No comments about Modern Architecture in Czechoslavia and Other Writings (Texts and Documents Series).

2 comments about Septième Art.

1. It was enough of a sticker-shock to find out I had to pay $60 for a textbook from my Intro to French Cinema class because it was a new edition. So I bought, get it, open it up... and discover it is not a textbook at all, but a flimsy workbook. It's paperback, not even a half an inch thick, printed on low quality paper, and has all sorts of fill-in-the-blank activities. How can these people get off charging so much for a pathetically small, one-time use workbook that's not even well put together?
   
   Professors-- you owe your students something more economical than this book!



2. This is one of the most complete textbooks about the history of French cinema that I've ever used in my classes. Yes, the book is not a hardback (which makes it lighter for my students to carry around) and yes there are "fill-in" type exercises, but these are great!
   I disagree 100% with the previous reviewer. This book, although expensive, is absolutely great!

No comments about Russian Modernism: The Collections of the Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities (Bibliographies & Dossiers).

4 comments about Autobiography of a Moroccan Sufi: Ahmad Ibn 'Ajiba [1747 - 1809].

1. ...you see, I am so excited that Sidi Ibn Ajiba's life is in a book! Arent you? But, while reading it, I am not sure if the author -King of the Orientalists puts his own words into it. I will have to check but there are some accounts of the Messenger Peace be upon him that I have never heard before. Rather, the sayings striked me as VERY ODD.

   I am refering to his teaching his murid's, Ibn Ajiba is the Master of the Shadhili tariq that still holds it's silsala. But...I am actually more intrigued about his Ijaza's that he recieved and they are documented in the book as well as discourses to his Murid's. It is a nice texts, if I could just shovel out some of the "hadith" accounts that I am not sure are correct. In any case, if you would like to know about the Auliya, and a Master of dicipline, love for the Divine, Sharia' and the history of his tariq, this book is as close as you are going to get. NOT "The Mystical Teachings of AlShadhili"!




2. This is a beautiful book. The translation from the French/Arabic flows well. It is carefully edited and produced. I am delighted to have an autobiography by one of the great mystics of Islam, including even a touching chapter on his family life. The footnotes are scholarly; where there is a hadith used for teaching moral lessons, it is traditional to allow less than perfect isnads. I am waiting now for someone to translate Ibn 'Ajiba's commentary on Ibn 'Atallah. What a treasure North African Sufism is!



3. A fascinating account of the life of a prolific, yet little known, Moroccan Sufi that casts special light on the socio-cultural and religious milieu of eighteenth-century northwest Africa. By tracing the events of his life between the extremes of the mundane and the spiritual, Ibn `Ajiba paints a detailed and engaging picture of what a person eager for spiritual fulfillment had to learn, practice, and endure along the path of Sufism. In addition to the details of his genealogy, marriages, travels, contact, the geographical and tribal "maps" of his world (of interest to anthropologists and social historians), Ibn `Ajiba provides some insightful commentaries on the Islamic exoteric and esoteric sciences and alludes to the canonical texts in circulation. His preoccupation with the intricacies of daily life foregrounds his reflections and experiences gracefully against the rich, and often disharmonious mosaic of the social, intellectual, pedagogical, and moral values of the time. Michon's rendering of the original text into French is masterful and elegant, and Streight's competent translation into English has the subtlety and transparency necessary to reveal Michon's erudite scholarship. The book will be of interest to scholars of Sufism and the socio-cultural history of Morocco and North Africa.



4. A great spokesperson for tasawwuf - the religious science of mysticism and purification of the heart - in Sunni, Orthodox, Islam. He was also a high-level Jurist and scholar in the "outward" Islamic disciplines. He was the Ghazali of his time. So much for the "Sufis vs. Ulema" theory of Orientalism. He (Sidi Ahmad) was a the preeminent commentator on the Hikam of Ibn Ata'illah, the main teaching text of the Shadhili Tariqa. There is a translation online by Aisha Bewley. He also has a wonderful complete commentary on the Qur'an that is only in Arabic entitled "Bahr al-Madeed".
   His section on sexuality beautifully illustrates Islam's sanctification of the human condition and the "mundane". Can you imagine Calvin or the other Protestant spokemen writing such a thing?

1 comments about France: From the Air.

1. I bought this book on a whim for my brother. He went to France with his new French-American wife and is now obsessed with it! Even though they took hundreds of pictures, none of them were "from the air". Before giving it to him for Christmas, I looked at every page. This book made me wish I could afford to travel the world! For now, I will settle for buying myself many "coffee table" books like this one!

1 comments about Precis of the Lectures on Architecture: With Graphic Portion of the Lectures on Architecture (Texts and Documents Series).

1. This is one of the most comprehensive documents in the history of architectural design. J.N.L. Durand's infatuation with design methods and classification marked the beginning of a new rational architecture. This magnificent work of architectural literature must be read and reviewed by every person involved in the fields of architecture and urbanism. Mr. David Pritt's translation is impecable and must be seen as a welcome addition to the architectural confusion of the last twenty years.

No comments about Jacques-Louis David's 'Marat' (Masterpieces of Western Painting).

5 comments about A History of Rome.

1. This book truly got me reading more in depth in Roman History. I've read other Roman History books for instence, The Roman Empire by Colin Welles, and Roman Provincial Administration by J. S. Richardson and this was in a league of its own. Le Glay and compatriots made A History of Rome very enjoyable. Truthfully, I had a hard time putting the book down. This book deserves 5 stars.



2. I ordered this book for my undergraduate Roman history class before I realized what a piece of crap it was. Get Michael Grant's book instead, or Cary and Scullard's, old as it is. Anything else: I spend valuable time in class and outside it propping up this book because of its many defects. The text consists of a mishmash of poorly-organized subheadings, randomly-inserted series of bullet points and "feature" boxes. There is no sense of the big picture, which is so important for undergraduates, and no way of assessing which material is more important, and which is trivial (and there's a lot of trivial material in here.) One of my colleagues calls it "dog barf": a mix of subjects with no organization or overarching analysis. The writing is filled with phrases in quotation marks that have no sources cited -- exactly what I tell my students NOT to do in their papers. The translated French sentences with their long series of subclauses and odd syntax are difficult reading. The images are if possible even worse. The text refers to objects like the warrior of Capestrano as if everyone were expected to know what it was (why would they be taking Roman history if they did?) which are not illustrated. There is no map which shows where Dacia, Pannonia, or Germania are, all regions which are hugely important in understanding the empire. The periodically inserted plans of Rome (whose references reveal they are essentially xeroxed from other people's books) mark the outlined buildings with numbers, but nowhere is there a KEY. I can't believe the editors passed this thing twice. I'm going to scrutinize offerings from Blackwell much more carefully from now on.



3. Marcel Le Glay et al's History of Rome was the first History book on Rome I read. The book was relatively well written, and took an interesting look on Rome's decline. Unfortunately, it focused largely on the Leaders and the royal/imperial families of Rome; the book tended to focus more on their lives then on the Roman Empire's history itself. The section on Augustus was thorough and very interesting. The middle and end of the book were especially good, but the beginning lacked detail. There is an absence of information on this part of Rome's history, and the book tended to breifly talk about important events during those 500 years. The book's examination on the culture of the Roman Empire I find is much too succinct. For its brevity it was excellent; it is admirable that one can write such a tasteful book in such small space. If one wants a helpful guide to the entire history of Rome pick up this book.



4. There is little grace here. Perhaps the translation into English has casued this, but the book is a hodge-podge of dates and names, the latter often tossed off as if the reader is already famliar with them. There is nearly nothing about the daily lives of the millions of people involved in this long period of human history, as the narrative, what there is of it, flits from decade to decade. A fine example of why many people hate history. Perhaps David McCullogh should turn his gaze toward Rome.



5. This book has to take the prize as the worst translation I have ever seen. The mangled, convoluted syntax makes it almost impossible to follow the prose. I challenge you to get past the first sentence without having to read it three times (it doesn't even make grammatical sense).
   
   I won't comment on the content, since I put the book aside after only a few chapters. Please don't waste your money on this.

3 comments about Harvard Business Review on Managing People (Harvard Business Review Paperback Series).

1. Definitely one of the better books in the series. Discussion of common corporate issues. Provides good solutions. I've read 4 in the series and like this one the most.



2. Whether you're just entering people management or have been doing it for years, this book grabs a selection of readable papers on a variety of topics from compensation to handling 'poor performers' to more effective (but non-manipulative!) means of persuasion.
   
   Especially interesting were the two articles on the performance of individuals and the messages -- both explicit and implicit -- that managers give to their reports and how they affect performance. You should definitely give them a read if you think you have an average to poor performer that you're actively working with right now.



3. I regularly read great articles from the subscription program of HBR and rely on its contents for great insight into today's business environment.
   
   Unfortunately, the HBR book series make a poor comparison. I have even wonder if HBR is recycling unused, or rejected submissions for these books.
   
   I bought Managing People, Brand managment and Marketing and stopped reading each after just two articles. They were just all a waste of time.

5 comments about What a Wonderful World (Jean Karl Books).

1. As a K-5 music teacher, I use this book to provide a visual aid as I sing "What a Wonderful World" to the kids. They love it, I love it, and it is a wonderful way to learn song! The pictures are a little on the hokey side and illustrate a puppet show (Satchmo included!), but for K-3, it is age-appropriate and enjoyable.



2. My baby is 9 months old. A few weeks ago our teacher read this book to us in our mom and baby class and all the babies were mesmorized by it's beautiful pictures, accompanied by the music of Louis Armstrong that was playing in the background. I quickly found it on Amazon and ordred it for my baby. We've read it together several times and he always lights up and squeals excitedly when he sees it. I love how versatile it is because I can read it, talk about the pictures, "sing" it, or play the song and just follow along with him. I am planning to enjoy this book with my son for a long time to come. The only minor issue for us is that the book has regular paper pages (I couldn't find a board book version) so if I let my baby play with it he would instantly destroy it and he sometimes gets frusterated when I hold it in front of him but out of his reach.



3. OMG--this book is awesome... I first saw this book at my daughters preschool. the children loved singing it at storytime. I buy this book for my nephew/nieces, and friends children for birthdays. I also bought this for the Kindergarden teacher... Its very basic, and the illustrations are very colorful.. My daughter is 8 now and still gets it out..



4. This book is wonderfully illustrated. The colors are so vibrant and shiny! My 6 year old grandchild just loves it and if you know the melody to the words, they'll love it even more. A wonderfully, positive outlook on life for children in such a uneasy world today! A must have for kids today!



5. This is such a great book to go with such a great song! The illustration is wonderful as well. I definitely recommend it for little ones.