Burnett Books

This book was a total waste of time. Full of high-blown, flowery prose, lofty hypotheses, and absolute nonsense. Sometimes a Ph.D thesis--which this apparently was before the University of Chicago Press was convinced to publish it--ought to remain a Ph.D. thesis. A waste of trees, a waste of ink, and a waste of time. Save your money and read the yellow pages--you will enjoy it more than Masters of All They Surveyed

As an aficionado of the history of the British Empire, I found this book to be very informative and readable. Knowing nothing of the subject beforehand, being easy to read is important. The erudition of the author's style may intimidate some, but, in the end, it is precisely the element of the book which carries the reader beyond a mere chronology of events and through synthesis and interpretation gives perspective and colour to what comes out as an adventuresome story, well told, about, of all things, surveying. The experts in the field will probably have their nits to pick, just as Schomburgk had to deal with the RGS and Harrison had to suffer the nabobs of longitude, and the bridge-builder at Szavo had to contend with the lions, but the story will remain alive long after the lions are stuffed and relegated to museums.

An interesting, well researched book about Robert Schomburgk's attempts to obtain a place for himself in history within the context of setting forth British Guiana's borders using the science and land surveying techniques available to him in the 19th century. The prose of book, however, is what native Guyanese would call 'high falautin' and, toward the end, I disagree with a few of his political theories on modern Guyanese politics; moreover, significantly, there is some repetition. In the end, Graham adds a human and scientific aspect to the discourse concerning the disputed boundaries. The editors should have allowed for a rewrite and/or the author should not have rushed to market or allowed for more maturity. I would recommend the paperback.

I was a Burnett once. I worked in LB Taiwan for couple of years since I have graduated from the univeristy. According to publish "100 Leo's" Chinese edition, I have joined all the processes, and read it over and over to find ideas out to develop the launching news release. I do love what Leo Burnett insists about Advertising which is his favoirte career. Even though the sentences are very short, they all are smart words which make people to think deeply. I'd like to re-read it when I met some problem in my job - even I am not in an advertising related company now. And the most important thing is : I made myself a "star reacher" after having worked in LB. I do love Leo Burnett, and look forward to see more books about LB to be published in the future.

If you're expecting an informative book with insight into the world of advertising, you will be disappointed. This is a postcard sized collection of two line quotes few of which are inspiring or even funny. Retain your respect of Leo Burnett, don't buy this book. Darren Morris Advertising Manager Online Interactive

This is a thorough book on IMC and all tools needed to do so, providing the reader with a sound basis to build from. Being an academic, I believe in a solid theoretical foundation and to learn from case studies.
A good read for beginners in IMC.

The book is a good example to follow if you want to rip of your fellow humans. Following the different stages in the communication process, you will find yourself biting your own tail several times. You read the same stuff over and over and over again, and never seem to get grip of the essence of it. I would not recomend anybody to spend $77,33 on it, unless you collect marketing books just for fun.

From an academic point of view, the book may have elements that can provide insights into IMC. However, the book is too repetitive and detailed to provide any practical use. In my opinion you can get better value for your money buying another book.

This book examines the conspiracies in present-day life, both hidden and public. It looks at the social networks, corporate alliances and forces of secret history holding them together.

For many years, there has been speculation about secret, shadowy groups who actually control the world. As far as America is concerned, the authors examine groups like Skull and Bones, the Illuminati, the Freemasons and the Bilderberg Group, but none of them really fit as the Group In Charge. According to the authors, a much more plausible place to look is the New York based, and un-secret, Council on Foreign Relations. For most of the 20th Century, it has been the place to go for new administrations to fill their defense and foreign policy jobs.

The book also looks at the role of money in the present day (money really does make the world go round). America's central bank was founded in the early 1900s by a group of bankers during a very secret meeting at a place called Jekyll Island, Georgia. The new institution was specifically called the Federal Reserve System to get away from the words "central bank." Banking and secrecy seem to go together perfectly. That is part of the reason why governments and corporations move hundreds of billions of dollars around the world at any time, in search of the most favorable tax rates. Sometimes, banks are formed specifically to hide, or finance, illegal activities; two recent examples are BCCI and the Nugan Hand Bank from Australia.

Another avenue for corporations to reinforce their power is through institutions like the International Monetary Fund. It was intended to provide short-term loans to member countries. After the 1980s debt crisis, it now imposes harsh financial conditions on member states alongside its loan packages. It serves Wall Street and wealthy countries; it promotes corporate welfare and has no accountability, and it hurts workers, women and the environment.

This is an excellent book with a lot of information that will not be found in the mainstream media. It is really easy to read, and will certainly keep the reader interested.

This book provides more data for a basic premise already familiar to many of us, that exclusive enclaves of people who run corporations, government and quasi-governmental bodies, and others secretive, manipulate the world to their own ends and much to the harm of millions innocent. It does so through a would-be collage of illustrations that don't connect well to each other nor combine to build a whole greater than the sum of its parts. The presentation suggests someone wanting to capitalize on their career experiences more than a scholarly work that advances our collective understanding of critical topics.

For eminently more worthwhile investments of study effort, refer to works by Klare, Gelbspan, Chomsky, and J. Kunstler.

Safely bypass this book. Can be somewhat intriguing to someone without a glance of critical thinking. This book doesn't even answer the question in the title. A collection of well-known facts, some minor factoids of the tabloid level ("Bush executive order # 12345"), just overview of publicly available information, generous use of word "conspiracy" - all this without a strong plot, jumping from topic to topic, and absence of quality argumentation or intriguing facts. Not a single reference to other documents or research in the end of the book - that alone tells you it is an exercise in futility. Zero stars.

It's sad that the one-star reviewer on this page just didn't get it. It happens at some point to all of us. Compton-Burnett is an unusual writer, true. She is not a "realist". "Do people really speak this way?" he asks. Strangely enough, there are no actual people inside the covers of this book - only characters. And characters in literature speak any damned way the author pleases. Did King Henry IV speak in verse? This may not be one of Ivy's top five (I particularly recommend "Manservant and Maidservant"), yet it is still quite distinctive and enjoyable. But it's a highly literary fantasy/satire. If you enjoy Peacock, Firbank, Beerbohm or Schuyler, this is your cup of tea. "Germinal" it's not.

"The rich are different from us," Scott Fitzgerald is reputed to have once said to Ernest Hemingway -- to which the celebrated Nobel Prizewinning author is said to have (obviously with tongue in cheek) replied: "Yes, they have more money." Now whether Hemingway was speaking in a kind of jest, or whether the whole thing, like Oscar Wilde's declaration of his genius at the New York Customs House, was apocryphal, we will never know for sure; yet the point is well taken.

The rich ARE different. But only in an economic sense. Human nature remains human nature. And it seems the novelist's job is to illuminate the conundrums of the human condition for the reader. So why do Compton-Burnett's characters speak in what is best described as an almost inscrutable language? Yes, the characters in her novels are quite different, but it's difficult to believe people do or have ever spoken like this; it's difficult for the reader to identify with or sympathize over characters such as these being portrayed here. It's a Jacobean or a Herculean struggle for the reader to read this odd, quirky, mostly dialog-laden prose of this strange, albeit unique writer.

So to any reader comptemplating dipping into this author's almost impregnable prose, unless doing it out of an academic exercise or personal sense of obligation, I would issue a strong caveat -- be advised: don't. Not unless you're the masochistic type or the type who enjoys the monumental struggle of trying to ferret out meaning from virtually every sentence, having to read twice or thrice, so much so, that quite often the reader is left adrift in a sea of uncertainty as to where he or she is in the course of the story; you'd be well-advised to pass this up.

Still, I am aware that there are reviewers, readers and critics who swear by this author, as being an acute observer of the human condition. Fair enough. But what I would want is to read an author who does not take language and twist and bend it into an instrument of his or her own choosing and give it an almost alien life to that found in this one in which we live. To those who find meaning in her works for them, I say fine, and best of luck. This reviewer doesn't. For communication should be of more substance than merely the esoteric. It should speak to all.

Nevertheless, there are artists who are considered great and are virtually laden with layers of interpretation and enigma, providing commentators and scholars with plenty of work to last some of them -- and us -- a lifetime: Joyce, Faulkner, Proust, Picasso, and on and on.

Let there be no mistake: I am not a stranger to difficult writers, having worked my way through a good portion of them. Start with the works of Shakespeare and go on to that of Faulkner, Henry James (with the exception of WHAT MASIE KNEW, which is one of those books James wrote, like the writer under discussion, which seems to be a kind of closet drama and an insoluble puzzle) and Joyce's ULYSSES, the latter twice and well understood. Even Thomas Pynchon in our own time, who is quite a challenge; even he yields much pleasure, much wit. Never, I say, had I had the kind of comprehension struggle with those mentioned, and even boredom I had with Compton-Burnett. Besides, I have been through a great deal of 18th and 19th century British literature; yet never have I encountered the kind of resistance I get with this author.

A FAMILY AND A FORTUNE is the kind of novel one rejoices in seeing come to a merciful conclusion. I think perhaps a large part of the problem rests more with the reader than the writer. Perhaps. For I suspect this is a woman's book, with a woman's perspective and a woman's sensibility. Consider, for example, this kind of sentence:

"Oh, don't let us joke about it. Do let us turn serious eyes on a serious human situation."

Oh. Do people really speak this way? Even English people of the upper classes? I'm not persuaded. Why not say something like this: "Oh, let's not be funny, but do be serious about this." There are oh so many other examples of this kind of thing that could have been cited. But I'll spare the reader further examples.

This reviewer has been visiting the U.K. for over a fifteen-year period in summers and has never had the kind of epic struggle in understanding them (except in Scotland) that I find here.

Again, I cannot recommend this author to most readers who read for pleasure, which, after all, is the goal of almost any book that purports to be published to be read. The other kind is the kind that the writer writes for the writer's own benefit. In other words, a self-indulgent undertaking. But its author is gone, and like the Faulkners, the Jameses, et al. of this world, will never return to remedy and make clear what, in many respects, should have been made clear for the reader in its original incarnation. The only reason I embarked on this arduous struggle is the fact that I had a professor -- highly regarded and respected in his time in matters of taste and subtlety -- who mentioned this in the context of a lecture on MACBETH. In short, I wish he hadn't.

I have encountered numerous errors in the practice tests. I will contact the publisher to see if there is a correction suppliment available. I will update the review as appropriate.

I'm a big W.R. Burnett fan. I love his great crime novels: Little Caesar, High Sierra, Asphalt Jungle. When I stumbled upon this title, I thought, oh, this is going to be good. Unfortunately, it's not. It chronicles the game from the perspective of an anonymous, contrarian, supposedly wise ex-ballplayer. But the wisdom here seems very ill-considered, at times downright wrongheaded 40 years down the road. The whole take seems dated and tired. It's just no good -- and a real disappointment coming from Burnett.

This very slim paperback (45 pages) is so small that for a moment I thought amazon had sent me an empty box! It reads like a rough draft or an outline to be expanded into a full size book. Having read and loved "The Little Princess" for years, this book offered no surprises, only mild disappointment. Some characters are missing, such as Sara's "fellow prisoner". There are contradictions; first Sara cries for several days after her father leaves and a few pages later, it says that Sara never cries.

If you want to read a fairly detailed synopsis of the book, then this paperback will work, or if you simply want to round off your collection. Otherwise, stick with the real thing.

Betty Burnett's book is nothing more than a compilation of weekly news magazine articles available after the bombing. This is a book that belongs on a middle school shelf. I realize now that Rosen publishing does scholastic books. There are only 65 pages in the book from forward to appendix. There is only one first person account of the bombing. The heroic work of the crew is not discussed in any detail. There was a fantastic opportunity to discuss the challenge faced by the female chief engineer Deborah Courtney to save the ship; a first I believe in the anals of naval lore.Many of the pictures do not belong in the book as they are not of the Cole.I will donate the book I bought to my local middle school library.

Not much of a book - more of a phamphlet.
It is for the 1st grade learner on colon health.
Small information on a large subject.