Burke Books

Awake Joy is the best book I have ever read. It is totally new, unique, with fresh perspectives and flawless non-duality. Thank you Katie!

Awake Joy is truly unique and quite amazing. Katie so clearly and effectively guides deeper shifts in perception of our consciousness. The book is successful at this in two ways. First, her writing is so beautiful and mystical, when she occasionally shares her direct encounters with nature that are embodying the chapter's teaching. Instead of teaching the subject matter in these sections, we have an inside view of heart living. In these few, but totally unique sections, we disappear into the beauty and without noticing it at all, we are suddenly so energetically deeper. It all seems to happen in such a discreet manner. Secondly for the intellect, she points sharply with such clarity to notice the references of perception. All it really takes is to look where she is pointing and the reference point disappears and we find a profound shift has taken place.

In 1986, the author, Katie Davis, owned an aerobics business named Body by Katie. One day of that year, while Katie was teaching a superfit class, she simply disappeared from all earthly experience into the divine mystery beyond all awareness of form. Clearly a challenge to put into words, Katie calls this divinity within us, Awake Joy, the essence of living. Though her attention returned to the aerobic floor, its space and time, after being in attention only to its essence, it took her twelve years to fully re-integrate with the body and mind in this dimension. During that period, Katie was faced with the daunting challenge of integrating every human sense and impression that arose into the divine within her knowing. For that entire period, she existed in a state of consciousness that burned away every trace of illusion as it arose. In fact, her aerobics business literally burned down two years after her awakening. Many symbolic burnings followed. By 1998, the divine essence was fully embodied and the inspiration for this book was born into this life.

Awake Joy is Katie's gift of sharing the Truth with all of us. The fullness of Love and Joy is all that truly is. She states that this is who you are and what is always here and now. The "I" that you think you are and the body that you perceive are wondorous symbols that point to your timeless essence and formless beauty. The frequency of the divine Spirit within form is vibrantly alive and awake in this writing. My favorite passages are found where Katie shares her impressions of the natural world perceived from within the intelligence of the awakened Heart. Here we are lifted into the awe and wonder that she knows as the reality of our nature. Katie is simply a living angel, who's intimately aware of our life's goodness, beauty, love, peace and co-passion for all Being. How do I know this? I am her Beloved husband in this life. That admitted, this is a great book that will profoundly touch your soul if you are willing to give your mind to your Beloved, this Being, this life, this moment, just as it really is.

One proviso: Awake Joy is not for the timid or those of us who are still great believers in the personal self and what it might achieve. No, Awake Joy calls for your surrender of all that holds you to this surface dream. You see, causeless Joy depends on nothing you dream about, it depends only on You, or rather...it is You.

Injoy, Sundance Burke, Author, Free Spirit: A Guide to Enlightened Being

Thank you to Katie for providing this amazing and wonderful book. I have been a student of enlightenment literature for a long, long time. (Still not enlightened!) Katie's writing is unique because she is able to use words and language beautifully to effectively describe very profound and subtle awareness and being. She seems to capably deconstruct / define the levels of consciousness that are experienced as one traverses the levels of consciouness. She includes in the book some lovely and breathtaking writings and poems that reveal her awareness. This book is beauty expressed in writing (excellent writing). Wow!

A friend recommended this wonderful book and I found it very useful to move deeper in awakening. This is a book that I will reread along the way. The author writes with both clarity and eloquence that allows both deeper insights and spiritual awe at the same time. The great silence is apparent on every page.

Upon awakening, the pathway seemed quite confusing and many books that I read furthered that confusion. This is a an accessible guide to keep from being lost in trying to understand concepts. It progressively points deeper and deeper through intelligent inquiry and devotion. It leads us to awakening, deepens to enlightenment, encourages integration and full embodiment of truth. It then points to awake living, but not conceptually, rather directly in a lovely manner, so that we may have a peek at what it might be like to be living the ultimate potential of the real human being, when our multi-dimensionality is finally embraced.

Because of my own awakening, I know that waking up is available to everyone. However, I also had the impression that enlightenment and Self-realization were reserved for monks in robes who sat in caves. Now, I realize that this too is available for anyone who is willing to continue noticing the unfathomable depth of pure awareness. The chart of reference points in this book is helpful for this deeper investigation.

I also recommend this book for the Practices and Meditations in the Appendix. They are effective in helping those who would like to live more consciously in the present moment and then they shift deeper by removing the idea of the pratitioner altogether. In this deeper awakening, evermore subtle layers of the intellect are revealed to finally discover the Essence of pure being; the Truth.

The editor's introduction delivers a very engaging and useful introduction to Burke's work that contextualizes the selections while giving the reader insight on Burke's background and career. The introduction prepares the reader for Burke's style and wit, while situating and commenting upon some of the reasons for Burke's somewhat fringe status in the critical canon and overviews the reception of his commentaries on Shakespeare and their acknowledged and tacit influence in how Shakespeare has been read by others.

Newstock not only did a great job of gathering and situating these scattered essays and bringing together Burke's intent of collecting all of his Shakespearean writings in one place, he also has added a valuable appendix of which offers a nice addition of other prominent discussions of Shakespeare's work in Burke's other writings.

Burke's essays themselves clearly demonstrate his affinity for the works of Shakespeare and to my mind show a level of interaction with the plays that cuts beyond common textual criticism.

Burke throughout draws references to philosophical matters and figures, social and individual psychology, cultural critique, history and also political issues (including biting commentary, such as his asides to the war on Vietnam, as in his King Lear essay). These make his essays even more broadly entertaining and engaging as he is adeptly able to step out of the context of the works in order to bring the Shakespearean works into a broader discussion, and also to play out these external discussions and intellectual considerations in the context of the plays.

Stylistically, Burke proves to be more fun and of broader interest to the non-specialist than one might expect, and for students of Shakespeare, Burke's essays offer a wealth of insight and perspective that will surely spark discussion and reconsideration of the plays themselves.

Kenneth Burke was a restless thinker ever-alert to what makes Shakespeare's plays work. Scott L. Newstok, with admirable bravura in a profession that tends to undervalue the editing of collections, recognized the importance of committing himself to the painstaking project of recovering Burke's writings on Shakespeare. The result is a treasure-trove both of some landmark essays in his career (most notably the 1951 Hudson Review piece on Othello), and also of the bric-a-brac of intellectual history scattered throughout Burke's work from the 1920s through the 1980s. Newstok unearths and reproduces sections that Burke crossed out from a lecture, thus offering windows onto his compositional process. Among other works never fully revised for publication, he edits and annotates the typescript of Burke's response to a graduate student's paper on Troilus and Cressida. As importantly, Newstok gathers what appears to be every excerpt from Burke's lifetime of writing that mentions Shakespeare. The process of obtaining permissions alone is staggering, but it is a further tribute to Newstok' s professional integrity and passion for the project that he gained full cooperation from the Burke estate and the endorsement of surviving family members.
The volume begins with a cogent survey of the key issues and terms (including a glance at Aristotle, "Burke's classical mentor") that played a generative role in Burke's Shakespeare criticism. He ends with suitably terse yet remarkably helpful notes; for example, indicting where precisely in Coleridge's Biographia Literaria we can find the reference to which Burke alludes in passing. Newstok gives sufficient identifying tags of dramatists, writers, philosophers, and artists whom Burke assumed his audience knew, and covers in detail the original settings of the works discussed and, when applicable, where they were printed previously.
This much having been said, the larger question still looms: Do we need so much--indeed all--of Burke's Shakespeare criticism gathered in one place? The answer this volume convincingly urges is: yes. The Editor's Introduction establishes the impressive influence Burke has had on a number of critics and dramatists, as well as on important movements in literary scholarship and dramatic criticism. The claim of kinship to Burke's work is wide and diverse, ranging from Edward Said to Angus Fletcher. In a long note Newstok gives an initial roll call of upward of fifty Renaissance literary scholars who have profitably engaged Burke's work. He goes on to point out that Northrop Frye annexed Burke as one of his antecedents in "the archetypal approach," and Harold Bloom called Burke "my heroic precursor." And yet it is often through indirection that debts to Burke's ideas are acknowledged. Buried in a footnote, for example, Stephen Greenblatt tellingly relates: "As so often happens, I discovered that Burke's brilliant sketch had anticipated the shape of much of my argument."
In part this reluctance to give Burke pride of place in one's own scholarly work is the result of the unmistakably Burkean tone and trajectory of thought to be found in his often idiosyncratic approach. Unlike literary critics who develop systems that others dutifully can follow, Burke does not leave a coherent methodology, notwithstanding his "Pentadic analysis" and his, at times, deeply moving readings of Shakespearean scenes. Rather readers receive insights--the kinds that he left for a general audience rather than a coterie of the initiated. Although he "appreciated the favorable attention from academia," finally he was more concerned with inspiring "others to join his ecstatic readings of Shakespeare, and gain contact with the energy at the heart of Shakespeare's plays."
One example illustrates just how useful having access to these essays can be, especially in a properly edited edition. Recently when teaching Timon of Athens to undergraduates, I turned to Burke's typical mode of beginning an investigation as presented in Newstok's book. It supplied just the heuristic jump-start required: "First, let's force ourselves to decide exactly what Timon of Athens is about." Written originally as the introduction to an edition of Timon, Burke intelligently recounted the main strokes of the play, act by act. He then treated the main characters in turn and examined their function in the drama: "Apemantus serves to keep the play from falling simply into contrasted halves." He also considered relations among the sexes, showing how women in this play function "only in a supernumerary capacity." That there are only courtesans and no mothers, sisters, or wives, fits well with Burke's judgment on Timon as "an almost brutally end-of-the-line character, his life coming to a close in rabid talk of total human rot." The one moment of pity, supplied by the faithful retainer Flavius, is a touch that Burke sees as "quite Shakespearean, at least in the sense that a Shakespearean tragedy has a scene that softens the audience with tears of pity just before the final outbreak of victimage." He compares Flavius speech instructively to Desdemona's willow song, a connection discussed at greater length in Chapter Six, Burke's landmark essay on Othello (another reason why it is good to have all of these essays collected in one volume). When all is said and done, Burke is a reliable and subtle expositor of Shakespeare's plays.
The second part of this essay turns to consider the nature of Timon as a dramaturgic invention. With all of the rigor shown in his Rhetoric of Religion (1961), Burke explores "invective," "lamentation," and "praise" seen as "the three freedoms." Fortunately Newstok restores paragraphs apparently excised by Burke's editor, Francis Ferguson. These are instructive paragraphs indeed, as they make clear why these three are linked and how they help explain the ineluctable humane movement charted out in Timon of Athens. Granting the disputation of authorship, Burke makes a solid case for Timon's "radicalism"--in its usual, literal, and etymological senses--and concludes that, although it "is not pretty," it is "extremely thorough."
Likewise Burke is thorough and radical in his approach to the plays as a whole. He covers all of the chief topical issues and he seeks to dig to the root of things that often remain undetected by virtue of alluring speeches and the fast-paced sweep of a drama's action. Consequently this is a book that should be placed next to The Riverside Shakespeare on one's bookshelf. As a teacher I anticipate returning to it often, especially when sorting out what should go into an introductory lecture on a given play. And it is for this same reason that people outside the academy will want to have ready access to Burke as well: he gets to the bottom of things.

This work gathers together all of Kenneth Burke's writing on Shakespeare, thirteen major essays and a host of notes and remarks scattered throughout his writings. It contains an introduction by its editor,Scott L. Newstok which explains his own work on the volume, and Burke's general approach to Shakespeare criticism. The book also contains on its back cover laudatory words from among others Harold Bloom and Stephan Greenblat, that is from among the most distinguished literary critics working today.
Burke is an original in his approach to Shakespeare. He focuses often on the opening of the play, and is very concerned with the effect of the play on the audience. He again and again shows how Shakespeare is master playwright creating the effect he wants the work to have on the audience. For Burke whose basic view of drama derives from Aristotle 'action' plays the central role.'Character' is if not subordinated then not given the central place in his analysis as it has in the work of arguably the greatest Shakespearean critic of all A.C. Bradley.
While understanding Burke's brilliance and originality I have never been a strong fan of his writing. I have always found it somewhat difficult and academic. His learning is vast and he makes sudden shifts in his discourse which I find hard to follow. I too find often that the kinds of dramatic questions, the questions relating to how the dramatist achieved the effects he did, are not those which primarily concern me.
However the volume as scholarly collection and edition of Burke's work is comprehensive and carefully referenced. It is a real contribution to Burke scholarship and should be made good use of by all those who take interest in his scholarship.

The most valuable aspect of Scott L. Newstok's recent "Kenneth Burke on Shakespeare" is his inclusion of a talk, delivered by Burke, entitled "Introduction: Shakespeare Was What?," which serves as a useful primer to Burke's system of reading Shakespeare. As the lecture establishes, Burke is ultimately concerned with what literature does (i.e. how it functions). Accordingly, Shakespeare is, in Burke's mind, an artist who "spontaneously knew how to translate some typical tension or conflict of his society into terms of variously interrelated personalities." As Burke explains, Shakespeare's ability "was to let that whole complexity act itself out, by endowing each personality with the appropriate ideas, attitudes, actions, situations, relationships, and fatality" (18). Shakespeare, above all other dramatists, constructs plays in which his characters' engagements with each other constitute the play's movement while dictating meaning to its audience. And Burke, perhaps above all other critics, articulates the anatomy of these engagements for us.

Without a doubt, Burke scholars will find Newstok's compilation of additional references to Shakespeare invaluable. While the sections that Newstok provides can't possibly offer full context, the well-versed Burkean will certainly have the texts in question (A Grammar of Motives, Attitudes Toward History, and so on) at hand. An impressive piece of scholarship, Kenneth Burke on Shakespeare will prove to be an essential work for a variety of audiences, including Shakespearians and Burkeans.

An iconoclastic American intellectual, the late Kenneth Burke (1897-1993) was an exceptional and prolific literary critic whose writings and commentaries were respected -- even by those who occasionally disagreed with either his assumptions and conclusions. In the pages of "Kenneth Burke On Shakespeare", academician Scott L. Newstok (Assistant Professor of English, Gustavus Adolphus College, and Andrew W. Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow at Yale University) has gathered together under one cover all of Burke's Shakespeare literary criticism (including previously unpublished notes and lectures) that had such wide-spread influence on his contemporaries. Drawn from a profusion of sources, including literary magazines, academic journals, Newstok has accomplished a truly impressive task of research and recovery. The result is a compendium of analytical commentaries on Shakespearean dramas and comedies. Enhanced with the inclusion of an appendix (Additional References to Shakespeare in Burke's Writings), extensive notes, and 'Index of Works by Shakespeare', and a general index, "Kenneth Burke On Shakespeare" is a welcome and enthusiastically recommended addition to academic library Shakespearean Studies reference collections and supplemental reading lists.

This is a beautiful book. I kept on thinking how much I'd like to write a book like this. I read it in one night and wanting more. I am looking forward to reading more of her work in the future.

I have never read a book that lays out the struggles of an illness as insightful as A Life Less Convenient (ALLC) does. Jennifer Burke deserves a great deal of accolades for putting together this magnificent journey into the love affair a terminal illness has with one's body. The ex presented in this book is a conglomeration of several people in the narrator's life over the beginning years of her diagnosis. Her body is taken over and controlled by Lupus, and her relationships provide the emotional support she desperately needs...until her illness reels her back in and continues to destroy everything in its path, including her relationships.

A Life Less Convenient tore at my heartstrings. I saw not just illness, but reflective and insightful understanding of how a relationship had failed. In the matter-of-fact reflectiveness of the narrator, there is no blame. There is just the illness and the way both parties handled it; and that's it. It just was. After a period of time, the end of any relationship "just was". There is no innocent party and there is no guilty party. In any relationship, both parties deal with situations the best way they no how - right or wrong, it just `is'. Burke does an excellent job using Lupus as the vehicle for getting this idea across.

ALLC is a series of letters to `an Ex'. Each letter is in essence a short story depicting a different period of time in the evolution of the narrator's dealings with Lupus. ALLC gives interesting insight into what people dealing with a terminal illness deals with and I suspect, will be an insightful book for those who love people with some form of terminal illness. Throughout ALLC, Burke has done an excellent job of incorporating fantastic images that portray fear, love, frustration and angst. These images are disturbing to a large degree, but help the reader understand the many facets of emotion involved with dealing with terminal illness. The letters in this book are fictitious in that names, times, situations have been changed or made up. ALLC is the writer's way of trying to explain what was really happening to her and why its so difficult to maintain healthy relationships when one is battling an illness like Lupus.

Burke explains in a honest, open, insightful way all the physical limitations that caused the demise of a relationship.
Her writing allows us to understand the feelings of vulnerability that people dealing with a terminal illness may not be able to explain.

Each letter in ALLC is a little more insightful than the last. Every letter shows incredible growth and insight into the understanding of the human factor and how relationships are affected by different obstacles.

ALLC would be a great resource for people struggling to understand the emotional, physical and relationship issues involved with a terminal illness, like Lupus. This book has the ability to provide a starting point for open and honest conversation and understanding between both parties involved in dealing with a terminal illness. This book should be recommended reading at the first diagnosis of a terminal illness.

I recently read "A life Less Convenient - Letters To My Ex" by Jennifer Clare Burke.

This interesting, entertaining and captivating book chronicles the effects of long term debilitating disease on a young woman's relationships and her body. The story is unfolded via a collection of letters to ex-partners along with splendid photo-art. Through these letters and art one gets a sense of the challenges laid at her feet and the feet of her past loves as her body suffers the effects of medication side effects and illness.

As a health care provider, I am no stranger to observing the impact of various chronic diseases on the human body. However, observing a patient in the office paints just a small part of the picture of their situation. Being aware of the far-reaching impact of serious illness is something to always keep in our sight and consciousness. This literary work provides a window into the life of a woman living with chronic illness. It does so in a manner that is often humorous, often touching, and with an easy to read writing style that makes it difficult to put the book aside.

The story is inspirational as it shows us the heroine's tenacity while living life in the face of debilitating disease as well as the compassion and concern exhibited by her past partners. One of the greatest dangers for any sufferer of chronic disease is isolation. What we have here is a story of a young woman who chooses to avoid that isolation as she faces the challenge of becoming well. She chooses life and is a fine example for all of us to emulate. Moreover, for health care providers, her story serves as a reminder that what stands before us are not simply bodies suffering from disease. What stands before us are human lives that we dare not lose sight of as we wage our war on their diseases.

Anyone who knows a person living with chronic disease would do well to read this book.

Jennifer Burke is an amazing woman. Her novel is a wonderful book that takes the reader on a rollercoaster ride of a relationship. Though many relationships may feel like a carnival ride, the hills and valleys protrayed in this story are amplified by the narrator's fight with the debilitating disease, Lupis. Tale is related in a first person narrative taking an inspired form of letters filled with those thoughts left unsaid.

From what can only be described as an intellectually and emotionally astute perspective, this story hits the soul hard and fast leaving only what the author deemed truly necessary to the imagination.

Author Burke will certainly have you smiling and on occasion very excitedly. Often, though, I was left wistful, my heart moved and solemnly empathetic to the plights stalwartly endured by the author. I found myself needing to pause at several instances throughout the novel to tend to misty veils in which I would lose and then find myself utterly floored and unable to continue for an awed moment or three.

It was an honour experiencing Ms. Burke's visceral and no-holds-barred literary style as seen throughout her Letters; each one peeling back yet another delicate layer of intricately brilliant Grace throughout the story's storm of wayward or waning moments of Love, Health and Life.

While A Life Less Convenient may not be for the most timorous of hearts, Ms. Burke's hauntingly unique and compelling voice will surely serve to elegantly educate and engage to the point of forgetting oneself and leave you wanting for much, much more.

EXCELLENT book. A Coach or parent must read . Easy to understand with a vast amount of effective baseball knowledge with great illustrations . I especially like section that covers understanding kids emotions and psychological effects of ups and downs on players . Most parents and coaches do not realize how they can have a long term negative effect on a player. This book brings a whole new light on to the subject.

Very well written, very informative down to earth explanations and philosophy.

Gives insight that can be used for any age player. Breaks down to a fundamental level. Recommend for any youth coach.

This book isn't bad. I have not finished reading it, but it does give quite a bit of useful information. However, Cal seems to repeat himself several times in the book. There are many books out there that offer adequate, if not better, knowledge of how to play the game. Louisville Slugger's book is good as well as Coaching Pitchers. I would suggest only buying this book if you are a die hard baseball fan and plan on collecting many books. One good thing about the book is that Cal does give that sense of how to be a good teammate and maybe even a great family member.

I picked up this book at the local sporting goods store while I was buying gloves, bats, socks, pants, and etc. for my two sons who were starting little league baseball.

Just a few weeks earlier, I had declined a spot as an assistant coach due to not being "athletic", and I saw Ripken's book as an opportunity to learn some of the things that other dads had learned as kids.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I have not read it cover-to-cover, but have browsed and spot-read it throughout the season.

As a result, I now understand more of the things other dads are yelling out. For example, for those in the field, "keep your eye on the ball" means watch the ball from the beginning of the pitch, all the way to the bat, as it connects with and leaves the bat, then all the way to the glove.

Chapters are given for each of the aspects of the game, pitching, fielding, hitting, catching, running, and so forth. Text narratives are easily understood, avoiding or explaining the sports "jargon" that confuses many beginning players (e.g. "choke up on the bat", "take two"). Pictures explicitly illustrate concepts such as batting and fielding stances.

Ripken's narrative also provides fun training excercises used by coaches (both major and little leagues) to develop baseball skills.

I have kept this book within an arm's reach in my office all summer long. Ripken's baseball insights have enabled me to help my sons develop their own throwing and batting skills.

Maybe next year, I might take that assistant coach position!

This book is phenominal - I read through it every day. It is such a blessing in my life and in my family's life. This is a must read for every parent!

Whenever I go to a baby shower or give a baby gift, I always include a copy of Aim Your Child Like an Arrow.

I was ready to give in to frustration, and was feeling I had messed up totally with my sons: 16 years, 14 years, and 7 years old. My oldest was into the occult. He was so confused he said he couldn't consentrate in school. I started reading this book and confessing the scriptures over my husband and children 20 minutes a day while I was on my exercise bike! My oldest son started to call on the Lord for deliverance. I see such a miracle before me. His grades are excellent now. I bought an extra book for another lady. I strongly suggest to every male and female with children to read this inspiring book.

I am a public school teacher, teaching 2nd grade. A few weeks ago, I purchased and gave out three copies of "Aim Your Child Like an Arrow" to parents and grandparents of my children. One child in particuler had been having nightmares about going to hell and had a lot of difficulty sleeping at night. He had a history of vomitting every day before going to kindergarten and had violent headaches and sleepless nights in kindergarten and first grade. After introducing my child and his mother to the love and faithfulness of God through His Word, they took home the sinner's prayer and this book and the child began to pray the sinner's prayer daily. He said it made him sleep. We also have a reading journal assignment Monday-Thursday nights for homework. Daily, he has been requesting to sit down and read "Aim Your Child Like an Arrow" for his 10 minutes of reading at night. This book has become a necessity for him, and his mother says he asks to read it more than any other book.

Thank God for this book! I have been putting the principles in action. I have two sons ages 7 and 9. People around me have commented on how fine my children are becoming and how they are well mannered and have peace.

The Birds of Chile by Alvaro Jaramillo is of convenient size with excellent illustrations. The birds are named by common English name plus scientific name as well as the name by which they are known in Chile. Distribution and habitat maps are plentiful and well positioned.

I actually purchased this guide for a dear friend who was moving to Chile, but, I did have a chance to peruse it before presenting it & found it to be comprehensive & well written.

Basics: 2003, softcover, 240 pages, 96 color plates, 473 species, range map for each bird

In case I fail to make it clear in my review of the book, I'll state it now: This book is a necessity for your birding trip to anywhere in Chile. The illustrations are excellent and cover every bird - both resident and migrant - found in the country. It also covers 13 extra species found in the Antarctic Peninsula, the Falkland Islands and South Georgia.

The illustrations are done superbly in detail, structure, and color. If I had to pick on something for criticism, it would only be the vaguely angled outline to some of the birds' nape/crown and the necks of the swans, but this is minor. The plates do a great job of displaying the many subspecies and seasonal plumages. The many in-flight views are definitely helpful.

The majority of the text consists of excellent notes on identification and of comparing similar species. The detailed notes proved to be very helpful when examining the the various cinclodes and miners in the field. An admiral effort is given to describing the vocalizations. These notes are effectively written and are more detailed than most other field guides of any country.

The range maps are unique due to the shape of Chile. To properly display the 2,500 miles of coastline, the country was broken into thirds: northern, central, and southern. These are placed adjacent to each other in one box. To help provide some orientation, the 12 regions (i.e., provinces) are outlined and Santiago is dotted. For birds with a small range, the map zooms in to that particular area. These maps use five different colors to denote seasons and sparseness.

There are a couple of other books you could use for Chile, but I found this one to be superior to all in terms of illustrations, text, and book size. It will definitely accompany me again. Any other book I bring will be only for back-up reference.

Other Related Books:
1) Las Aves de Chile: Nueva Guia de Campo by Martinez and Gonzalez (ISBN 9568426000)
2) Birds of Patagonia, Tierra Del Fuego and Antarctic Peninsula by Couve
3) Birds of Torres Del Paine National Park, Chile by Couve
4) Birds of Chile and Adjacent Regions of Argentina, Bolivia and Peru -- Vol. I-II by Johnson
5) Birds of Chile: A Field Guide by Araya
6) Guia de campo de las aves de Chile by Araya

Being chilean and living in this country, I know many of the birds described here. It is really very good and images are perfect.
For future editions, may I suggest to include a CD with the sounds of some of the described birds.

A solid ornthilogical text that I found useful as an onsite field guide in Chile.

What a fantastic, heartwarming story! This is a great read for anyone interested in a human interest story.

What a great kid Burke must have been! I wish that I had the chance to know him. It sounds like his spirit and his legacy are felt by those who knew him and those who read about him or come across his namesake bear every day.

Burke's Tour is about a young man, Burke, who lived with a progressive inherited disease called Cystic Fibrosis, who began collecting bears at a young age. It tells of how Burke's wish to 'help' find a cure for CF comes true in a Boyd's Bear, a bear named after him. Burke P. Bear to date travels the world spreading CF awareness, along with love, peace, having fun, and raising millions of dollars in research toward finding the cure. The cure that Burke so wanted to help find.

My Burke P. Bear and Burke's Tour book have a special place in my home. Those moments when I glance at them, I smile and wonder where in the world at that very moment Burke P. Bear may be--spreading CF awareness, love, peace, having fun. A heartfelt "thank you" to the author, Bob Derr, for sharing Burke's legacy with the world.

WOW WHAT A BOOK. YOU LAUGH AND CRY THE WHOLE WAY THROUGH IT. THE BURKE BEAR HAS BEEN A HUGE PART OF OUR LIFE FOR THE PAST 4 YEARS. WE HAVE ALSO BEEN LUCKY ENOUGH TO HAVE MEET MR.BOB DERR AND HIS WIFE LINDA.WE HOLD THE DANCE FOR A CURE FOR THE PACFI.. WHEN YOU BUY THE BOOK PLEASE KNOW YOU ARE HELPING FAMILIES LIKE MY OWN GET STEPS CLOSER TO A CURE...

Burke's Tour embodies the inspiration that fuels the quest for a cure to Cystic Fibrosis. Its pages relate the support and journey of friends, family, communities, and PACFI. This book is a tribute to Burke Derr and the bear named after him. Even more than that, this story shows what a boy and a bear can continue to teach us about life and the human spirit. As a frequent Amazon.com purchaser, I highly recommend it to all.

If you are a stay-at-home mom, and you want to fully live your Christian values, there is no better book than "Home Is Where the Mom Is". This comprehensive guide covers every aspect of motherhood, parenting, child raising and family relationships and offers tons of valuable insight, wisdom and advice from a woman who knows her stuff.

Shelly Burke is a stay-at-home mom, but don't ever entertain the thought that she isn't active and busy and involved, for she cares for a family as well as a plethora of animals (horses, too!) and she is a Registered Nurse and widely published writer of articles and the book "How To Find Your Perfect Job In Nursing". Burke shares her vast knowledge of navigating the parallel worlds of taking care of yourself while taking care of a family, a home, and sometimes even a home-based career, all based upon Christian values and principles.

This is a big book, 367 pages of tips, ideas, suggestions, techniques, and processes that cover the entire gamut of being a mom, from dealing with postpartum depression to PMS to how to talk to your child about sex. The book is broken down into sections, including "Taking Care of Yourself" - caring for your body, mind and spirit; eating and exercising for optimal health; learning how to say no; being good to yourself. Section Two focuses on "Taking Care of Others" - caring for your spouse, children, family and friends. Section Three is all about "Organizing Your Life" - managing your time, your home, and your finances.

I was astonished by the sheer volume of information Burke brings to her readers, doing so with warmth, humor, and a real understanding of the challenges moms face. There is a definite Christian angle to the book, with plenty of Biblical examples and quotes and references, but this is truly a book chock full of wisdom for moms from all backgrounds. The philosophies Burke presents can truly help any woman make better sense of being a mother, whether it be finding the right balance or keeping priorities or simply managing time and money. What it all comes down to is creating a day-to-day life that mirrors inner values, supports growth, and focuses on what is most important. Family.

"Home Is Where the Mom Is" is an excellent resource, and a warm and compassionate field guide to motherhood for the Christian mom.
MARIE D. JONES

I gave this book to my wife who stays at home, and it is a great resource and read. Chock full of information and as stay-at-home Mom's know, a much needed uplift in dealing with the daily needs of supporting the family.

Highly recommended.

Reviewed by Kelli Glesige for Reader Views (9/06)

If you are a stay-at-home mom, this book is for you! Shelly Burke is a registered nurse and a stay-at-home mom herself, and her goal in writing "Home Is Where the Mom Is" has been to help another stay-at-home mom improve all areas of her life while remaining committed to God, her family and her home.

Shelly Burke appears to be a very knowledgeable writer and has completed a wide array of research in putting together "Home Is Where the Mom Is." The "Appendix of Resources and References" used to compile the book is quite sizeable and allows the reader who wants to delve further into a certain subject to do just that. The book is very well-organized, has an extensive index, and covers a great deal of information.

This comprehensive resource is broken into three sections: "Taking Care of Yourself," "Taking Care of Others," and "Organizing Your Life." Each section offers complete and in-depth information relevant to the section. Shelly Burke will show you how to make decisions based upon Christian principles and what you know about your unique family.

So many aspects of being a stay-at-home mom are covered, including:
Caring for your own spirit, mind, and body first so you can meet your family's needs.
Maintaining your relationship with your husband.
Developing a philosophy of parenting.
Dealing with extended families.
Keeping finances in proper perspective.
Setting, keeping and working toward attainable and realistic goals.

At the end of each chapter, goals are offered and additional Bible verses are listed to further accommodate the intended purpose of the chapter. And, Shelly Burke writes with a pleasing sense of humor too!

I highly recommend this book to all new mothers and stay-at-home moms, but if you have been a mother for some time, you can find helpful information also. This is the type of book you read and then refer back to when a certain area of life needs a refresher. The book is so well-organized; one should have no trouble finding a particular subject. To add to the benefits this work will bring, Shelly Burke is a Christian and refreshingly writes her book from a Christian perspective. "Home Is Where the Mom Is" is a resource I recommend all moms have in the home to refer to often.

Shelly Burke has created a comprehensive, beautifully written guide for At-Home Moms. As a Registered Nurse, she knows the importance of caring for yourself physically, emotionally and spiritually before you'll have the energy to care for others. And, as a mom herself, Shelly understands the demands of a family and a part time career. I wish I'd had her book to read when our children were still at home, but find that many of her helpful suggestions are still beneficial when our children and grandchildren visit.

She'll help you set your goals and priorities, and she offers a wealth of helpful suggestions for dealing with all that At-Home Mom's encounter - fussy or ill kids, tired and hungry husbands, extended family challenges, demands from friends, the difficulty of running a house-hold, and good advice for handling your finances. Shelly covers it all and ends each chapter with an uplifting Bible verse to nourish your soul.

If you are an At-Home Mom, a Mom working out of the home, or a Grandma, you'll gain a wealth of information from reading Home is Where the Mom Is.

This is a comprehensive resource that is worthwhile for any mom, new or old. Written from a Christian perspective by a registered nurse, the book offers helpful down-to-earth tips, healthful advice, and spiritual insights that make it valuable on many levels. Shelly Burke's style is very comforting--like sitting down with a friend over a cup of coffee and discussing everyday home life issues. She doesn't preach or overwhelm with unrealistic advice, but speaks from experience and her own faith. This book would make the ideal gift for an expectant mother!

I was looking hard for something to help keep me organized as a first year Art teacher shared by two separate schools. Mr. Burke explains how he organizes his own planner, and this offered a working model which I quickly adopted. The 2" binder he keeps his book in, is also the Master Binder--this holds all student info pertinent to the lesson plans and daily activities such as attendance and seating, and is easily carried with you during a fire drill. This resource was a blessing...and but for an unexpected 'expletive' in a sidebar writing, I would have given it 5 stars. My feeling is if I'm to be professional in appearance and demeanor, I'm not wanting to have less than in my planner--especially if I share it with colleagues to offer it as an option for the paperwork shuffle and task organizing. Otherwise, it's full of useful information and has been extremely helpful to me.

As a teacher, I have learned how to review my day and figure out what I need to change. THis book has been instrumental in giving me an outlet for my daily reflections.

I love this planner. I use it to keep me organized in all aspects of my life. Jim Burke has done a great job of creating a resource that fits teachers' needs.

As an English teacher for 18 years, I was always trying to find an easy-to-use book for lesson plans. The generic lesson plan books provided by other companies just "didn't cut it." It took an English teacher (Jim Burke) to create a fabulous tool for teachers to use for lesson planning.

I highly recommend the purchase of this Daybook, in fact, I think it should be the schools themselves that purchase the Daybooks for their respective staffs. But, if your school insists that you use one of the generic books, then your self purchase of this Daybook is well worth the price and then some!

I have used the daybook for the past few years and the revised version is even better. There is plenty of space for daily lessons and the separate pages for reflection allow for more space on the weekly pages. If you want to help balance your personal and professional life, this daybook is a great tool.

David Burke's new guide is enormously entertaining. It's jam-packed full of intriguing little tales about dozens of literary giants in Paris: where they wrote, drank, loved, fought, and influenced each other. Maps and addresses throughout the book enable literature lovers to visit these haunts physically as well as imaginatively. The photos are a treat, too.

This book is spectacular. It brings the writers alive in a Paris of the past but one that most travelers merely sense. The book is a must read for those who want to feel and see how Paris complimented the writers' lives. The meticulous research coupled with wonderful photos make this a pure joy to read.
I think this book would be of interest to anyone who enjoys a literary tour of Paris whether they visit the City of Light or take an armchair tour.

Literary Paris comes alive on the pages of David Burke's new book, Writer's In Paris. A beautiful and comprehensive book about the writers who lived, loved and created in the City of Light.
David Burke navigates the Arrondissements of Paris as easily as a native Frenchman, taking us through
the haunts of the likes of Andre Gide, Proust , Jean-Paul Sartre as well as the expatriate writers who
called it home, such as Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, F.Scott Fitzgerald and many others. Buy this
book and take it to Paris - you won't regret it!

How many streets in the city you live are named after writers?

In Paris: more than 400.

David Burke seems to have walked them all.

And that's just for starters. He also seems to have read all the books by those writers, cross-referenced their friendships, and then figured out a clever way to summarize his knowledge in a modest 240 pages, with 125 photos along the way.

But then, David Burke --- a "60 Minutes" producer who moved to Paris for a year and simply forgot to leave --- is a lifelong reader and Francophile. As a kid in the `50s, he went to Pamplona not just for the running of the bulls, but "because that was where the climax of `The Sun Also Rises' takes place." Later, he tried to find Jean-Paul Sartre in Saint Germain-des-Prés.

Now he's divided the city he loves into three sensible zones --- the Left Bank, the Islands, and the Right Bank --- and slotted in the writers who lived and work there, working mostly chronologically, delivering the most salient stories about each. Like...

The Church of Saint-Julien-le Pauvre
It's the oldest church in town. When we're in Paris, we like to go to concerts there. I had forgotten that Ford Madox Ford took his mistress Jean Rhys there - or, in one of her novels, his alter-ego did.

39 rue Descartes
Verlaine died there. Hemingway rented the garret he'd occupied.

Rue Mouffetard
What's in a name? Mouffle means "stink", and "skinners, tanners and tripe butchers" set up shop along the river here. No surprise that young, unknown George Orwell lived here.

Deux Magots
James Baldwin was taken here directly on his arrival in Paris to meet Richard Wright.

Colette
I don't know that she got her break with her "Claudine" book three years after it was universally rejected. Then another book about schoolgirls was a hit, her husband showed her manuscript around again, et voila --- Colette had a best seller.

Hotel du Vieux Paris
They called it "the Beat hotel". Allen Ginsberg lived here. He produced 56 lines of "Kaddish", "weeping as the wrote them in Café Sélect."

Gertrude Stein's Picassos
I never knew that the Gestapo searched her apartment and decided the Picassos were "Jewish trash, good for burning." But they left them hanging.

Hours Press
And I didn't know about Nancy Cunard's poetry contest. A young writer heard about it on the last day, wrote 98 lines and stuffed them in an envelope. He won ten pounds. Samuel Beckett, aged 24. Of course.

Luxembourg Gardens
"Balzac circled the garden at night in his monk's cowl, candelabra in hand" --- another tidbit I didn't know.

Le Dome
The first big café. One night when Sinclair Lewis was boasting about one of his books on the terrase, someone shouted, "Sit down, you're just a best seller."

Rue de la Gaité
Henry Miller was "drawn to the erotic as a bear to honey." He loved the sex shops and vaudeville theatres here.

Georges Simenon
Colette advised him, "No literature. Suppress all the literature and it will go fine."

Jim Morrison
And I didn't know this: No one recognized his corpse, including "the man who came every day to keep the body packed in dry ice because of the city's heat wave."

Emile Zola
I had no idea he died of carbon monoxide poisoning. The police said it was an accident. Some evidence suggests he was murdered. A tantalizing incident, briefly told, that leaves you wanting more.

Proust
And I certainly didn't know he inherited the equivalent of $6 million, giving him $180,000 or so in today's money to live on each year.

And there's so much more, much of it exhilarating. But watch out --- you'll read with a pencil, you'll mark titles and writers, and before you know it, you'll have a stack so tall you might as well have bought a plane ticket.

David Burke's Writers in Paris: Literary Lives in the City of Light is simply perfect; not only does it present a treasure house of information (who knew it was Gargantua's tale that gave Paris its name?) but it's also written extremely well, with the scholarship balanced with wit and charm. I found so much in this book I had never known and timely connections between writers I had never guessed at. The joy of finding additional information about a particular writer popping up later in someone else's section gave Burke's book a rich sense of dovetailing detail. This book finally puts it all together for me, and I found great pleasure in reading it. Writers in Paris makes me exclaim: Euro be damned; I must get back to Paris!