Burke Books

This was bought as a text book for Science and Technology. Its not a class I particularly like, so take my review with a grain of salt. Its not the information isn't easy to read. It's even fairly interesting. But when studing for a test, its hard to look up information. The chapter names are cleverm but thats not helpful when looking up a specific answer. There is an index, but it could have been a bit better.

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.

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.

This is a fantastic book (binder) for anyone who wants a good history of old Title Insurance law.

Unfortunately, and in spite of regular "updates" since the first printing (the most recent in 2006), the author completely ignores Homeowner's Policies of Title Insurance - the ALTA / CLTA policies that are now standard in many jurisdictions.

These new policies include a much broader array of covered risks, as well as significant after-the-policy-date coverage, but none of this is covered in the book. So if you want to fight an old fight, or study history, this is a good purchase. But if you want a good review of current policies, you'll have to go elsewhere.

To date, the best up-to-date book I've found on this subject is Miller & Starr, California Real Estate 3D, but even this is somewhat vague when it comes to applying the new policies to practical situations.

This book was not what I expected, it might have been my fault for not reading carefully the description of this product. I don't like at all that the vast majority of the book is in English and a few German words are mixed in the story. I think this doesn't help at all. I have other books and Cds that are also for kids that want to learn German as a second language and everything you hear is in German. I think this approach is much better and I have used these products with my kids and have seen how they enjoy them and are starting to pick up words and understand what is being said.

In August 1995 Windows 95 was launched and in just three years about 140 million computers around the world use Windows 95.

The book MS-Windows 95 6 in 1 at the very onset is targeted at beginners who have had no experience with the Windows platform. It has fairly little for the advanced user. The book, as obvious, is divided into six parts. Part-I deals with absolute basics such as taskbar, moving windows etc. The book is highly visual oriented with lots of labeled screen shots to aid the step-by-step approach followed in the book. The terms are well explained. It often lists down more than one method to perform a particular job. Part-II deals with configuring yours Windows environment using Control Panel. The book talks about Screen savers, Sounds etc. Once again the book discusses only the familiar features of Control Panel and advanced features like System do not make an appearance. Part-III rises little above the bare basics as it deals with the networking capabilities of Windows 95 like accessing shared files, providing your files as shared files, setting up a Fax Modem. An appealing feature of this book is explanation of each and every option in various dialog boxes.

The book covers a brilliant discussion on the Web-Interface (the most touted feature of the sequel to Windows 95). Part-IV and V deals at length with Internet Explorer and its various components like Outlook Express, Front Page express. It also talks about the changes Active Desktop brings about in your windows and interface. It also explains various Internet Protocols and how to access various web-related services like subscribing to News Groups, viewing web sites. Part-VI titled "Real World Solutions" is a little misnomer as it does not talk about any Windows Programming solutions rather certain abstract but necessary topics like OLE, E-mail etiquette, viruses. The appendix mentions about MS-Plus! pack and new features in OSR2 release of Windows 95.

One thing that keeps bugging you while going through the book is that lot of text is repeated (with little or no changes) in subsequent chapters. If you have just bought a PC loaded with Windows 95 and wondering how to get your way through then this is the book. Advanced users should look elsewhere.

(375 Words)

This is for beginners only. Not any in depth information about Lotus Notes.

I'm a graduate student (Ph.D. level program) and was looking for materials I could use for references in my school psychology class. I also have a child with delayed social skills, so I had a more personal interest in looking at this book.

I found this book to be of little use, professionally as well as personally. The research was sorely lacking, and the tips and suggestions were fairly rudimentary and geared toward lower elementary school youth.

There are far better products out there, so save your money. I sent this one back.

While the topic is of great interest the authors have stretched their resources in attempting to build a comprehensive guide to the underground railroad in Washington County, Ohio. The book begins by showing over 22 photos of riverbanks and trees. This repetition quickly snuffs out the interest the reader has on the topic. Much of the following information has been printed time and time again in newspapers and other underground railroad texts. The text and photography do not come up to the standard of Mr. Burke's earlier works and unfortunately do not do him justice.

This unpretentious book, just 110 pages, is at its best when sticking close to its source material; the thirteen-page chapter on shipboard procedures stands out as most valuable. The moment it moves into analysis or background, things become shaky. Perhaps the best example is the discussion of ship displacement in inter-war naval treaties, which the author gets exactly wrong and which has no direct relationship to the subject anyway.
Chronological disorder afflicts the first chapters - flashbacks, fast-forwards, digressions, and wholesale shifts in time. The first sentence on page 12 says Graf Zeppelin's keel-laying followed the launch of the battleship Gneisenau by twenty days; the very next sentence separates the events by two years. Apparently Burke has time-traveled to the carrier's launch without telling us. He eventually manages to confuse even himself. On page 27, the Germans "visited Britain's HMS Furious being displayed during Navy Week for some inspiration, but would gain little from this early carrier. They would be more successful in their visit to Japan and the carrier Akagi, returning with plans for elevators and aircraft arrestors essential for flight-deck operations" - hardly revelatory for a reader who encountered the exact same information on page 15.
Another round of proof-reading and fact-checking would have helped. In mentioning American officer McDonnell and the attack on Pearl Harbor, Burke manages to misspell both McDonnell and Pearl Harbor. He correctly identifies Slavnyi as the vessel ultimately responsible for sinking Graf Zeppelin but cannot say whether Slavnyi was a submarine or a destroyer. (She was a destroyer, as can be readily found in numerous sources.) He cites a well known excellence of German warships as seaboats when in fact German warships of this period had famously poor sea-keeping.
The book includes a couple dozen photographs of indifferent quality. There is no index, but the bibliography lists some worthy titles. Much to my delight, Burke uses footnotes rather than endnotes. I would like to have seen more sourcing; the most substantive sections have few footnotes. One irritating feature was the presentation of extended quotations, several paragraphs long, without distinctive formating or punctuation other than the opening and closing quotation marks, which might be a page or more apart.
The back cover comment - "Read now, for the first time..." - clearly targets readers unfamiliar with a subject covered by four books already sitting on my shelf. Siegfried Breyer's book Graf Zeppelin (AJ Press, 2006) gives perhaps the best English-language account (not to be confused with another Breyer book from Schiffer, 1989, much shorter but more easily acquired). M.J. Whitley's German Capital Ships of World War Two is also an excellent source. Most comprehensive is Ulrich Israel's German-language Einziger deutscher Flugzeugträger Graf Zeppelin.
Now, I've gone on a bit in trying to give examples for all my criticisms, but Without Wings does contain a good amount of information. I think Burke hurt himself with his reliance on document ADMT 19137 from the National Archives which he cites throughout the book. Why is this bad? Because there is no such document. Presumably Burke means ADM 1/19137 ("Report on German aircraft carrier GRAF ZEPPLIN [sic]"), but fumbling his own primary source a dozen times tends to erode his authority. Misnaming the torpedo boats in Graf Zeppelin's final weapons trial, misunderstanding the requirements of Atlantic operations - with too many errors, Without Wings must content itself as an interest-sparker rather than a reliable reference.