“More Studies in Ethnomethodology”, by Kenneth Liberman, Albany, New York: SUNY Press, 2013, 310 pp. + index, 26.95, pbk, 90.00 hbk. Chiara Bassetti Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, Consiglio Nazionale dell Ricerche (ISTC-CNR) Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Trento chiara.bassetti@loa.istc.cnr.it chiara.bassetti@unitn.it I shall confess since the beginning that I have fallen in love with this book. Reasons are as varied as its merits. First, it actually constitutes what the title promises: “More Stud- ies in Ethnomethodology”. This is not just because of the (seemingly out of a novel) Foreword by Harold Garfinkel and the life-time collaboration of which the latter and the book itself testify between the founder of Ethnomethodology and one of his students, Kenneth Liberman —by now Professor Emeritus with his own experience of “25 years of teaching ethnomethodology” (Garfinkel, p. ix). It is especially because of the “fresh- ness” with which the text captures “many ideas central to ethnomethodology” (ibid.). Second, indeed, the book is very well written; arguments flow in an amazingly clear and vivid way. This makes it a perfect textbook for students in ethnomethodology to have a less initiate-like encounter with the discipline. 1 It allows them to see “what one can do” with ethnomethodology before having to deal with its epistemological and methodological foundations at the most theoretical and abstract level. Actually, such foundational bases —those “seminal matters” that, Liberman states in closing the Ac- knowledgements, “Professor Garfinkel first discovered decades ago” (p. vii)— emerge and manifest themselves to the reader through reading itself. Like it had been for Garfinkel’s and then Liberman’s students, the reader has “the opportunity to learn phe- nomenological and ethnomethodological ideas not only theoretically but from […] stud- ies of real worldly affairs” (p. 1). From this point of view, a further merit of the publication is the varied ensemble of detailed empirical cases it discusses: from street-crossing (ch. 1) to map-following (ch. 2), from boardgames play (ch. 3) to the (intercultural) communication of meanings in interaction (ch. 4-5), from Tibetan philosophical debating (ch. 6-7) to coffee tasting (ch. 8) 2 . Such a multiplicity also represents Liberman’s life-time research work and teaching endeavor. While entering the details of each considered setting, the reader si- multaneously apprehends and comprehends both (a) its quiddity, its hecceity —“the ‘more’ that any good phenomenological study can offer” (p. 3)— and, as heuristic pre- cipitates, (b.i) the methods and techniques that allowed for grasping the latter, and (b.ii) the features of order* that constitute ethnomethodology’s knowledge byproduct as much as foundations. Indeed, “the aim of ethnomethodology is not to ‘apply’ concepts, but to 1 “Garfinkel’s writings are […] the reference texts, but at the same time their resistance to hasty or schematic reading make them ideal material for discussion […] on reading Garfinkel, the Nietzsche of Ecce Homo comes to mind: ‘Whoever knows how to breathe the air of my writings knows that it is an air of heights, a strong air. One must be made for it, otherwise there is no small danger of being chilled by it’.” (Fele, 2012, pp. 153-54). 2 The last two chapters are the most dense ones, reading benefits from some familiarity with eth- nomethodology. The fourth chapter, instead, is perhaps the less enlightening for EM scholars. The final version of this review is to be found in: Human Studies (2014) 37: 597-602 (http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10746-014-9313-5)