This book demonstrates conclusively and richly the importance of studying language in particular situations in order to understand the production of meaning. It makes conversation analysis central to any account of practice, and I find this a very bold but well-supported view. An adequate account of human practice is an important goal and one that language scholars and scholars of pragmatics have a lot to contribute to. It's very well written and very erudite. This is an excellent book, which will be of great interest to many anthropologists, linguists, sociologists, communication and language scholars, as well as students of language use.

- Elizabeth Keating, The University of Texas at Austin,

There is much impressive and to be appreciated about this book. Three of its strengths strike this reviewer as especially noteworthy. First, by the last chapter Sidnell has clearly accomplished each of the objectives he set out to achieve. Perhaps most striking among these is the author's utilization of CA and his keen ability to link the insights it offers to topics which are not typically discussed by its practitoiners. Second, the volume includes a generous amount of empirical data: substantial excerpts of spoken discourse and ethnographic information. These come together in a relatively seamless manner, consistently reminding the reader that talk is embedded in and intertwined with its own epistemologies of practice. Third, the book successfully straddles various analytical perspectives. This study establishes its topic by tracking traditional inquiries. It can be said to link, and also to frequently transcend, established perspectives in the study of conversation, narrative, language and gender, sociohistory, identity and performance.

- Don E. Walicek, University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras, on Linguist List, Vol. 18.3233 (2007),

The data Sidnell presents, which come from Sidnell's extensive fieldwork in a Guyanese village, are rich and vivid, and Sidnell's analyses of the interaction are elegant and illuminating. In fact, it is worth reading the book just for these analyses.

- Scott F. Kiesling, University of Pittsburgh, in Language in Society 38 (2009),