Burton Books

LOVES MUSIC, LOVES TO DANCE: Nona, a film maker, Darcy, owner of a small decorating business and Erin, a jewelry designer are good friends. Nona is filming a story about people and why they write personal ads. She talked Darcy and Erin into writing and answering a personal ad.

One night the three are to meet for dinner but Erin never shows up. Darcy becomes worried but Nona thinks Erin has just lost track of time. Unfortunately, Darcy's fears come true. Erin has gone missing. Even more to worry about is the re-investigation of a 15-year-old murder where the victim was found with one dancing shoe and one shoe she had been wearing. Can the two be related? Surely not!

There are three men in the picture. A doctor who is writing a book on people who write/answer personal ads, a philandering husband and a man who tells people he is Erin's agent. What do these three have to do with the fact that Erin is missing? Everything? Nothing? But wait; there is yet another man - the brother of the girl that was murdered 15 years ago. Darcy is attracted to him. Can this be a good thing or even a safe thing?

In investigating Erin's disappearance, more girls are found to have gone missing. Now the mates to the shoes found on the first victim turn up and other similar pairs are being found. What is happening? Where is Erin? Is Darcy safe? Grab a copy of LOVES MUSIC, LOVES TO DANCE and find out.


ALL AROUND THE TOWN: I have always been fascinated with the Multiple Personality Syndrome (MPS) and with the fact that one human being can inflict so much pain on another. With these two themes, Ms. Clark writes an engrossing tale of 4-year-old Lorie who is taken by Bic and Opal and kept for two years. She is then returned to her family with threats of death repeated to her many times before the couple lets her go.

Because of the fear Lorie lived with during those two years, other "people" have come to help her cope with life. Lorie is in college when one of her "people" show themselves to a professor. Then the professor is found dead and Lorie is accused. Sarah, Lorie's sister, is an attorney and takes up her case. A detective takes up Lorie's case to help Sarah prove her sister's innocence. Lorie goes into therapy to get help with the MPS and to discover who really killed the professor before the sentencing deadline causes Lorie to be sent to prison.

The story is fast-paced and well written. The two themes work well together and prove the listener with a tale that is hard to put down.


WHERE ARE THE CHILDREN: Nancy Harmon keeps to herself because seven years ago, she was on trial for murdering her two small children. During the trial, the prosecution's only witness goes missing so they are unable to prove Nancy committed the murders. Nancy is set free and flees to a small town in Maine where she meets and marries Ray Harmon, a real estate agent. Only Ray's assistant, Dorothy knows the truth about Nancy as Nancy wouldn't marry Ray until she told him the truth. Dorothy wants to be with Ray and Nancy but a client has scheduled a visit to a property that Ray has for sale. A Mr. Parrish lives in the apartment at the top of the house and isn't happy that Dorothy is showing the house this day.

Life begins again for Nancy and she has two more children, Michael and Missy. Nancy lets the children out to play and the horror of missing children begins all over again. Someone takes them and Nancy is the sheriff's main suspect. Now Nancy needs a lawyer and a neighbor comes to her aid. He is an attorney who is writing a book on the ten most famous unsolved murders, one of which is murder trial of Nancy.

Also in the mix is a psychiatrist that was a good friend of Nancy's mothers. When Nancy was put on trial for murder, he wanted to come to her aid but he didn't know if Nancy's mother had told her of their relationship and didn't want to add to her burden. But now he can't stay away and comes to help her try to remember the actual facts of the first set of missing children.

Her husband, Ray, doesn't believe for a moment that Nancy could hurt their children, nor does he believe she hurt her first children. With all the support of Ray, Dorothy, her attorney and her psychiatrist, Nancy is able to "let go" of some hidden thoughts. This, with the addition of a barely audible phone call from her son, Michael, brings the story to its conclusion.


I'LL BE SEEING YOU: Megan Collins is a news reporter with a law degree. Her mother, Katherine owns an Inn. Her father, Edwin, is supposedly dead almost a year because of a bridge/river accident but no body has ever been recovered. A few weeks before he died, he took all the cash value out of his insurance policies and the insurance company has yet to pay on the policies that is causing Katherine cash flow problems.

Megan is at the hospital covering a past senatorial candidate's illness when a stabbing victim comes in DOA. In covering the stabbing story, Megan sees a girl that looks to be her twin. She dismisses it. Then she is sent to cover a party held at the Infertility Clinic where all the children born with the help the Clinic provides gathers yearly. There is a mother about ready to give birth to her 3-year-old son's identical twin. What a story this will be Megan thinks. In the meantime, Megan goes to see Edwin's business partner, Phillip Cater and begins to clear out her fathers belongs so the firm can move on.

Not to give too much of the story away, Ms. Clark intertwines several stories into one and tells a story with all the intrigue only she can write. With a parking attendant and his mother, a former sweetheart and his son, a shady employee of Edwin's firm, a bio-geneticist doctor and several police and detectives, Ms. Clark brings the story to a spellbinding conclusion that only she can do.

This is pretty sweet. Yeah, he's my uncle. Pretty niffty huh? The songs are fun to play and are easy to sing to.

Coddle your Cat is a fun way to make your cat purr with pleasure! I tryed massaging my cat, Jip and he rolled over on his stomach! I don't think he could help himself! Coddle your Cat also has easy-to-follow instructions- which make it so fun to read, along with the cute color photographs and crafts! There are even cat horoscopes! (My cat is "Gemini") Coddle your Cat is really fun!

Ms. burton I simply love the way you writ and tell a story. you kept me waiting impatiently to get back to the book. I am a huge fan og mystery books and especially the ones withe suprising twists as a good mystery book should have. the main carachters are interesting and likeable. Thank you again for enjoyablr reading. I'm going to look out for others books you have written.

Best wishes,
Rickie Ben-Meir

Israel

One of America's preeminent and influential 19th Century authors, the short stories and poems by Edgar Allan Poe have intrigued the literary world and continue to be enjoyed by each new generation of readers. Now those readers can enjoy the revised and expanded biographical works of information available on this great author, which go beyond his literary works to give readers a view of Poe as an original thinker and major figure in American literary history. The knowledgeable and expert collaborative work of Burton R. Pollin and Jeffrey A. Savoye, "The Collected Letters of Edgar Allan Poe" have brought today's readers new and corrected information using the best available research drawn from the last four decades of Poe scholarship. Included in these handsomely designed, sturdy, and reformatted volumes are new letters, updated notes and a generous subject index with over 2,000 entries. More than double the original edition these boxed set two volumes contain 422 letters by Poe, with a number of fragments. A bonus for readers are 74 illustrations and a comprehensive check list of Poe's correspondence, also updated, to include over 1,000 entries! A core addition to academic and community library collections, "The Collected Letters of Edgar Allan Poe" is strongly recommended as an essential reference for scholars and any reader wishing to gain a better understanding of Poe.

THE COLUMBIA BOOK OF CHINESE POETRY : From Early Times to the Thirteenth Century. Translated and Edited by BURTON WATSON. 385 pp. (Translations from the Oriental Classics). New York : Columbia University Press, 1984. ISBN 0-231-05682-6 (hbk.)

Burton Watson has always struck me as an eminently civilized scholar and as a fine translator. Unlike certain others, he wears his scholarship lightly, and doesn't overburden the text with extraneous matter. His many translations from Chinese and Japanese Literature are of uniformly high quality, and are well worth having as they are books one often wants to returns to.

The present anthology has always been one of my favorite books. In contrast to the more recent mammoth anthologies of Victor Mair (1335 pages) and John Minford (1176 pages), Watson's, at a mere 385 pages, is a far more modest and manageable proposition.

Unlike the Mair and Minford, it can be held easily in the hand while reading, and it is printed in a large clear font on spacious pages in which the lines have room to breathe. Modest in size it is also modest in presentation. Selections are preceded by only the briefest of introductions, and footnotes have been kept to an absolute minimum.

In his brief but extremely well-written and informative Introduction, Watson tells us that : "The present anthology is intended to give a representative selection of Chinese poetry in the 'shih' form from the first two thousand years of China's long literary history ... as well as outstanding works in the 'fu' and 'tz'u' forms and a few other works such as the 'Li Sao' or 'Encountering Sorrow' that are unique in form" (p.13).

His book includes selections from 'The Book of Odes,' 'The Ch'u Tzu,' Early Songs, Poems in Rhyme-Prose Form, Poems of the Han and Wei, T'ao Yuan-ming, Wang Wei, Li Po, Tu Fu, Han Yu, Po Chu-i, Han Shan, Su T'ung-po, Lu Yu, and much else besides.

Here, as an example of his superb style, is his translation of Liu Tsung-yuan's 'River Snow' (with my obliques added to indicate line breaks) :

"From a thousand hills, bird flights have vanished; / on ten thousand paths, human traces wiped out : / lone boat, an old man in straw cape and hat, / fishing alone in the cold river snow" (p.282).

The truth of Burton Watson's statement that the "Chinese poetic world is one that is remarkably easy to enter.... Even works that are many centuries removed from us in time come across with a freshness and immediacy that is often quite miraculous" (p.3) is very much in evidence here.

Anyone who would like to get a good idea of what Chinese poetry is all about, and to actually enjoy the experience of finding out, should certainly consider the present anthology. Anthologies such as those of Mair and Minford are all very well in their way and can serve as useful references, but they are hardly books that one can sit down and read with pleasure from beginning to end.

Watson's, however, is just such a book, and I have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone who would like to begin exploring some of the richest and most interesting poetry in the world.

I have a complete set of James Burton Coffman's works. He is the best conservative Christian commenter. Hebrews is a difficult book. This text will help. Let me recommend the software version by ACS as your Bible research source. It is the best and easiest to use.

Burton has, in this book, produced a clear and lucid view of conflict resolution. Built upon the assumption that conflict stems from unsatisfied needs, Burton outlines a view of the world that challenges many of the deeply held shibboleths of power. To Burton, power is the antithesis of conflict resolution - to speak of using power in pursuing conflict resolution is an absurdity. Rather, one must seek to alter the conditions that permit needs satisfaction. A power approach seeks to change people to fit institutions, whereas Burton proposes that we change institutions to fit people.

Burton's work is challenging. It not always easily read, nor understood. Yet, what he has to say in central in understanding how conflict may be effectively resolved. His previous works, Controlled Communication and Deviance, Terrorism and War, do much to outline his view on conflict. Conflict Resolution is, in my opinion, his clearest expression of his vision for CR.

Anyone seriously interested in conflict resolution must read Burton's work. There are many who disagree with his views, but one cannot discount him. I think, too, many will find in time that his work has far greater explanatory power than they might have expected.

Read this book.

Burton Blatt, a native of New York City, earned his bachelor's degree at New York University, an MA at Teachers College Columbia University, and an EdD from Pennsylvania State University. While studying he was also teaching mentally retarded children. He became known nationally and internationally as an advocate for the rights of mentally retarded people. Friends who knew him best speak of him as a mentor and guide, as a teacher. Dr. Blatt was the author of 291 articles and books. He rose to national attention with the publication of Christmas in Purgatory in 1966, an expose of conditions in institutions for mentally retarded persons. He sent copies to all members of Congress. President Johnson called him requesting extra copies. In January of 1985, shortly after completing the manuscript for this book Burton Blatt died at the age of 57. Professionals in these fields and disabled people everywhere lost a true friend. His compassion and wisdom, however, live on in this book.

The Opera Journeys Mini Guide Series is just wonderful; it's like a "Cliff Note" of the opera, and extremely informative and educational. I particularly like the size; these guides are not cumbersome and fit right into my shirt pocket. The ladies will find sufficient room in their pocketbooks.

The story narrative with the music examples is excellent. I prefer it to a libretto; indeed, it's a much easier way to follow the essence of the story. The essay is magnificent; very well written, not pedantic, and extremely insightful and comprehensible. I congratulate Burton Fisher for a job very well done and Amazon for making these handy, information-laden booklets available. The Opera Journeys Mini Guide Series is a wonderful contribution to opera education and opera appreciation.

My tip: acquire the entire collection because you will be in easy reach of superbly presented opera guides consisting of story analysis, principal characters in the opera, story narrative with music highlights, background, analysis, and commentary.

Heinz Dinter, Ph.D.