Bukharan Jews and the Dynamics of Global Judaism. Alanna E. Cooper. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012. 336 pp (original) (raw)

To further enhance the vitality of an ethnographic text, Ghodsee recommends including maps and other images that complement or illustrate ethnographic data and support the analytic argument. Ghodsee's strategies for writing compelling ethnographies are as useful as her conceptual guidelines are valuable. She tells us that authors should opt for endnotes instead of placing author-date citations in the text, that prose must be invigorating but lean, that simple words may communicate complex emotions and ideas, and that subjects and verbs must be kept together. Through illuminating examples and her own terse prose, she instructs us to master good grammar and syntax, privilege the active voice, avoid filler phrases, choose strong verbs, and limit adverbs and adjectives. Ghodsee's practical tips on stages of revision and line editing remind us that writing is a craft to be relished. In her discussion of writing rituals, she reiterates that ethnographic writing is and ought to be a personal enterprise. Her simple but ingenious 10-step process for writing a book-from beginning with an imaginary table of contents to collating draft chapters into a manuscript to submitting it for review-is likely to inspire even the most ambivalent or insecure of us to overcome writer's block. The value of From Notes to Narrative is as aesthetic as it is instrumental. Each chapter stirs in the reader the aspiration to write and to write well. Ghodsee's artful integration of excerpts from and examples of model ethnographies reinforces the power and beauty of her own message. Her plea for social scientists to write clearly and accessibly is prudent and timely. Graduate and undergraduate students, novice ethnographers, and even senior scholars in the social and behavioral sciences ought to read this book before they begin writing their next essay or their next book. Priceless!