). This isn't easy (especially to the greatly film cultured), but I dare say you'll enjoy this book, and your life, a lot more.