Cunningham Reviews

This book is like all of Scott Cunningham's books, easy to understand, helpful, creative, basic yet founded on deeper knowledge. It has a lot of interesting lore and folk magic and much Feng Shui type of ideas. It discusses correspondences in good detail. It has information on cleansings and purifications, pets and plants, the household altar, the hearth or "heart" of the home, furnishings, moving, protection, the bath and the kitchen...even the garage. It is useful and grounded and homey. It will aid in focusing intent and provide inspiration for making one's dwelling into one's truly magical and personal home. Most of us, whether witch or not, instinctively surround ourselves with little "magics" that help us to feel comfortable and in "our own space." This book puts some thoughtfulness and understanding to the concept of personalizing our space and encourages creative and harmonious atmosphere where good vibrations abound. Try it. You'll like it.

Bravo to the late Scott Cunningham for coming up with a book that speaks to everyone, whether one lives in an apartment, or owns a home, or even has the misfortune to live in a box. Cunningham and Harrington show us how to turn our potentially dull surroundings into a place we can call a haven, and look forward to being in, with a few simple tips that even those of us near poverty level can afford. I especially loved his ideas for plants, since I am no botanist or horticulturist, and yet the plants he suggested that cost me under $20.00 US(an ivy, an aloe vera plant, and two cacti, one round, one vertical) made such a difference in the surroundings it's astounding! His suggestions re: incense and scents made sense, pun intended, and I have only one regret, that he and Harrington are unable to collaborate on more books of this type. May Scott be forever immortalised by his words, and may he be at peace in the Summerlands or beyond. His and Harrington's(sorry if I forgot you, David)words have changed my life, and my home, and my outlook in general for the better. Let this book show you the way to come home and go "Ahhhhhh...." at the end of your tiresome workday. Thanks again, and to David Harrington, I envy you for knowing Scott Cunningham, I'd have loved to have met him just once, to ask but one question of him. May you, Mr. Harrington, emulate your friend and put pen to paper, as the neo-Pagan community hungers for more books of knowledge such as this.

My sincerest compliments on a book I am proud to display on my shelf, and one every person who enters my home for a visit picks up and finds they can't put down.

I love this book! I really enjoy reading about all the different magical elements in a household. I'm Chinese, so I'm pretty familiar with the concept of Feng-Shui, and I thought Scott presented it very clearly. There are so many little folk lores in this book, and it's such fun to read that you almost forget that it's a book on the magic of the home, with many little rituals you can try. The best part of this book is that it doesn't require any hard-to-find ingredient because all the little rituals in here are simple to perform and everything is within reach. I highly recommend it.

I am also writing this review, as I selected this book from a list given to us in our MBA/MSE class. I thought that this book would be a good insight to B2B and how to come about with a strategy. The book actually elaborates on the first half on the differences between B2B and B2C, only to conclude that they are very similar with a major difference on who are the users : businesses only as opposed to businesses and consumers, no surprises here! There are also constant repetitions on the definitions of B2B throughout the book, and thus one never feels as if they are reading new material, but just a definition with different wording. The final chapters touch a little on some technical aspects required for the proper set up of a B2B. Mainly the types of software that should be used or language, such as JAVA, HTML and XML. Also they provide insight on the security aspect of B2B as well as the need and advantages of Virtual Private Networks (VPN). There is also some guidance on requirements for the success to building the proper B2B by creating partnerships and alliances, and the use of Intranet and extranet. The downfall here is that all this information is extremely vague, you will find passages which will state that XML compacts the information that you can place on a web page, thus accelerating the transfer rate, but that is as far as it gets. I would compare the information that I gathered in reading this book, to the information that I obtain when I read Business technology magazines: interesting, easy to comprehend, and vague. The most frustrating part of reading this book is to know that a lot of the information is already somewhat outdated, and that examples of the companies that are benchmarked are companies that today are in serious financial trouble.

Bearing in mind that this was the first book I have read on E-commerce, I found Cunningham's book to be very informative and helpful. It defined alot of terms and concepts that I had heard of but didn't genuinely understand. For example, like most, I had heard of B2B e-commerce but I was unsure as to the differences between B2B and B2C. This book went into a sufficient amount of detail in this regard. It also used alot of relevant and current information to support its statements. It was comprehensive in that it had alot of helpful do's, do-not's, and how-to's when creating a B2B business. For a "beginner" book I felt Cunningham's work was a tremendous success. It had a sufficient level of technical detail without losing me in a myriad of techie terms that would have left me yawning and wondering what I had just read. I would recommend this book to anyone considering a B2B venture, or someone who is merely educating themself.

The revised and updated version of B2B (paperback edition) reflects the changes in the market since the first version was published. As the author of the book, I would like to thank both the input from the press, editors, industry analysts and users of B2B technologies for their experiences and knowledge to keep this title current. I hope that others still find this a useful blueprint for the development and delivery of their stategies.

This book was obviously not meant to inspire any crackers, nor to educate the hardcores. What it does is bring the rest of us up to speed without us having to learn the hard way. While some arrogant hackers/crackers may think that this book is a sissy-handbook, not all of us care to spend endless hours of our precious free time trying to reinvent the wheel.

Having said that, this book covers a lot of ground, and balances the technical details of hacking with the overall picture of what security truly is: a process.

Example-Do you know what a buffer overflow REALLY is? I kind of did, but now I know exactly how it works.

Example2-Why is physical security so important? This is part of the overall process, but it ties directly into the previous example.

My conclusion is that if you work in the field, you should buy the book. This goes for the techie-oriented businessman too, because you'll learn how to cry BS. Not everything you'll read in there will be useful to you, but much of it will be applicable and some things might prevent you from making some really naive decisions (like trusting patches).

better than exposed. much more detail, but too little reference material.

I just finished reading Hack Proofing Your Network, and I found the information to be invaluable. The book is written by an all star team of hackers, and those of us responsible for protecting systems from attacks had better undersand the techniques used by intruders. The book provides insight into the various types of hacks and provides real solutions for defending against them. I'll bet Microsoft ordered a few copies for their library this week.

On Cape Cod reading Michael Cunningham's LAND'S END: A Walk in Provincetown... The "walk" is not to be taken too literally. This is a book of colors and smells and seasons, mood, and memory as much as history and geography. To begin, Provincetown is that sandy arm of land on the east end of Massachusetts, as if the state was flexing its muscle like a bodybuilder. P-Town is the endpoint, a clenched fist - a place and an attitude. Cunningham gives us a quick sketch of Provincetown's early history where Pilgrims first landed in 1620 (sorry Plymouth), then as a whaling-port, the appearance of Portuguese fishermen, as an artist colony, and now a summer tourist destination. Its natural history of flora and fauna is not overlooked. But this is not Cunningham's main point. Provincetown is a "sanctuary" for eccentrics and visionaries. Art and artists abound. And public displays of affection by gays and lesbians on the narrow, quirky, little town streets are the signature experience for today's visitor. Moneyed tourists from the city, drag queens on roller-blades touting their revues, college girls with perfect midriffs, he and she lesbians arm-in-arm, wizened eccentrics all crowd down Commercial Street. Add-in an annual religious procession to bless the fishermen's fleet, and you've got material for a Fellini movie (for people who still think about Fellini). People-watching is not the only form of entertainment in Provincetown. What should be said is that high energy drag queens that sing and dance in cramped venues like The Post Office Cafe' or Steve's Alibi are very talented and great, sweaty fun. Cunningham has written the kind of book where you have favorite sentences. You can't say that about Fodor's. For brevity, some of mine are on page 54. The publisher's book jacket indicates this offering is to be followed by other 'journeys'. Let's hope the series tries to capture the mystery of special travel locations as does LAND'S END. There is a place in travel literature for slim, easily stow-able guides to the atmosphere of unique places. I recommend Crown Journeys find a similarly gifted writer to take on another disorienting "zero ground" location - Death Valley.

I have never been a lover of P-town. As a child, my family made a yearly visit to climb the Pilgrim Monument, but as I got older, the long drive from our Harwich vacation home (also on Cape Cod) home made climbing the monument less appealing. Every now and then, I did visit the place, but more often than not, I found it crowded and congested, and always had trouble finding a parking space. The art galleries, a small book store, a store that sells all sorts of odds and ends, and of course the people made a visit to the town worthwhile, but I never realized what all the hype was about until I read this book. Lands End gave me an appreciation for the town and the people, and the history, and when I recently visited the town, I had a new appreciation for this interesting and varied community, largely due to Cunningham's ability to be a "tour guide."

Cunningham's book is almost a guided tour, not by a tour director who is just doing a routine job, but one who actually loves the place being visited. As he takes readers on a tour of the sights and sounds of the town, we see a place where he grew both as a person and as a writer. Though the work is factual, it flows more like a book of prose than a piece of journalism. Cunningham's awe of the rugged beauty of this small town on the Atlantic coast is easy to detect. He also seems to feel as if he is a kindred spirit to the artists and writers who inhabit this town, known both on and off season as an art and writing colony. His book treats the locals with respect. Provincetown has become rather well known as a "gay Mecca." Cunningham certainly makes mention of the many aspects of this town that are part of a gay culture, but Cunningham writes in such a way that the entire Provincetown community-locals, gays and straights, artists, writers, business people, and tourists, all make Provincetown the beautiful, somewhat quirky, but interestingly cohesive community it is today.

People who love Cape Cod will enjoy this book. Those who have visited the town will have a greater appreciation of the community after reading this book. Tourists will find the book a nice memory of a unique town. Provincetown visitors who are less than fans may find a new appreciation for the town and will once again struggle with the transportation woes of the town.

Michaeal Cunningham loves Provincetown and conveys that love in every sentence in this beautifully written book about a great town. He ably does what every travel writer should do: he convinces those who have never been to Provincetown to visit and makes those who have been there want to return.

Mr. Cunningham does a thorough job of describing the town's geography as well as both the famous artists who lived there in the past and those of the present, also the "town characters" one can run into on the busy streets on any summer day. There is also poems by Mark Doty, Stanley Kunitz, Robert Pinsky and Melvin Dixon, among others included throughout the book.

Finally Mr. Cunningham discusses the effect AIDS has had on the gay population of Provincetown in a chapter called "Death and Life" and pays tribute to a friend named Billy who died from AIDS. "Provincetown has been widowed by the AIDS epidemic. It will never fully recover, though it is accustomed to loss. . . Provincetown possesses, has always possessed, a steady, grieving competence in the face of all that can happen to people. It watches and waits; it keeps the lights burning. If you are a man or woman with AIDS there, someone will always drive you to your doctor's appointments, get your groceries if you can't get them yourself, and take care of whatever needs taking care of."

Is there any wonder why this writer loves Provincetown?

I've tried over ten or so recipes in this book and all were both delicious and easy to prepare, however, if you can't cut or chop vegetables, then don't buy the book and stick to your macaroni and velveeta or have a bowl of cereal instead.

This book is for elegant vegetarian cooking and, like the book "Olives Table", is for special occasions and intimate dinners.

I learned a great deal while reading this book, especially about vegetables that I don't use on a regular basis (celery root, parsnips, brussel sprouts). I also learned about making thin-crust pizza and a different way of making homemade pasta.

The only problem I found was that she uses measurements like "one celery root" etc. Since her restaurant uses organic vegetables, they tend to be smaller that your average supermarket variety. If you know how to read a recipe and figure out proportions, this should not be an issue. If it looks like you've added too much of one vegetable, then you probably have. But not to worry, the recipes are very forgiving. Let's face it, how can you screw up a carrot?

This is one of those rare cookbooks that is not only a collection of recipes, but that actually teaches us a broader lesson; in this case, that vegetarian food can be elegant.

I was a vegetarian for 12 years (fell from grace a few years ago) and found that most vegetarian cookbooks were way too heavy on the here's-a-plate-of-millet-with-raw-veggies. There seems to be a defiant attitude that the vegetables and grains should have enough taste for you. They lived up to all the stereotypes of vegetarian food. The next best thing were the Moosewood cookbooks, which were sort of hippy-dippy in approach, (and the later of which were decidedly uneven) but at least there was not an aversion to herbs.

The Greens cookbook offers a wide range of foods that are beautiful and sophisticated: e.g., Spinach soup with Indian spices, Cannelloni with greens and walnut sauce, artichoke and fennel stew covered with a pastry.

These are not recipes you will make every day, but it is a great resource to have at home.

I just got this book a week ago, and made my first dinner with it last night. I made the Mushroom Lasagne, and the Peach and Blueberry Cobbler with Vanilla Ice Cream. All three dishes we superb. One of my non-vegetarian friends summed it up nicely by asking "Who needs meat?"

If you enjoy a finely crafted meal, and do not mind the time involved in creating it, get this book. It provides a lot of background information on various ingredients, and provides pretty good how-to instructions.

Things to know: Everything in this book is from scratch. For example, the Vanilla Ice Cream calls for 2 vanilla beans, not vanilla extract. All of the pasta dishes assume you will be making your own pasta, so get a pasta machine (the pasta turns out great with regular flour, no need for semolina. I did add an extra 2.5 Tbsp water to the intial pasta recipe, too dry otherwise). The soup recipes usually require a stock to be prepared in advance. While this increases the prep time, nothing can compare to the taste and quality of fresh ingredients.

It is just a book collecting different material from Microsoft's Technet, how-to and white paper. The difference is that you can get info at MS site free and they offer better explanation. l also regretably purchase another Syngress book titled Windows2000 TCP/IP. l will not buy any Syngress book anymore.

I bought this book because of the good online ratings and the timely publishing date. It is well written and easy to understand. The annoying thing about it is, that you cann't find any information you could not find in TechNet or the online documentation! If you have already used the Windows 2000 security features and search for additional information this book will not cover your needs.

I received this as a gift a few weeks ago, and am I glad I did! This is a great resource for anyone concerned/looking at Security issues for Win 2000 Server. Excellent treatment on such things as Kerberos, Security Config Tool Set, IPSec, Smart Cards, etc. Chapter 9 is especially useful (for me at least) as it covers PKI, including enabling domain clients and certificate authorities. This book is really packed with information- a must have for anyone interested and looking for more detail in this all important topic. I'll use my copy often.

If you are a crafty person there's always some joy to be found in other crafter's ideas. I bought this book because of the great instructions for making corn dollies and found that the brief chapter on wheat is really useful. There are several nice potpourri recipes in here. I enjoyed the short and thoughtful essay on the true meaning of craft. Some of it may seem way too simplistic such as the chapter on making flower garlands...basically you get some thread and a needle and some flowers and you string the flowers...uh...okay. There are directions for sand painting, hex signs, making an ojo or "god's eye" weaving, and some other Campfire Girl-type stuff that would be fun to share with kids.
Like all of Scott Cunningham's books this is very basic and geared toward the beginner. It has good direction that can lead to a better understanding for the beginner of the mindfulness and intent that makes putzing with stuff into a Craft that is magically satisfying, useful and fun.

Since early times, crafts have been intimately linked with spirituality. When a woman carefully shaped a water jar from the clay she'd gathered from a river bank, she was performing a spiritual practice. When crafts were used to create objects intended for ritual or that symbolized the Divine, the connection between the craftsperson and divinity grew more intense. Today, handcrafts can still be more than a pastime-they can be rites of power and honor; a religious ritual. After all, hands were our first magical tools.

Experience spell crafting as a spiritually evolving process that creates both physical and non-physical change

Imbue your crafts with specific energies: love, wealth, protection, enhanced spirituality, inner peace, psychic awareness

Learn the 9 steps to empower any type of craft

Use the table of magical correspondences for inventing your own spell crafts

Create and use all of the following: magical simmering potpourris...a beaded psychic mandala for psychic awareness...clay pentacles, plaques and runic dice...a shaman's arrow("pray messenger")...sand paintings...corn mother...tapers of power(candles)...a magical spell broom...protective hex sign...spell banners...Witch Bottles...flower garlands...wood or ceramic prosperity trivet...spell potpourris...magic mirror...spell boxes...wheat weaving

Spell Crafts is a modern guide to creating physical objects for the attainment of specific magical goals.

Whatever your craft, you will experience the natural process of moving energy from within yourself(or within natural objects) to create positive change!

This is a reprint of the original book published in 1993.  As Scott wrote then: "We freely admit that this is an unusual book.  It challenges the reader to take part in the entire magical process, from crafting the tools to utilizing them in ritual.  It harkens back to the days when everything was handmade, when stores were few and people had to be self-reliant."
The book is broken down into two major sections.  The first "beginnings" contains chapters of information about magical tools, laying on of hands, 'the true meaning of craft', 'what is magic?', goal of magic, and 'empowering your crafts'.
The second major section is "the ways".  This is the section on working the spells, and is divided up into chapters by topic, such as 'sand painting', 'a pentacle, protective plaque, runic dice', 'a magic mirror', 'spell boxes' and many, many more.
There is a third section 'the tables', which gives tables of correspondences for colors, herbs, shells, stones and more.
The book was written with David Harrington, a long time friend and co-author who also put together the biography of Scott Cunningham with deTraci Regula.
The book is reflective of Scott's style of simple and easy to understand step by step instructions, personal insights, and the respect Scott had for working with magical energy.  The first chapter "The Magic of  Hands" is a wonderful essay on the evolution of hands and mind as magical tools from the first gestures to the final thought.  It is worth the book alone for this chapter.
But Scott and David include many other gems that make the whole book a worthwhile addition to your library.  They give expert advice on how to make your crafts and how to make them count, how to use them in your spellwork and what to expect when you do work spells with your crafts.
If you are the 'do it yourselfer' type of hands-on witch who loves to get their fingers into their work and feels, as most of us do, that if you make it yourself it can only enhance your work, this is a good book for ideas to expand what you already practice.  
For the beginner, who Scott always wrote for, this book explains how to get started, what basics you need to know and what to do with it once you get started.

I agree with one of the reviewers who said this book was a complete waste of money. I aslso like Scott Cunningham and I also own his Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs. If you have the Encyclopedia then you don't need this book and if you don't have it then buy the Encyclopedia rather than this book. In my opinion this book should have gone out of print when the Encyclopedia came out.

Scott has outdone himself once again with this jewel of a book. It covers everything a novice to an adept would need or want to know. I highly recommend his encyclopedia of magical herbs and his encyclopedia of incense, oils, and brews if you purchase this book. This book is great for beginners and experienced mages alike.

This is the most awesome book in my rather large occult collection. I bought this book in 1989 and I still use it all the time. Scott Cunningham's books are a great source for those interested in Magickal pursuits. This books give you step by step insturctions, list of things you will need to start doing magick (everything from how to set up you altar to what kind of mind-set you need to have), and tons of resources where you can get all your magickal tools. My copy is out-of-date, but hopefully they have updated the lists. It is also beautifully illustrated. The only problem I had was that it is not spiral-bound so it is hard to keep the book open while you are trying out new spells or setting up your altar. If you want a book to start you off, this is it.

Hark fellow pagan wymen ! Here be a tome of most rightious truth and beauty, consistent with the guidance of the Goddess! Herein all honor is given to the sacred moon-time flow. Blessed Be!

This is the Magdalene.org review: "Daughter of the Shining Isles" is the first part of an ambitious trilogy by Elizabeth Cunningham. She takes us to the Celtic-speaking world of 9 C.E. where the main character, Maeve Rhaud, is born and raised by eight weather-warrior witches on the island of Tir na mBam. There, she has a startling vision of her cosmic twin, Esus, in a back alley of Jerusalem: he is relieving his bladder.

If this is a startling image for you, then you should avoid the book. Cunningham's Maeve Rhaud is a headstrong, earthy character with no qualms about speaking of bodily functions, and she does so with great frequency. They are, in fact, important plot points in the story. This was a great drawback for me when I first started the book, and it wasn't until I was halfway through it that I decided the story was entertaining enough to compensate for Cunningham's Celtic witches' apparent scatalogical fascination.

A majority of the story takes place at the legendary Druid college of Mona, where Maeve Rhaud undertakes bardic training. The author accounts for the "lost years" of Jesus (Esus) by placing him in the college with her. He has a difficult time believing that his cosmic twin is someone so "unclean," and they have frequent theological arguments about monotheism versus her polytheistic ways. Maeve is constantly in trouble with the faculty of the college, clashing with personalities and breaking taboos. It is in this setting that she falls in love with the 15 year old man from Jerusalem and pledges her life to him.

Cunningham's novel is narrated by Maeve, who uses modern metaphors to describe the events in her tale. In spite of this chronological inconsistency, the story is extremely entertaining and told with good humor. It moves along quickly, and the main characters are well developed. If you are familiar with biblical accounts of the life of Jesus, you will be amused by the references to how his legend was shaped by people after his death.

If you're able to laugh at bawdy humor and don't have an easily tweaked sense of the blasphemous, this book will leave you satisfied and waiting eagerly for the next novel in the series.

"Daughter of the Shining Isles" was my first exposure to the work of Elizabeth Cunningham, and now I understand why the word "luminous" is so often associated with her writing. Her imagery is luminous, and her Maeve...her Maeve shines so brightly!

On top of that, Ms. Cunningham has a fine ear for dialog...her use of modern idiom in dialog--of _course_ a person would speak her/his own language fluently and fluidly. Too many writers rely on the crutch of stilted dialog--often Elizabethan English, of all things!--as a...way of slapping a patina of antiquity on a historical story. Ms. Cunningham's characters are that much more accessible without the language barrier, and she is able to convey much more subtlety and nuance using familiar language.

I see a trend in the reviews that I want to counter: This is not a "woman's book", nor is it a book only for believers. As a man and an agnostic, I was nevertheless deeply moved by the conclusion of the first installment of Maeve's life. And yet, Maeve is such a strong character--"luminous" again comes to mind--that I don't worry about her. I eagerly await the next installment to share the journey with her, the good and the bad, the pain and the pleasure, the setbacks and triumphs. Maeve is heroic and human, wise and foolish, young and timeless, strong and frail. It would take a heart of stone to not fall in love with her.

Cunningham is a great thinker whose compilation of Warren Buffett's essays was a major contribution to this field, but this book falls short of the true classics.

Cunningham is at his best setting up a thoughtful framework for the ideas of Buffett and Graham, and adds useful case studies to illustrate the major principles. His discussions of chaos and probability theory are invaluable in thinking about individual stocks within the broader market environment.

However, I find he adds little original thought to the actual seeking out and analysis of great investments, and this books lacks the analytical rigor needed to make great decisions - which is ultimately what the title promises. I also found the section on corporate governance, while useful and on target, excessive relative to how little space is given to the objective analysis of specific companies.

I recommend sticking to the original masters - Graham (The Intelligent Investor), Buffett (Essays/Lessons for Corporate America, which Cunningham compiled) and Fisher (Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits) - for the best thinking in any market environment.

For any reader or beginner who likes to have a very brief idea of what Graham and Buffet preach on value investing, this book is okay.

In order to make the book readable and interesting, the author had chosen not to go into details of how but focus mostly on principles. About 35% of the book is spent, in text and no data/graph, on validating value over price as the primary consideration of any investment. I think that's far too much. That makes the part on the assessment of the true value of a stock too simple and short.

Anyway, this is just an introduction of value investing (like the first chapter in a 12 chapter book) and far from complete. Stronly suggest any aspired value investor or even trader to read the originals from Graham and Buffet for a full picture before they take up one of the most competitive and demanding job in the world.

It's the best investment book I've read in a long while. I think it should sit on every investor's book shelf. A true classic. I have positioned it on my desk next to my copy of Security Analysis (Graham & Dodd) and The Intelligent Investor (Graham) - exactly where it deserves to be. I especially liked how Prof. Cunningham touched on Chaos Theory as well as the chapter on the Circle of Competence and the Fireside CEO chapter. Of course, Part 3 of the book was so well done it is really hard to elevate one chapter over the other. Really well done. Prof. Cunningham has done the public a great favour with this book. Lastly, the satirical look at balance sheet and earnings manipulation via the fictional dotcom company was a beautiful touch! Graham would've approved and I am sure Mr. Buffett does...