Burke Reviews

The Slangman Guide to Biz Speak 1 (Slangman Guides to Biz Speak)

Published in Paperback by Slangman Publishing (2001-04-01)

Author: David Burke

List price: $23.95

New price: $14.98
Used price: $14.24

Average review score:

slangman guide to biz speak 1

Helpful Votes: 1 out of 3 total.
Review Date: 2007-09-02

This book has few useful American slang words.There are way too many repeatations an redundancy spread over 240 pages.The information contained can be easily presented in some fifty pages or less.This book is grossly overprized.

good book

Helpful Votes: 2 out of 3 total.
Review Date: 2005-09-25

It is a good book for those who would like to improve their spoken american english practically, within a very short time.butto get your goal a regular& constant practice is needed.
vs ghimire

The Slayer

Published in Paperback by Ellora's Cave (2003-08)

Author: Stephanie Burke

List price: $14.99

New price: $7.22
Used price: $2.71

Average review score:

Timeless Tales 4 Star Review

Helpful Votes: 11 out of 12 total.
Review Date: 2003-10-10

by Nicole La Folle

Kye wants revenge on Balthazar for the death of his family and for making him what he is today, not human anymore, but not a vampire either. He has trained himself in a mishmash of fighting styles, combining many different martial arts with street fighting. He gets his information on Balthazar's movements from Angel, a former victim of Balthazar who wants revenge for the loss of her daughter. Kye dresses to kill and heads to the nightclub where he has been told Balthazar will be that evening.

While waiting for Balthazar to show up Kye is approached by a woman who thinks he is Balthazar. She threatens him and attacks him, trying to kill him. The club patrons think a movie is being filmed and just enjoy the show. When the real Balthazar shows up, Kye switches his attack from the woman to Balthazar's bodyguards, but Balthazar himself gets away. Tali was raised by the vampire Mari, who had been one of Balthazar's women, all of whom are sex slaves with different talents, until she escaped. Tali and Mari are out to destroy Balthazar. When her attack on Kye is interrupted by Balthazar's arrival, Tali watches Kye in action and then leaves. She is attracted to this mysterious man dressed in leather who knows how to fight as well or better than she does. But who is he and can she trust him?

Ms. Burke has created an absorbing tale of revenge in The Slayer that doesn't have the blood and gore the title might lead you to believe it has. Balthazar is a villain that is easy to hate, as there could be no good motive for any of his actions. Kye and Tali are both strong characters who are fighting against the evil represented by Balthazar. Ms. Burke has woven pertinent song lyrics throughout the book to emphasize various actions and settings, which adds an interesting touch to the story. Once again, Ms. Burke has delivered a story you won't want to put down until you finish it.

Badly Written!!

Helpful Votes: 5 out of 8 total.
Review Date: 2004-12-24

What a waste of paper! A seven-year-old could write a better story. It made no sense! It was poorly edited! There were so many exclamation marks! It was distracting!

Poor story, nonsensical plot, ridiculous situations...hard to believe this was actually published. Characters were not consistent through the story. For example, Heroine trains for 20 years to kill Bad Guy, Hero tells Heroine to hide in a room with the other women while HE kills Bad Guy and she does! Then Hero tells Heroine he is going to commit suicide so she can leave now and she does!

Web Databases with Cold Fusion 3

Published in CD-ROM by McGraw-Hill (1997-11-01)

Author: John Burke

List price:

Average review score:

A very good reference

Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 1999-06-12

This book fills the niche for those who have some experience and those who have none. In clear and easy to understand steps, the author guides the programmer through html, through forms and on to advanced concepts in ColdFusion database manipulation. While there are some errors, if one takes the time to actually READ the book, YOU will be able to use the information gained through reading to find and correct those errors (and that's a good feeling!) An excellent value and an excellent resource. One provision though, in order to get the MOST from this book, it is necessary to actually READ it!

This book is terrible

Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 1998-11-11

My shredder had a hey day with this rag

This book is hideous.

Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 1998-03-17

This book is not for those looking for a good reference source for two very good reasons. It attempts to teach CF by example, which might be adequate for those who have never worked with CF and have a limited scope for HTML, but both the text and the example code is filled with errors (McGraw-Hill's fault--somebody should be fired). The book is written as if we are listening to a lecture where, if Burke has a deviation in his train of thought, we are forced to follow down that track (Burke's fault).

Big disappointment, loaded with errors in coding!

Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 1998-01-25

This book is a waste of money. There are errors on many of the pages. Coding is improperly constructed. It's very evident that the author never ran a validator against the code. Examples are spaces after "=", no double qoutes where they are required, etc, etc.

Poorly written, innappropriate subject matter, and errors!

Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 1998-08-11

This book seems to try to please all audiences and ends up failing on all counts. It doesn't work for someone who is familiar with cold fusion and the databases covered in the book and doesn't work for those who are starting with no background knowledge. The writting is poor and difficult to understand from a grammatical perspective. The information is basically regurgitated from install manuals for various products. The chapters describing various databases do little more than tell you how to install them (click install icon, then follow the instructions on the screen). I would not recommend this book to anyone for any reason.

French and Indian War: Prelude to American Independence

Published in School & Library Binding by Topeka Bindery (2003-01)

Author: Mary Alice Burke Robinson

List price: $15.55

Average review score:

Disappointing

Helpful Votes: 11 out of 13 total.
Review Date: 2003-01-30

I bought this book to give to my kid for information on the French and Indian War. This was a mistake. The book tells almost nothing about the history of the War. It is just some stuff that goes on during the war, but it is not what the title suggests.

Just a compilation of worthless stories

Helpful Votes: 12 out of 14 total.
Review Date: 2003-05-06

This very short (64 pages, only 50 of which have direct info) book on the French and Indian War does not cover the war in detail, but merely has a collection of historical letters and reports on various topics like: women, disease, a skirmish, etc.... Even for an introduction, I think this is a poor choice.

Primary Source Documents Tell the Story

Helpful Votes: 13 out of 30 total.
Review Date: 2001-01-03

This short collection of documents from different participants in the war helps to explain what the confict was all about, from many perspectives: the British, French, Colonists, and the Native Americans. Great for students!

Not worth the money. Buy something else.

Helpful Votes: 20 out of 20 total.
Review Date: 2002-10-02

This is a small book (approximately 5"x7") of only about 50 pages consisting mainly of excerpts from journals and letters written during the French and Indian War period (1754-1763 or so). These are all interesting readings, but all of these excerpts have been printed numerous times elsewhere. While a person who has never read anything about the French and Indian War may gain some insight from this book, I can't imagine anyone who has read anything about this period gaining any new knowledge from this book. There just isn't enough information here, nor is there anything new that hasn't been told already. For comparison, "Montcalm and Wolfe" by Francis Parkman offers more information about the French and Indian War in its appendixes than "The French and Indian War" offers in the entire book. And "Montcalm and Wolfe" doesn't cost a great deal more. I would buy "Wilderness Empire" by Eckert, "Crucible of War" by Anderson or "Montcalm and Wolfe" instead. Or, if one is looking for a shorter, concise history of the war, one of the many good books available is "The French and Indian War 1754-1763: The Imperial Struggle for North America," by Seymour Schwartz, which is available for about 3 times the cost of this book but offers many, many times the information (it also has many maps and pictures, is 7"x10" in physical size and has nearly 4 times the number of pages). Any of these four books--and many others--will be money better spent. In fact, most encyclopedia articles (which are usually rather short) will offer a better rendering of the history of the war than this book will, as this book doesn't offer even a reasonable history of the war or its causes; it is more like an odd collection of lengthier-than-normal footnotes. If the title of the book were "Various writings concerning the French and Indian War," then I could somewhat understand the contents, but since the title is "The French and Indian War," the book is a complete failure. In reading the table of contents, one might be impressed, but this is a case of "not judging the book by the table of contents." The table of contents greatly exaggerates the amount of information contained therein. I'm really not sure why this book was written: it presents nothing new; there is no different approach to the history of the time; no great writing; no new ideas or insights; nothing that can't be found elsewhere, no real history of the war's causes and progress-completely disappointing. I have never in my life had a book on the French and Indian War that offered less for the money--there is just not enough information in this book to justify its cost. This is simply a book of several short episodes of things that happened during the French and Indian War. I gave this book 1 star only because I couldn't give it "0".

The Ripken Way: A Manual For Baseball and Life

Published in Hardcover by Atria (1999-05-01)

Authors: Larry Burke and Cal Ripken

List price: $22.00

New price: $7.18
Used price: $0.01
Collectible price: $22.00

Average review score:

An opportunity to meet the man who did it all in baseball.

Helpful Votes: 1 out of 3 total.
Review Date: 1999-06-26

As a baseball fan, if you have ever wondered what put the desire in Cal Jr. and the spark in Billy you will be pleasantly entertained as Larry Burke takes the low key wisdom of a baseball icon and makes it come alive from cover to cover. Every emotion is there as you read,"The Ripken Way". I was among the lucky ones. I heard it first hand from the master himself. James V McMahan Jr. President, The Ripken Museum, Aberdeen, Md

A waste of time

Helpful Votes: 3 out of 4 total.
Review Date: 1999-12-14

I am a Baltimore Orioles fan for life, and a huge fan of Cal Ripken Jr. However, this book is not only non-inspirational, it's a bland mix of tepid stories and one-sentence advice. Cal Ripken Sr. was a good man and a good Oriole, but this book is poorly written and a bore.

The Iron Pen

Helpful Votes: 4 out of 5 total.
Review Date: 1999-12-16

The Iron Man of baseball is hardly the Iron Man of literature, unless the measure is a mixture of iron and wooden sentences and the cold steel of reader boredom. There is little here to inspire or entertain anyone but the most hopeless of Ripken hero worshippers.

What a waste of time!

Helpful Votes: 5 out of 5 total.
Review Date: 2001-07-21

Dull, hackneyed cliches sum up this waste of time and money. I urge you to save both.

Information Technology for the Health Professions

Published in Paperback by Prentice Hall (1999-11-16)

Authors: Lillian Burke and Barbara Weill

List price: $34.67

New price: $58.32
Used price: $0.86

Average review score:

Very Superficial

Helpful Votes: 4 out of 4 total.
Review Date: 2005-06-06

This is a very simple introduction to computers in medicine geared to an undergraduate student who knows how to turn a computer on, and not much more. It does deal with information technology, but at such a superficial level as to be useless to anyone already in medicine. Indeed at a couple of points in the text it addresses the reader as "future healthcare professional". If you are a current healthcare professional trying to bring medicine into the 21st century, this book is not for you. It will not help you understand EHR's, e-prescribing, networks or true security concerns.

At best, a cursory exploration of the issue

Helpful Votes: 8 out of 10 total.
Review Date: 2001-04-20

Burke and Weill are correct that information technology is a highly pervasive and important issue that will change the face of health care in the next few years. It already has. As a health care professional in the technology area, I have seen great strides (and blunders) in the area of computers and health care.

It is hard, however, to understand Burke and Weill's intent of writing this book. It is thin and addresses the mere surface of each issue. I suppose it is for people who are entirely computer illiterate - I mean, it describes what a keyboard is, what a mouse does, and a brief definition of the Internet. If people don't already know about these then why explain health informatics and MRI scanners? More information could have been put in the book if more knowledge had been assumed; if the health professional does not have this knowledge, then they need to take some more basic courses. This book, in trying to start with the ultra-simple, then moving to the incredibly complex issue of digital imaging in just over 200 pages, it renders itself almost useless.

On a positive note, the chapter on computers in surgery was helpful and somewhat well done, given the meager space it was given. The best aspect of the book was the darkened "In the News" sections.

I would suggest books on Health Informatics and Medical Imaging (after getting a hold on computer basics) rather than purchase this book.

Admiral Arleigh (31-Knot Burke : the Story of a Fighting Sailor)

Published in Paperback by Bantam Books (Mm) (1985-05)

Authors: Ken Jones and Hubert, Jr. Kelley

List price: $3.50

Used price: $0.59
Collectible price: $10.00

Average review score:

Send this title to Iron Bottom Sound!

Helpful Votes: 4 out of 4 total.
Review Date: 2001-10-10

Arleigh Burke might have been a great Destroyerman, but there has got to be a better book than this one. It is not written as history, it seems more like a book written by a journalist weaving back and forth between boring background trivia of an antiquated style (it details how ship commanders met their future wives at Annapolis) and an inordinate amount of time promoting Commodore Burke as God's gift to Destroyer combat. The details of combat Pre-Burke around Guadalcanal are well written but short. There are no references to information gathered from Japanese sources. Indeed, by the time Burke gets to actually fight the enemy they are a worn out, demoralized bunch, constatnly under air attack and on the retreat down the Slot. This book makes no effort to balance its view of Burke's successful doctrine of ship combat with the affects of poor logistics, poor maintenance, poor leadership, and overwhelming air superiority on his Japanese adverseries which are surely important subjects even as background to the final battles of the Solomon's Campaign.

Burke's Landed Gentry: The Ridings of York

Published in Hardcover by Burke's Peerage (2005-01-01)

Author:

List price: $259.00

New price: $194.06
Used price: $200.00

Average review score:

Faded Aristocracy

Helpful Votes: 1 out of 3 total.
Review Date: 2007-11-04

Burke's Landed Gentry is not what is used to be! The new volume on the Ridings of York shares information on the lineage of the old landed families with details of the nouveau riche of the county - or the "meritocracy" as the publisher labels them. As such is a hybrid between the old "Landed Gentry" and "Who's Who in Business". Doubtless, more copies are sold to members of the second category than those of the first.

Friday Night in the Big Town: The Life of Gary England

Published in Hardcover by Oklahoma Heritage Association (2006-12-01)

Author: Bob Burke

List price: $28.95

New price: $39.94
Used price: $39.95
Collectible price: $49.50

Average review score:

I really wanted to like this book

Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2007-04-02

I like Gary so I thought I'd check out this book. I read Gary's own book, Weathering the Storm, that came out in the late 1990s. That said, this is not a slam at Gary's work or life, but at this book.

One of my first impressions was that it read like a book that had to be self published because the author couldn't sell it to an established publishing house. You can almost imagine it as if the England family had someone put together a book about their geaneology that was just going to be distributed inside the family.

Starting with the first chapter, Burke writes as if this were one of those juvenile career series books. He fills space with explainations of why tornadoes form. In the next chapter, he starts writes about Gary's family, as if Burke were Alex Hailey, trying to get Gary back to Africa.

The parts after high school graduation are interesting because this is where the weather part (which is why I feel people read this book) starts. Even in the good parts, there is a need for editing. I can't see where it was necessary to include the model of radar installed at KTOK. That they installed a radar is relevant, the model number isn't.

Twoard the end, there is a chapter about 3 May 1999. For those who don't know, in terms of coverage, it's the 9/11 of weather. You'd expect to find Gary talking about his thoughts and fears about the storm, but what you get reads something like a timeline or chronology and police blotter. A made up example is: "At 4:15, the radar indicated a growing line of severe thunderstorms..." then "At 4:25, intense rain and lightning were detected..."

There are lots of good pictures and memories. In Burke's defense, I also read and enjoyed his biography of George Nigh. Maybe there was more and better research material for that one. One let down was that you knew things from reading Gary's book that you didn't get more or anything about here.

Heaven's Gate: Cult Suicide in San Diego

Published in Paperback by Harpercollins (Mm) (1997-05)

Authors: Bill Hoffmann and Cathy Burke

List price: $4.99

New price: $8.88
Used price: $0.86
Collectible price: $10.00

Average review score:

Tossed togather quickie.

Helpful Votes: 8 out of 8 total.
Review Date: 2004-08-28

This paperback was published less than a month after the Heaven's Gate mass suicide in March, 1997. It is a tossed-togather quickie "written" by the staff of the New York Post. In typical Post sensationalistic style, it covers the history of the cult and the mass suicide. As such it records useful information, but I'm amazed that no full length scholarly work has yet appeared on the Heaven' Gate episode.
Interestingly, I was in graduate school in Eugene, OR in 1975 when "Bo" and "Peep", the future Heaven's Gate leaders, came through town. I recall seeing ads for their presentation but, for lack of time, didn't go. Wish I had as I have a strong interest in why people believe in the type of pseudoscientific and paranormal crap Bo and Peep used to later lead dozens to their deaths.
But back to the book. It was clearly a rush job and abounds in errors and inconsistencies. On page 11 Hollywood is described as a place where stars "grinded" out films. GRINDED? The last time I checked, ther past tense of the verb "to grind" was "ground". On page 124 a "local" radio station in the area is described as receiving calls from "around the country". Still, what can one expect from New York Post writers? This is probably the best they could do.
In summary, this book does provide the basic details of the events of the Heaven's Gate cult suicide, and for that it has some value.

Burke Books