Cunningham Reviews

Alice Fletcher was a woman of many interests and talents. As one of the first woman anthropologists in the U.S., she spent many years working with, studying and advocating for Native American tribes. This book is an interesting study of her life and the times in which she lived. A really interesting read.

This book has many self-assessment tests which allow one to look at the stress in their life, and the affect it might be having, from a variety of perspectives. From that standpoint alone, the book is worthwhile. It also provides a comprehensive profile of the different approaches to stress in one volume. As such, it is a good starting point for anyone beginning to address the stress in their life. However, the author seems to reach beyond his area of expertise when covering areas such as diet and exercise in detail. Those sections of the book were not as strong as the rest; Nevertheless, the author should be commended in his attempt to address them since diet and exercise clearly are important aspects of addressing stress. I wish the book provided more information on how to combat stress and not just identify it. It focused on a one-size-fits-all approach of goal identification (much in the manner of Stephen Covey's _7_Habits_of_Highly_Effective_People) sprinkled with random bits of advice. I wasn't comfortable with that approach at all and was left feeling better educated about stress, but without a strategy for reducing it.

This book was recommended to me by my child's guidance counselor. I read it first and was touched by how much it helped ME. Simple messages such as, "Grief is hard work. Grief is heart work," get to the essence of what a person goes through in the grieving process. It is written as if the author were writing/speaking right to you, and touches on such subjects depression, avoiding drugs, and being kind to yourself during this time. My only complaint is that it is a very short book and I wish the author had gone into more depth. But I think more teenagers might be willing to read it just because it is short. Certainly a thoughtful and helpful gift to any teenager dealing with grief.

Dr. Keith Cunningham's book "Two Zuni Artists" is a valuable resource into the life and art of the Zuni culture. The book includes personal interviews with Zuni artisans and insightful information about their ceremonies and culture. Along with the Zuni research, is a story. The story follows the lives of a family of artists and their struggles and accomplishments. The book's subtitle "A Tale of Art and Mystery" is definately appropriate, although you must read the book to find out the mystery. Included with the text is a multitude of plates and pictures that depict actual Zuni art and Zuni life. The characters from the story are also pictured in the book. I highly recommend this book to those people who are familiar with Zuni culture and to those who know nothing about it. Overall, a very interesting and insightful book.

Along with the Collins & Rundle anthology from Broadview, this new entry in the Blackwell series will be high on most college instructors' "must-see" lists. Cunningham manages a good combination of canonical and minor poets; indeed, when it comes to the minor poets, he appears to have deliberately excluded their most "canonical" poems. (No "Circe" from Augusta Webster? No "Xantippe" from Amy Levy?) There is astonishingly little overlap between this anthology and the Broadview endeavor. There can be few arguments about the actual choice of poems, although it would have been nice to see Swinburne's "The Leper" (as a pair with Browning's "Porphyria's Lover"). But why only excerpts from Meredith's *Modern Love*, which many of us would like to teach? The introduction is strong and, as usual with Blackwell anthologies, the headnotes are full and thoughtful. On the other hand, we really *do* need better annotations: most students do not come equipped to deal with the mythological, Biblical, and literary allusiveness of Victorian poetry, and the instructor cannot spend all of his or her time writing footnotes to supplement the anthology! I must also add that the book is printed in a miniscule font that makes reading the poems a more formidable chore than absolutely necessary. Perhaps a magnifying glass might be in order?

This book is a good read. Alot of worthy insight that I never knew about. I definatley recommend this for anyone who is interested in Mary.

As a Canadian I find that this book is an excellant example of what can be achieved through exploring our multi-culturalism. The children's artwork, coupled with the text make this book very informative to others so they can understand a little about other cultures, and see the differences and similarities. What I find to be an added bonus is that the text is written both in English, and the writers native language! An excellent read for children mostly, but still enjoyable to adults.

This book provides very detailed accounts of the history of Whitehaven. The book starts with the building of the mansion and follows its history through abandonment, restoration and its current use as a rest area. The best part is the wonderful history in pictures. The book includes photos of the mansion and its original occupants, the pitiful condition it was found it, the restoration in progress and the finally the mansion once it was restored to all it's grandeur.

The two core themes in this book are:

learning as a strategic process for both the individual and the organisation, and

an approach that the author calls Self Managed Learning (SML) and distinguishes in great detail from other approaches to teaching and learning, while recognising similarities and overlaps.

The author makes a lot of use of 'I'. He insists that the views expressed are his own - and some of them are distinctly idiosyncratic. This adds to, rather than detracting from the quality of the book, because he also discusses other views in considerable detail. This helps to make the distinction between his prescription and those of others, in a field in which the terminology is decidedly 'muddy'. As an example, 'action learning' can be used to refer to anywhere up to half a dozen distinct training/learning approaches.

Right at the heart of his concern is learning how to learn. The specific program content of a program of learning and the techniques of learning employed are means to the end of becoming a skilled learner both as an individual and in relationship with others. What distinguishes his prescription is a consistent focus not simply on how well people learn marketing, quality management or whatever but on how the strategy and processes of learning combine to meet both immediate learning goals and improve learning capacity. He is primarily concerned with what is variously described as second order learning, 'reframing' or 'metalearning'.

Everyone engaged in organisational change and, in particular, in the difficult shift from a bureaucratic mind-set will find a great deal to think about. They will also encounter both challenges and useful ideas and tools.

For those who have read the first edition, the second edition adds a chapter on the learner in context, and has maintained and improved the sideline headings throughout the book. Other changes are relatively minor and certainly do not change the thrust of the argument.

Enter woman author #2 in the New Jedi Order series, Elaine Cunningham. Unlike Kathy Tyers, who essentially handles a typical sort of Star Wars story involving all the major characters, Cunningham focuses on Jaina in order to create what she must have envisioned as a women's Star Wars book, by a woman and about a woman. Romance and powerful, consuming emotions take center stage, with Jaina as the sassy vixen around whom it all revolves.

I am a woman, and I am offended by this insult to the maturity and intelligence of my gender.

Where to begin? Cunningham's writing is atrocious. She has neither a sense of continuity nor of how characters should be expected to react emotionally to events. Han and Leia have just lost one, maybe two children, so they joke around and flirt. Then, later, we get a few sentences about how profound their sadness is. How trite, Ms. Cunningham. It's good to know that the Solos were officially upset while fooling around on the Falcon. Similarly, every male in the galaxy seems (completely irrationally) to have the hots for Jaina Solo, who, sassy vixen that she is, is not adverse to indulging their fantasies. The book opens with Star Wars Spice Jaina sitting on Ganner's lap and making lewd comments about it. In the middle, she manipulates the usually practical Kyp Durron with her womanly wiles and unbelievable Force powers. The book closes with a gushingly sentimental Kyp "saving" his soul mate Jaina, who's taken her sassiness a little too far. This is as over-the-top as Moulin Rouge, but with only a fraction of the emotional depth.

Cunningham's treatment of the Force is as simplistic and flawed as her treatment of human emotions. In a series that focuses on questioning the nature of the Force, this novel is completely out of place. The message here seems to be that you can be totally evil (Cunningham might say "sassy") without going over to the dark side. Also, it seems more okay for Jaina to be evil (than it is for other people). Cunningham rewrites history, saying that Kyp used the Force to convince Jaina to help him in Greg Keyes' last book (Rebirth; and I thought Jedi mind tricks only worked on the weak-minded). This is bad of Kyp. Jaina uses such mind tricks frequently, and this is something that "not even Jacen would question."

These problems are only the tip of the iceberg. The book is filled with emotional non-sequitors, massive errors in continuity, and bawdy exploitation of the concept of "woman." So is there anything to like? Well...by far the best thing about the book is that Cunningham doesn't get to write Jacen or Anakin (and mess them up). Second to that? The book is short and not quite as pathetically childish as a Kevin J. Anderson book. Also, I guess the concept that Jaina is an awful and disconnected person makes sense...the authors of the series have been building that from the beginning. Her reaction to her brothers' situations should probably be reprehensible. However, the way Cunningham exploits this opportunity to write Jaina as a bad girl is really uncalled for. She warps other characters almost beyond repair in the process (especially Kyp) and seems to revel in Jaina's badness rather than condemning it. What's worst is that she passes off the evil that Jaina does as "girl power." Maybe this speaks to teen angst or something (I might have liked the book more back when I was an angsty teen), but only in a destructive way.

Conclusion: readers who can't resist the guilty pleasures of bad romances and bawdy women, rejoice; readers who want a reasonable treatment of the aftermath of the devastation in Star by Star, you're out of luck--your best bet is to read this with a sense of humor.

This book was neither good nor bad... inconsequencial, really. While I enjoyed Elaine Cunningham's writing style and her careful character manipulations, it didn't really movie the story arc an further. Any one who has read "Star by Star" should be able to skip "Dark Journey" and not really miss anything. Through the course of the book, the Jedi whiz kids escape on the ship they stole at the end of Star by Star and land on Hapes. Jaina develops a new small tool against the Vong. That's pretty much it. The rest is all character development.

Not that character development is bad... it's a much needed commodity in the New Jedi Order arc. However, the plunge to the Dark Side promised at the end of Star by Star was never really followed up apon. Still does a few unethical little things, but nothing trully mind numbingly bad. What fight scenes there were felt rushed, and were less clear than usual.

At the end of the day, this book is as good of a distraction as any. Nothing more, nothing less.

To put it simply I love this book! It is hilariously funny, but not to the point of losing it's seriousness (I'm not quite sure how that is possible, I just know it happened). If you like Star Wars you will almost definitely like this book (I would have said you would like it but I sadly saw some bad reviews). If you don't like star wars you will probably still like this book. Jaina Solo joins the dark side in the only way that has ever made sense to me: revenge. She no longer cares what side of the force she is on, ("Spare me-I've heard all the arguments. Repeatedly.") as long as she fulfils her purpose. Her friends, save very few, are afraid of and for her, but she will do whatever it take to achieve her goal, no matter how many friends it costs her.
Meanwhile, Kyp Durron, former dark sider, leads his squadron of "Heroes or rogues or villains, depending upon whom you asked" into combat against the Yuuzhan Vong. Kyp and his droid trade hilarious insults/orders before combat and then fight. While other jedi try to help one another, Kyp uses the 'the ends justify the means' theory to justify all killing as many Yuuzhan Vong as he can.
At the same time, the Yuuzhan Vong plan to sacrafice Jaina and her twin brother to their gods, but first they need to capture Jaina.
Jaina's group consists of a few young jedi most of which are, or were good friend of hers. Jaina flirts and teases and orders this group of which she is the leader. Her best friends try to help her return to the light side, most of them having been dark siders at one time or another. In her grief over the loss of fellow jedi and family members she uses dark side energy many times ('"Hurling black lightning is one thing," Jaina muttered, "but quoting Kyp Durron puts me lower than I ever expected to get."'). Kyp had lost Jaina's trust long ago, when he had her slaughter many Yuuzhan Vong without her realizing what she was doing.
When Kyp and Jaina meet up, they do not get along ('He stabbed a finger at her a little too much of her father in a parental snit."Don't challenge me, Jaina.""Give me one good reason." His eyes raked over her, and the expression in them dispelled any fatherly comparisons. "You couldn't channel the Force wearing that dress. There isn't enough room in there for it to squeeze through."')('"You went into my room."(Jaina)"That's not a capital offense. Turn off the lightsaber before the temptation to dispense justice overwhelms you"(Kyp)')
To summerize, go read this book!