Burns Books

I think I read all of Max Schulman's books while attending Florida State University in 1947, the year FSU was born. Until then, except for The Holy Bible, I had read little fiction and suddenly realized what I'd been missing. The best part was talking with girls about my new reading habit. It apparently impressed them and I got laid a lot. Thanks, Max.

I first read this book in high school (in the mid '50's). I still haven't stopped laughing when I think about it. I want my h/s son to read it, since he's thinking about going to college soon. I think Asa's adventures would help him. Or, have I misspelled "Asa's name." I sure hope not. It's a great book, really, and are Shulman's others.

At the suggestion of my father, who read the book while in the AirCorp in WWII, I decided to read this book. I believe it to be one of the funniest books I have ever read! It is a timeless classic about a small town boy and his transition into college life. It covers all the problems that freshman face: going to see an advisor for suggestions on classes, the courses themselves, the attempt to make friends, the different type of people one meets on a university campus, and the homesickness one feels for their family and an old love. This book is a well written comedy that you will not be able to put down!

When I was in high school I was a big fan of the writer Max Shulman. He published "Barefoot Boy With Cheek" in 1943 when he was in his early twenties, a new graduate of the University of Minnesota. ("The University of Minnesota is, of coure, wholly imaginary.") There he had earned a reputation as the editor of "Ski-U-Mah," the campus humor magazine. He published a half dozen novels, two of which became musical comedies on Broadway, while two others became television series and movies. He is probably best known for "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis," which became a successful TV series, and "The Tender Trap," a movie starring Debbie Reynolds.

I recently came across a well-worn copy of "Barefoot Boy---" in a used-book store and read it again. It's an outrageous satire of college life, a story of the hilarious freshman year of Asa Hearthrug at the (imaginary) University of Minnesota.

"St. Paul and Minneapolis extend from the Mississippi River like the legs on a pair of trousers. Where they join is the University of Minnesota."

Asa is promptly registered into a liberal arts program in order to become a "well rounded-out personality," and is then recruited into the Alpha Cholera fraternity, where he emotionally joins in singing the frat song:

"Stand, good men, take off your hat
To Alpha Cholera, our swell frat.
In our midst you'll find no rat,
And don't let anyone tell you that."

He soon meets Yetta Samovar, and is promptly recruited into the Minnesota Chapter of the Subversive Elements League, where he emotionally joins in singing:

"Workers, workers,
Don't be shirkers,
There's a job we have to do.
Flee your prison,
Collectivism
Is the thing for you to do."

Back at Alpha Cholera he gets invited to a sorority song-title party at Beta Thigh, which he attends as "Tea for Two," with a silver tea service balanced on his head. His date, arranged by his frat brother, is the beautiful Noblesse Oblige, whose song title costume includes a smudge pot attached to her navel. "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," of course!

Asa becomes torn between Noblesse, the fraternity, and the Belongers, or Yetta, the Subversives, and the Unbelongers.

He loses his bid as the dark horse candidate for the student council, flunks all his classes, and returns to his home at Whistlestop and his girlfriend Lodestone La Toole.

Each chapter of the book is preceded by a penetrating quotation in French or Latin, like the one I chose as the title for this review.

An appreciation, or at least a tolerance, for silliness and absurdity is the minimum requirement to enjoy this outrageous satire of college life. I will highly recommend the book to those with that appreciation or tolerance.

You may or may not be aware of this characteristic of Minnesota Scandinavians: We LOVE to make fun of ourselves!

Having attended Brandeis University, this book is very accurate. It tells of the good, the bad, and the ugly. The college prowler series is great and I would strongly recommend it to anyone looking at a four year school.

Everyone looks at different things while searching for colleges. Some want rural, others want suburban, but really everyone just wants to find a place that feels like home to them. This information cannot be found using statistics alone. What high school students need is to hear about other people's experiences at college, and that is exactly what these guide books give. I am confident that Brandeis University is the school for me after reading this guide, and I recommend this product to anyone who is in the process of searching for their own college that would feel like home to them.

If you're having a hard time figuring out what college to go to, there's no better resourse than the College Prowler books. In most college guide books you get 3 pages about a college and most of the information is so generic, you can look it up on the school's website. College Prowler gives you about 150 pages of the purist information out there: information that comes right from the students. If you can't make up your mind about which college to go to, definitely check out these books. I think shelling out a couple of dollars to decide the next 4 years of your life is definitely worth it. And there's no better value than the College Prowler. Check it out for yourself.

The book explains it all....no one could possibly give this a bad review! YMMMDI !

"Bringing Down the Mountains" is only the latest in a line of books about West Virginia mining diasters, industrial carnage, and coal wars, going back to H.B. Lee's wonderful "Bloodletting in Appalachia" and Hubert Skidmore's heartbreaking "Hawk's Nest." You could fill an entire library room with these books. As a West Virginia native, my heart breaks whenever I read them. Most, like Ms. Burns' stirring expose of present-day mountaintop strip mining, show the most ruthless side of capitalism and Big Industry. And yet West Virginians have lately ignored the lessons of their own history of corporate exploitation and "gone Republican." Part of the problem is that the schools don't teach real state history and tell students about Buffalo Creek, Monongah, Union Carbide's Hawk's Nest tunnel, and the rest of the human tragedy and ecological degradation that seem so much a part of West Virginia, going back to the 1880s when the robber barons of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania essentially "colonized" the state and began mercilessly plundering its resources and grinding down the lives of its citizens. Like many Third World countries, West Virginia provides a bitter example of why large corporations, amoral by nature, should never be unregulated. It's a lesson, unfortunately, that too many West Virginians have either forgotten or never learned.

One of the most important books WVU Press has published to date is Bringing Down the Mountains, by Shirley Stewart Burns. This book documents the effects of mountaintop removal on human communities and is the best study to date. The author focuses in detail--with rigor of mind and fidelity of heart--on the human impact of moutaintop removal. MTR may as well be called "extractive desertification," both in ecological and sociological terms.

This book is already having an impact and is serving to link more and more voices around the most compelling criticisms of MTR. The author is the daughter of a coal miner and knows first hand what devastation this practice wreaks: like me, her hometown is being encroached upon by one of these sites.

Mountaintop removal is not coal mining and it does not participate in that cultural legacy. Those who work these sites are excavators, and their employment is short.

If you care about Appalachia, the most diverse temperate forests in the world, a major source of water, or the impact of globalism, read this book.

I personally know the author, Shirley Stewart Burns, and knew that the caliber of this story would be of the highest order. I was not surprised when I read it, and her emotional connection to the story and in particular the small mining communities of West Virginia shines through from start to finish. This is a story that should be read by all, as it highlights the power of the people and the ever increasing need for communities to rally behind a cause.
I congratulate Dr Burns on a wonderful, thought provoking and personally touching account. Even from the southern hemisphere where I am living, stories like this are relevant, and a number of my environmental friends have shown an interest in reading it.

I bought this book the day it hit the market and have read it twice. Dr. Burns lays out the case against mountaintop removal as only a native of southern West Virginia could. If everyone read this book the nation would finally understand the horror that is mountaintop removal, and take action to halt the practice. This is without doubt the authoratative academic work on this subject!

This story has all the components of a prototypical work of the western genre: gold mining, gun fights, poker games, bank robbery, rustling, necktie party, chase scenes, and, of course, romance. Unlike most westerns, however, this one keeps the reader in stitches. Mary Jane is one of the funniest characters you are bound to run across in your literary travels. Add in a good dose of the gospel, and a Christian lover of cowboy tales will find all the ingredients for a remarkable recipe between the covers of this book. Terry Burns is a master chef of literature. I strongly suggest you dine at this literary banquet table. You should consume Mysterious Ways as an appetizer, but it is not a requirement to totally enjoy the 2nd book of this series.
Donald James Parker
Author of All the Voices of the Wind.

Brother's Keeper is a humorously delightful story written from the hand of well-known western author and storyteller, Terry W. Burns.

From the first page Terry grabs our emotions as James Jackson faces the devastating loss of the family farm. With no way to provide for his aging mother, and his twin brother, Ross, long gone, James does the only thing a decent son can do. He heeds his ma's request and they go looking for Ross with all of their earthly belongings strapped into a wagon.

Terry has the gift of plopping you into the opening scene and not letting go until the last page has turned.

Wonderfully written!

Brother's Keeper is a engrossing and thought provoking story. It is a story about doing the right thing even when there may be a easier way and having the faith to believe that everything will turn out for the best. Most of all it is a story of hope, unconditional love and in knowing that it is never to late to ask for forgiveness.

To know Terry Burns is to love him, and Brother's Keeper will plunk you right down in the middle of Terry's heart. In spite of the book's light and humorous tone and its amazingly real "down-home" characters, Brother's Keeper delivers a serious and thoughtful message, enabling readers to "savor the flavor" long after they've finished the feast. An entertaining book that's every bit as real as its Texas author.

What I like about Burn This is it's mystery. There were many instances when I wasn't clear what people were talking about or why they were saying it. That ambiguity fuels the whirlwind nature of what ends up being a kind of hard luck love story.

Anna is a dancer, and the focal point of the story. She is surrounded by three men, Burton, a born-wealthy and successful writer, who may or may not be her boyfriend, Larry, her gay roommate and confidant, and Pale, the volatile brother of Robbie, whose death inspires the action.

As Anna struggles with the death of her best friend and dancing partner, all three men, who were also connected to Robbie must deal too with where they are in life, and why.

Eventually though, it comes to Anna and Pale....

And there the heart of Burn This lies. In the mystery of attraction.

Good play. Good characters. It goes into the ether areas, and made me wonder about passion, life's work, the force of personality, and tactics to winning and overwhelming hearts.

This was the first Lanford Wilson play I had read, so I didn't quite know what to expect. Though in the end I certainly wasn't disappointed. Without over-simplifying, "Burn This" is the story of the emotional turmoil associated with the death of a friend and an unlikely romantic pairing.

"Burn This" is a well-written play with both fleshed-out and believable characters. Wilson is able to convey meaning in subtle ways and does not bog-down the play with overly-verbose dialogue or obvious statements. He wonderfully weaves a story centered around a character we never even meet.

Moreover, Wilson deals with the issues and themes in the play appropriately -- not over- or under-playing their importance. For example, the entire focus of the play is not on homosexuality, nor should it be. But it is still a key part of the play, and receives the attention and focus it deserves without becoming overly-inflated.

I was lucky enough to see a production of this in New York in the fall of 2002, which was absolutely phenomenal. There was even a post-performance Q&A session with Lanford Wilson and the cast, which while brief, was very interesting. Nonetheless, seeing a live performance made the play even more powerful. (Of course, this was helped by having an excellent cast.) Even so, if you get the chance to see a production of "Burn This", don't hesitate to.

Every play Lanford Wilson writes is intelligent as well as passionate and dramatic. It is almost beyond belief how hard it is to combine all of these qualities in the same play. In "Burn This", Wilson is in top form. Pale (the male lead) is such a clearly written and deeply felt part that an actor does not have to fill in any gaps; if an actor can read well, he is assured of at least an above average performance. The dialogue is spicy, funny, sad, bitter and more. In movie terms, it is a Nicholas Cage part (although Malkovich originated it).

Pale's love interest and foil (the Joan Allen part) is not secondary to Pale because she has the power to heal him. A magnificent love story.

This play is a meaningful, and yet almost simple, masterpiece. The story unfolds with the death of a gay man, which ultimately brings an unlikely match closer together. Wilson's use of homosexual issues is the perfect sprinkling: it is not the main focus of the play, but gives it just the extra touch. This is how homosexuality should be written about in the theatre (or any form of entertainment). It isn't over-played or under-played, but just right.

I never enjoyed history classes in school, because I wanted to understand WHY events happened more so than when and where. Sarah Burn's "The Daughters of Juno, Chronicle I Matilda of Argyll" has renewed my interest in the history of the early settlement of the United States, the religious termoil in Europe, and the living conditions of that era.

Sarah has done a wonderful job bringing out the personality of the the characters, describing historical events, and weaving the characters into that history, giving the reader a true flavor why those events happened.

The romance and drama amoung the characters makes this book a "page turner" and draws you right into their lives. Sarah's obvious knowledge and background in teaching and studying the history of women is quite evident.

Congratulations on an excellent novel.

Once you pick this book up you will have a very hard time putting it down. The characters are alive and exciting. The journey is extrodinary adventure. The woman are strong, independant and share the same type of problems we still face today, yet in a time and place of incredible hardships that we could only imagine. I love this book and will wait with baited breath for the next. What a movie this would make

A marvelous and whimsical tale indeed; brilliantly told and magically illustrated.
3 thumbs up!!

So full of Gosh Wow that I can't wait for Chronicle II. The characters are complex and well developed - the historical context insightful and accurate - the plot patient and proportional... this may rival any and all other epic trilogies. And the pictures aren't bad either.

This is a brilliant book that not only makes the reader realize the devistation and heart ache involved in the history of Africa ,but also touches the readers soul by displaying the true emotions of human beings during such devious and devistating times. The detail and description in this book is so real, it bought me to tears on several occasions.

As a proofreader of this book, I am excited about the characters and the plot. After finishing the book, the characters seemed to be alive - people whom I had known for years. This is one book I did not want to end - and hope there will be a sequel. The characters were unforgettable. It also takes the reader into a time that he or she has probably not experienced, which educates the reader to some of the problems in Africa. The ending is great!

This book deptice a story of africa that one could see as a real life experince.
The writing reminds me of Wilber Smith.
Great book. Thank You Robert

A very strong story that surely leaves one wondering, I found the whole book to be excellent and full of good characters, this story should be turned into a movie.

As with all of Eleanor Burn's books the instuctions are easy to follow and presented in a logical step by step format. Her books are great for both the visual learner- with great pictures and diagrams as well as those who learn by the written instructions. Eleanor has never disappointed me- - Ive taught several people to quilt by using her books as starting points.

Sue Banholzer

WONDERFUL BOOK , ENJOYING IT VERY MUCH . GREAT TRANSACTION

This book arrived in the condition that was described and in a short amount of time. All that I expected. :-) Thank you

I have always liked Eleanor Burns books because they are so easy to understand. She breaks down the creation of a quilt in easy understandable terms. I also like the fact she discusses the history of this quilt. I find her books very comfortable to read and use. They encourage me to quit dreaming and start quilting!

This is a real eye opener of a book if you are looking for an in depth retrospective of the artist's body of work! Burne-Jones is at last receiving his fair due of recognition as witnessed by the recent Met show in the Summer of 1998. This book showcases his many merits, including a unerring color and design technique applied to fantastical subjects. What makes the book so irresistible is the wealth of color plates accompanied by detailed explanations. It also helps that the authors were thoughtful enough to leave out any stuffy, academic narrative that overburdens this genre.

As I only had about 30 minutes to view this exhibit at the Met (I know - it's absurd), I am delighted to have this beautiful catalog to examine in close detail. The reproductions are indeed stunning, and the text, although very detailed, is quite readable. A treasure for art lovers, especially fans of the Pre-Raphaelite style.

This edition of the catalogue for the Metropolitain Museum of Art's recent(and sadly closed) exhibit belongs on every art library's list of " must buys." What a wealth of information and imagery, all presented in generous counterbalance in splendid color throughout. Buy this!!

To visit the Burne-Jones exhibition at New York's Metropolitain Museum of Art is a thrill beyond describing. It is like being surrounded by old friends of the sort usually found in dreams.The stunning, fully illustrated catalogue that accompanies the show is perhaps the best catalogue I have seen, most notably for its impeccable and stimulating essays, and for its phenominal wealth of color reproductions. This book is a stunner, despite two or three flipped pictures( which I guess could happen to anyone in the rush to get such an involved publication ready in time!) I would advise all bookshops, libraries and Burne-Jones lovers to order this book now for its September release. It is sure to be the most valuable book on its subject for many years to come.

The story pulls you right in, and keeps you turning pages until you're through. Spot-on descriptions of the defense-contractor world, and a truly empathetic view of depression. Wonderful story!

If you want to be captively held in suspense by the plight of the characters throughout the novel, emotionally drawn into the story as if you are a part of it, and thrilled by the ending, READ this book!!! This book is truly outstanding, my stomach was in a knot and I couldn't put it down until I finished it, and I was quite surprised and pleased by the ending!!

This was a great read! I wish that Keith Parker had another novel published - he is an engaging writer and I enjoyed this book very much.

What an amazing story! If you or anyone you know has ever suffered from depression, you need to read this book. Strong characterizations and a fascinating plot. Don't miss this one. It's like someone took Pat Conroy's dysfunctional characters and crossed them with a Stephen King novel.