Burns Books

This book is very well written and has a very complete understanding of the facts leading up to the war. Excellent for any research paper or even for a simple pass time.

It's such a relief to have the Siete Partidas available in this attractive, reasonably priced set. The venerable Robert I. Burns has given it a wonderful general introduction and the index increases its accesibility even more than the very clear translation does. No more ploughing through paragraph after paragraph of Old Spanish, in 19th-century print, to get to the enlightening and even entertaining ideas that so well characterize the 13th century and give sociological background to any kind of medieval research.

One of the unsung heroes of the Cold War is Maynard W. Glitman and his book is essential reading for anyone who seeks to learn the behind-the-scenes story of the hard work by dedicated diplomats who brought the world back from the brink. Part revealing memoir, part insightful diplomatic history, this is a remarkably thorough book that is essential reading for anyone who wishes to know how peace came in our time.

This book will keep you in stitches and make you smile. A great gift idea and a must read for speech givers from all over. Mr. Burns is a master of the quip, joke, story and knows how to get his points across.

Three government officials have been murdered and a Ute may have been killed on a remote part of Colorado. Jurisdiction seems to overlap between Federal, state, local, and tribal officials with everyone tripping over everyone else except the killer, who seems to have gotten away with murder. Denver homicide detective Gabe Wager has no jurisdiction so he is assigned to solve the case and end the bickering. ....... Gabe quickly realizes that he not only has to uncover a killer's identity, he has deal with all the various police authorities who have one thing in common: the desire to boss their compatriots. This leads to a lot of chiefs and one worker, Gabe. He soon realizes that there are plenty of motives and subsequently suspects. However, if Gabe does not identify the murderer soon, he will either go insane from the constant bureaucratic bickering or be killed by a murderer, who wants him out of the way. ...... Rex Burns is a great mystery writer, who always provides an intriguing and exciting novel. His latest book, THE LEANING LAND, is a fun read that refreshes Gabe Wager by placing him outside his element. The various law enforcement agencies add a Catch 22 comedic remedy to solving the mystery. Anyone who bets on reading this novel, will win their wager. ......Harriet Klausner

This is the first volume in what apparently is projected as a complete edition of the Works of Cardinal John Henry Newman, published jointly by Gracewing in England and by the University of Notre Dame Press in the United States, under the general editorship of James Tolhurst. Seven volumes have so far been published in the series, which is called The Birmingham Oratory Millennium Edition. I have been unsuccessful in finding any advertisement for the series. The scheme may be to publish at the beginning of the series, works by Newman which are more difficult to find in existing editions. So far as I have been able to determine, this edition of the Lectures is the first to be published in over 80 years.

Occasioned by the "No Popery" tumult which began in England in 1850, the nine Lectures were delivered in a weekly series at the London Oratory in the summer of 1851. Although "Addressed to the Brothers of the Oratory," the lectures were expressly meant to be popularly attended, and a cheap offprint of each lecture was available for purchase by those attending. Newman later edited the lectures for more formal publication, and it is that edited version which is here again made available.

Both newcomers to Newman's writings as well as his long-time fans should be forewarned that this work is very different from anything else he wrote. Nowhere else in the Newman oeuvre is satire so central or so sharply edged. I did not realize just how much of satirical comment I was reading until I was well along in this volume. That is perhaps because I am, or was, so unused to satire in Newman's writings. It is perhaps, too, because I am a twenty-first century American and not a mid-nineteenth century Britisher. Satire has of it something of humor and so it is unsurprising that just as different nationalities have different senses of humor they will have different appreciations of satire. And the line in satire between merely poking fun and simmering outrage depends for its detection on an intimate feeling for the social and historical context in which the satire is offered. The nuances in this work are not easy for us to appreciate, because we are not immediately familiar with the excesses of anti-Catholicism in Britain around the year 1851 when these lectures were delivered. Toward the end of the lectures Newman comments that Catholics should be willing to stand the ultimate test of martyrdom, which test, he added, should not be expected to come in Britain at that time. But he does not say it was unthinkable or that it simply could not happen. He clearly implies that the anti-Catholic hysteria, if carried a very little further, could indeed issue in blood in the streets. In fact, Catholics were attacked in the streets for no other reason than they were Catholics. Against that background, the precise nature of Newman's writing takes on more clarity.

That the lectures were received as satire of a high order is shown in the jacket art which reproduces a contemporary print (by Maria Giberne) of Newman delivering these lectures. Look carefully and you will see that even while Newman is addressing them with a deadpan expression, some or most of the audience are roaring in laughter. For the reasons I have mentioned, we have great difficulty in finding the lectures quite that entertaining. Undoubtedly, the manner of delivery was critical to the satire. Yet we can find it useful to consider the substance of Newman's remarks on the Elizabethan attack against Roman Catholicism.

Newman makes it clear that not all "Protestants" engaged in the anti-Catholic attacks that called forth his lectures. He is concerned only with a narrowly defined, although at the time populous, class of persons who would have found themselves at a loss had they not had anti-Catholicism with which to structure their religious lives. The case he makes out against the beliefs and behaviors of this class of persons is devastating. His incisive analysis of the religious bigot has perhaps not been improved upon.

This volume includes a very full (85 pages) stylistic and historical introduction, and extensive textual notes, by Andrew Nash, closely based on work he did as a student of the famous Newman scholar, Fr Ian Ker.

I particularly recommend this volume for those with an interest in Cardinal Newman, in Victoriana, or in the history of English religious opinion.

Our math teechur Miss Pippi Von Rottenpants made us do our math from this book. I don't get it. I thought math had numbers. This math has a bunch of letters. I'm totally confused by it. So A is worth 1 and X is worth 24? X + Y = 49 right? What if you're from Russia and you have like backwards R's and your E's look like N's?

Letters DO NOT belong in math!

This is a fabulous book well worth the investment. For children who have already had an introduction to fractions, this reviews some basics so that children who didn't get it the first time around have another chance, while children who did get it the first time aren't bored because the ways in which basic fractions are reviewed are interesting and novel. Lots of hands-on activities and problem-solving. After one math class, my students said it was the best math lesson ever because we played games the whole time. It's easy to be a better math teacher with this book.

As an upper-elementary school teacher, I have used the activities in this book to supplement the regular math textbook with students in grades 4, 5, and even 6. The lessons are all constructivist in theory, so they are all highly engaging for the students, and most of them do not require expensive materials to implement. The students loved the math games and hands-on activities, and I believe that they have helped the students to grasp a greater understanding of the concepts underlying multiplication! The lessons are pretty easy to follow and to assess the students' understanding. Please check out this book, as well as the many other titles by Marilyn Burns and/or Maryann Wickett... you and your students won't regret it!!!

This fantastic book taught me exactly how to build student understanding in place value, something I never felt my students fully grasped before. They always seemed to understand fine at the time, but a few months later they didn't see a problem when their answer to 19+14 came out to be 113.



The book includes many hands-on activities that build a SOLID foundation in place value that really stays with the students and supports them in all their computation and problem-solving experiences, not just for one stand-alone unit. I always knew I should use base ten blocks to help my students understand our number system, but didn't realize until I read this book that there were so many FUN activities to do with them! In addition to sequential "building-blocks" lessons meant for the beginning of the school year, this book also includes some lessons to use later in the year, particularly during units on multiplication and division. The lessons in this book do a great job building mental math skills for all 4 basic operations (including 2-digit and 3-digit numbers), and in the process many common student errors with the traditional pencil-and-paper computation methods are eliminated. (However, the authors explain how to support students in their efforts to make sense of the pencil-and-paper methods too). The authors include several literature-based lessons, such as adding the items in the book "1001 Things to Spot" and figuring how many items we have left to spot before the book ends.



The book is very user-friendly in that a basic step-by-step lesson plan is given for each lesson, and then readers are given a peek into how that exact lesson went in one of the author's classrooms, including word-for-word accounts of student responses, teacher responses to student misconceptions, teacher modeling, and so on. Extension ideas are included for students who need enrichment, as well as how to help struggling students, and frequently-asked questions are addressed at the end of each lesson. There are also periodic assessments in the back that ask students to show their thinking with drawings, numbers, and words, as well as sample student responses and the authors' notes on the student understanding or misconception represented in each sample. Instead of dreading that place value unit I knew I needed to teach each fall, it's now one of my favorite units of the whole year, all because of the ideas and support contained in this wonderful resource!