Myrna Kostash's All of Baba's Children is a penetrating and revealing look at the lives of those of Ukrainian ethnic identity in Canada. Although the book is focused on this population, the conclusions she arrives at are of interest to anyone looking into the long term effects of being an ethnic subgroup in a larger culture. The book melds together personal recollections with source documents and other materials to probe the pressures and conflicts this community has experienced in the past hundred years. Extremely valuable reading for those of Ukrainian descent in both the USA and Canada, but also of great value to sociologists studying ethnic minorities in these two countries.

I am only half-way through this English version of Olmo Lete's book "Canaanite Religion", and I have to say it is the best I've read on the subject. The term Canaanite religion is an inappropiate name given to religious text found in the city of Ugarit. A better name, that both the author and translator agree, would be "The Religion of Ancient Syria". However, the gods and rituals covered in this publication are affiliated with the Biblical Canaanites found thoughout the old Testament. Olmo Lete's book breaks downs this ancient Syria Religion into its basic forms, from the pantheon of gods and sacrifical rituals, to the religion as it affected everyday life. Therefore, he examines all aspects of Canaanite religion to its basic element. This book make a very nice addition to "Canaanite Myths and Legends" by John Gibson. In my opinion Olmo Lete text compliments Gibson's book in many aspects including rituals and pantheonic description. "Canaanite Religion" is only lacking original full translations of the Ugarit tables as found in Gibson's book. Boths of these books I highly recommend for the interested enthusiast of ancient religions.

These comprehensive translations are of the non-Biblical texts found from the caves at Qumran, and are useful for anyone interested primarily in the *content* of the scrolls. The hebrew texts are not given in this work (those interested in such should search under title = "Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition", published both by Brill/Eerdmans), and the Biblical texts are not given (bibliographies are given for these texts-- most often the Oxford series *Discoveries in the Judaean Desert* is the primary source for Biblical texts).

Serious students of Qumran literature will need more than this work, of course, given that some of the renderings given by Martinez could be tentative or questionable (debate over the particulars of any given text can be consulted in various journals [JNES, BASOR, BAR, JANES, JAOS, etc.]). The book is a good, basic, introductory work.

This book needs to be considered alongside _The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation_ edited by Michael Wise et al. Readers who find a commentary advantageous will want to seek out Wise's book. Readers who are ready to look at the texts and make their own comparisons are ready for Garcia-Martinez's book.

Garcia-Martinez begins his book with a short history of the DSS and addresses a couple of the key issues of the DSS such as whether they are a part of a sectarian library. Next comes a thematic approach to the Scrolls. The Rule of the Community and the Damascus Document come at the beginning of the book, but the rest of the un-numbered manuscripts are grouped with other manuscripts of a similar theme.

There are no biblical manuscripts nor are there any Hebrew texts. However at the end of the book are lists of all of the manuscripts and the caves in which they were found.
There lies the real advantage of this book: each manuscript is accompanied by an authoritative bibliographical reference(s) for those who want to know more.

"The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated" by Florentino Garcia Martinez is the best version of translated Scroll material that I have come across, and there are "others." What makes this translation excellent is the unbiased, scholarly critique. Martinez does a superb job here! There is no "religious" leaning that I can see. This translation is not prejudged in any way, shape or form. This is an excellent reference book for anyone desiring to research the scrolls.

There has been an argument made against Martinez' translation. That argument says that since this translation was first put into Spanish, then into English something was lost in the translation. Not so! Florentino Garcia Martinez is a Professor at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands- a well renowned scholar. If anything, his multiple translations just go to show his intelligence and ability at what he does (he runs the Qumran Institute). This is a reliable and very well written translation!