Burke Books

If you are interested in a novel that covers just about every popular genre, this is your book. Not only is the novel a mystery, it's content touches on spirituality and strength when trying to overcome tragedies of this nature. This novel is a quick read for anyone who likes mysteries. The action is quick and suspensful. The subject is mild enough for a young adult reader. If you like the television series 7th Heaven this is your kind of book.

Admittedly, I picked this book up because of the NICE cover, but I also liked the synopsis on the back. This book reads kind of like a mixture of everything. A little soap opera drama here, a little action there. A little mystery over here, and a little suspense over there. Bloodsucking. Some erotic stuff. The main character, Erica Manning, takes a little getting used to, what with her constant need to get it on with anyone within reach. Some people don't like those kinds of characters. But, her actions are understandable since her vampirism is a part of the reason why she has no real sense of self-control (although there are other more human reasons). I don't recall there ever being any vampire in any book or movie with the kind of problem she has.
But, Erica is still an interesting character. She may do some totally crazy things (like a certain something that was a little off-putting but was tastefully written as to not be offense), but Erica is sassy, smart, and very funny (this is in addition to her being a drop-dead gorgeous vampire). And, she doesn't put up with any bull, either.
The hero, her boyfriend, Ryan, is also a vampire of a different color. For a bloodsucker, he is rather tame and mild-mannered most of the time, but when you push him to the limit, watch out! He surprisingly puts up with Erica's shenanigans, but there are a few guys in the world would do the same thing, so it is realistic that he does, too. Personally, I think he should think about permanently shacking up with Natasha, one of the main sub-characters. She was a sweetie!
The main villain is one that isn't exactly original nowadays, but the writer gives her an interesting back-story. And, he successfully generates suspense every time she shows up in the book. I mean, this chick spent most of the time stalking everyone and either killing people or really hurting them! And, each time she showed up, I kept wondering what was she was going to do next and what she was going to do to the main characters once she got a hold of them (it isn't pretty; in fact, it gets tragic; and even then, there was a twist!). The way she is dealt with at the end blew my mind!
Overall, an interesting read. It is not Stephen King chills, but it is still an interesting take on vampires (their ability to use shadows and darkness was cool!). There are even a couple of werewolf characters in it. According to the writer's website, he wrote some other books starring the same characters, so I will give them a read.

This collection of essays on John Dewey's Logic is, on the whole, outstanding. The essays situate Dewey's work, make clear the negative consequences for philosophy that have flowed from the discipline's failure to follow Dewey, demonstrate the contemporary relevance of his work, and probe some problems and areas for further work. The technical essays by Thomas Burke are astonishing, if over-specialized, and the essays by Vincent Colapietro and John Stuhr are remarkably rich and thought-provoking high points--easily among the very best recent essays on pragmatism.

This book is just awesome! The simple and clear landscaping designs helped me to communicate better with a landscape designer. The pictures and detailed information on what is demonstrated in the pictures was very helpful and great for ideas. The landscape designers quoted in the book used simple, clear easy language. I appreciated the practical suggestions on soil preparation, mulching and what types of low maintenance trees and shrubs that one can plant in their gardens. Since this is my first home, this book is "A MUST READ" . The various lists of easy maintenance plants, shrubs, trees have proven to save me a lot of money and time. I now feel I have a low maintenance front yard. I can't wait to work on my backyard and make that "an easy maintenance garden" too!

The categories of the sublime and the beautiful seem, on first contemplation, an 18th-century distinction with little meaning for our own time. I read this book while preparing a course on J.S. Bach's "Goldberg" Variations and Beethoven's "Diabelli" Variations. The idea was to find a way of talking about the difference between the two pieces. At first brush, the Bach is "beautiful", the Beethoven "sublime", but only a little thought leads to a more complicated view. Both pieces have aspects of both qualities. Nevertheless, my students found the question a fascinating one.

Of course, the book goes well beyond the characteristics of the two qualities. It focusses on the interesting question of how human nature leads us to experience the two qualities. To me much of Burke's discussion of this point seems quite contemporary.

Burke's preference for the sublime over the beautiful reflects his time at the beginning of the Romantic period in literature, and anticipates Goethe's (and Beethoven's) celebration of the individual and direct appeal to the emotions. His essentialist views of the beautiful as a feminine characteristic seem gratuitous.

I wonder what Burke would have found to say about, say, the Goldberg, with its formality and artifice. These characteristics would seem to place the piece in the beautiful rather than the sublime. But the piece is clearly not merely a frill, nor is it at all sentimental.

Burke's book is well argued and challenging to the modern reader. Give it a try!

Educational Research is definetly a book for someone who is getting serious about research, but has not had much past experience. This book outlines many of the concepts and aspects that need to be involved in both qualitative and quantitative research. Most importantly, it gives good examples of each concept. The only downside to this book is that the subject matter tends to get a little dry at times. It can leave the reader wondering when the current chapter will end. However, this aspect is easily overlooked. For anyone who as ever wanted to know the intimate details about research, this is a book for you.

Favoring the term "research consultant" over "investigator," Harry Rigby scratches out a living tailing unfaithful spouses and selling sordid stories to the newspapers. This particular Christmas season finds him in way over his head, as two investigations-one into the stabbing death of the wife of a prominent politician, the other into the extracurricular of a cheating housewife-converge. Adding to his troubles, he must deal with a less than idyllic love life, his drinking, and the reappearance of his ex-con brother Gonzo in his life.

Brimming with action and black humor, Eight Ball Boogie is an auspicious debut for Irish journalist Burke, a novel sure to elicit as many winces as laughs. Rigby has an uncanny talent for finding trouble and surviving a beating, which is fortunate, in light of how many thrashings he receives over the course of a few hours. Slacker Rigby is joined by an equally intriguing supporting cast, including his associate Herbie, caustic girlfriend Denise, and brutal police detectives Brady and Galway. All seem to exist primarily to complicate Harry's life, making for intriguing reading.

Eight Ball Boogie proves to be that rare commodity, a first novel that reads as if it were penned by a writer in mid-career. Burke is in full control the entire way, providing a plethora of witty one- liners and a couple of action sequences so tense and well rendered they'll leave you breathless. A fun, satisfying read, Eight Ball Boogie marks the arrival of a new master of suspense on the literary scene.

An immense pleasure! Carlo Ginsburg reminds us more than once that he is not an art historian, but an historian. As such, his approach to paintings such as Piero della Francesca's "Flagellation" which to our eyes are difficult if not unfathomable iconographically, is not bound to the orthodoxies of specialist methodology. If this sounds heady and dense, it is. This is not a book for the casual admirer of Renaissance painting because much of the suspense(and it is suspenseful) is reading the author's discrediting of other interpretations(these are often amusing), suggesting the roadmap he will take to circumvent the errors of the previous historians, then elegantly exhuming the necessary evidence and reasoning to produce-voila- a fresh, impressively founded exegisis before our very eyes. One marvels at the depth and breadth of cultural knowledge that is this historian's primary resource, and facility with archives. But there is another dimension to this book. As one reads, one understands that this is the work of contemporary humanist, and the source of his insights is perhaps this empathy, if not kinship with his subject, whether patron or artist.

For those looking for a review of the public health paradigm this is quite enlightening

Burke discusses using images as historical resources and evidence, focusing on both the positive insights that might be garnered from imagery as well as the potential problems. One such historiographical danger is that the historian might view images from within their present context and not with the same significance or contextual milieu that the original historical actors might have attributed to them. This point, and others throughout the text, are elementary to many historians; others could use a friendly reminder of presentist tendencies. While there is nothing revolutionary to modern historians in Burke's text, it is a pleasant reminder of some of the pitfalls in constructing historical narrative based on visual evidence.