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A UK-based film historian, writer, and independent scholar, Page offers, in chronological order, what he considers the best hundred (of thousands) of Bible films made from the start of the 20th century (The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ) and 2020 (Lamentations of Judas). The work is international in scope, and Page has included only films that still exist and that he personally viewed. Offerings are as diverse as Franco Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth, Monty Python's Life of Brian, Barabbas, Lot in Sodom, and Leaves from Satan's Book. In a helpful introduction the author discusses history, diversity, his selection process, race, anti-Semitism, adaptation, intertextuality, and the relationships among filmmakers, readers, and viewers. Each entry includes credits, a brief analysis, and notes. Though there is no formal bibliography, the extensive index adds value, as do two appendixes: "Bible Film and Television Series" and "The 100 Films in Biblical Order." The two-column format with one central image makes the volume extremely thumbable, but a caveat: to accommodate the square format, the font size is a bit small (a bright light and a page magnifier will prove useful).Summing Up: Essential. All readers.

Part of the "Routledge Music Bibliographies" series, Global Jazz is an invaluable resource for scholars and students interested in studying jazz as a "musical-lingua franca, a common musical language situated in a global landscape of artistic expression" (p. ix). In the last two decades, scholars in what has been termed new jazz studies have expanded their vision to explore "an African-American music tradition [that] has been absorbed and translated into different social, political, historical, musical, linguistic, and cultural landscapes" (p. ix). Each of the 1,300-plus entries includes thorough, paragraph-length annotations. Global Jazz is organized geographically, with chapters devoted to specific regions, e.g., South America, Europe, Africa and the Middle East, and so on, but Henry (an independent scholar) also highlights the thematic concerns of each entry, which include gender, identities and communities, women in jazz, and jazz theory and pedagogy. Henry includes many non-English sources in Spanish, French, Chinese, German, Japanese, Bahasa Indonesian, and Bulgarian, although likely there are more than are included here. Global Jazz is an valuable resource for those in jazz studies, world music, and ethnomusicology programs.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers.

This a serious study of idioms by one of the world's foremost etymologists. Liberman (Univ. of Minnesota) documents about 1,000 idiomatic expressions. In the opening essay he lays out the nature of idioms ("a group of words whose meaning has to be learned or explained"), his methods, and his corpus. This is followed by an annotated bibliography of key sources. Backmatter comprises three useful indexes: words, names, and themes (like "Devilry" and "Weather"). The bulk of the work covers British and American idioms over a wide swath of history. Providing the sources in which the account of the idiom was found and its critical history, the book is both scholarly and readable (but not breezy). Readers learn about familiar idioms (eat crow, get one's dander up, foggy bottom, to take the cake, zoot suit) and less-familiar curiosities (go to Halifax, nick the pin, to raise Ned). To take just one example, one learns that true blue comes from the colors adopted by the Scottish Covenanters in 17th-century England, as opposed to the scarlet colors of the royalists. Take My Word for It is a must-have resource for specialists, generalists, and word lovers alike.Summing Up: Essential. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates, researchers, faculty, professionals, and general readers.

The editors of this volume are also the editors of Babel: The Language Magazine (2012-). In this glossary, they address one of the key problems for new students of linguistics and language aficionados alike: the extensive, ever-so-confusing terminology of the field. Linguistics borrows from philosophy and logic, physics and physiology, mathematics and traditional grammar, and more. Progress piles on new terms, creating as much terminological density as clarity. Based on the long-running Babel magazine feature titled "The Linguistic Lexicon," the present volume aims to hack through that density. Like any dictionary of this nature the work begins with a preface identifying its conventions for entries, cross-referencing, and transcription (the International Phonetic Alphabet) along with comments on the volume's grammatical orientation. The next 297 pages cover some 500 terms, from ablaut to Zipf's Law. Suitable for both reference and browsing, The Babel Lexicon has clear, accessible entries, and every dozen or so pages, readers get a visual treat with Marek Jagucki's artwork. Not every possible term is included--for example, malapropism, gerund, ergativity, and relevance theory are missing. But even experienced linguists will find terms new to them--for this reviewer, trajector, boulomaic modality, and heterodiegetic narrative. The Babel Lexicon of Language is a fine idea and well executed.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers.

Copy editors of nonfiction have long looked to The Chicago Manual of Style for clarification on grammar and usage, names and terms, abbreviations, and the like. Schneider's The Chicago Guide to Copyediting Fiction fills a need for an authoritative handbook focused on issues particular to fiction: How should the editor treat nonstandard grammar and usage when it is spoken by a first-person narrator, one who is also a character with a distinct voice? What, if anything, should the editor do about an abundance of comma splices in a work by a prose stylist? Schneider addresses these questions together with issues particular to speculative fiction: how to represent dialogue that is telepathic as opposed to spoken, for example, and whether to italicize an elvish word when it is spoken by a dwarf who is not a native speaker. In addition to addressing specific problems, Schneider provides general guidelines for editing fiction, emphasizing flexibility and respect for the author's choices. She outlines the typical process for editing a fiction manuscript and offers a copyediting workflow with specific recommendations for file management, word processing tools, and even monitor configuration. She also introduces a four-style-sheet method for fiction editing--covering general style, characters, places, and timeline. An invaluable handbook for authors as well as editors.Summing Up: Essential. All readers.