Burton Books

Business Basics Bestseller 1: The Easy, Interesting, Open-book Look at the Game of Business Numbers! 2nd Edition


Some readers are looking for a basic start for finance and accounting (F&A)concepts and terms before tackling important topics like Cost-Volume-Profit. If you never had this stuff explained to you before, you will like "Business Basics Bestseller 1" as a starting point. This is not a suggestion that you substitute it for this book, just that you check it out as well. The BBB #1 book was written by a guy who is not an accountant -- imagine what that can do for cutting through the jargon accountants love without even knowing it.

BBB #1 will introduce you to the basics of business including the terms behind the numbers and where all the formulas come from before you plow into a true "finance and accounting" text. There are no "debits" or "credits" in this book or "double-entry accounting" rigamarole. Search for "Business Basics Bestseller 1" and add it to your consideration. It can be one of your best investments. At less than 150 pages, you can zip through it enjoyably before tackling tougher stuff on the topic.

Here is a "must read" for anyone owning or starting a small business. This is not a "Small Business for Dummies" book, and not a business school MBA text. This book is "Just Right", filled with proven techniques and sound strategies to guide you through the complex maze of critical accounting and financial issues.

These are things you must know or at least understand, for your business to survive and prosper. For example; CASH FLOW: probably the most important concept for the small business owner to understand. You have to plan for growth or it will kill you. TAX LIABILITIES: taxing authorities can be brutal. Be Prepared! INSURANCE REQUIREMENTS: what you need to know and some helpful tips. BUDGETING: It's not that hard. REPORTING REQUIREMENTS: Plan for it and it's easy. RISK MANAGEMENT, COST-VOLUME-PROFIT-RELATIONSHIP, STAFFING and INVENTORY LEVELS, CAPITAL ACQUISITIONS, FINANCING SOURCES, PERFORMANCE TRACKING. These are all covered in sufficient detail to understand and put into practice.

As a past owner of a small businesses, I was unprepared for the level of sophistication required to run a small business. This book is be an invaluable reference to have available, if you own a business or are thinking about starting one from scratch. The key to business health is "no surprises".

There are also many ready-to-use forms, checklists, sample spreadsheets and calculations showing practical applications of real-world examples. These are not the dreaded debit/credit type stuff in accounting texts. These are easy to understand examples. After all, that's the whole point of the process. Enough information to manage your growing business.

Even if you are turning over these functions to your staff, you should understand what's going on, what's coming up and how to prepare for the future. Highly recommended, 5 stars for this book.

I liked this book. But I didn't think it was a page-turner. It was full of great content, and covers accounting and finance topics related to the starting and operating of small businesses. It is comprised of 9 chapters, and is split into the following three parts:

1. Preparing to operate the business
2. Operating the business
3. Evaluating the operations of the business

Early in the book it is stated that the book was written for business owners and managers who want to REFINE the accounting and financial operations of their companies. The keyword in the last sentence is "refine." The reader is assumed to be somewhat competent with regard to accounting and finance for a small business, and by reading this book they are supposed to be able to refine their existing accounting and finance functions. If this assumption is accurate, then this book will prove to be well worth its purchase price. If this assumption is inaccurate, then the book will not be well received.

I found the book rather dry. It tended to jump right in and make its points in each chapter rather than easing the reader into what the subject matter was and then providing comments, solutions or whatever regarding that subject matter. I recently read a book called The It Factor (ISBN: 0814474373) which stresses the importance of communicators to make a connection with their audience in order to effectively communicate with them. I think the authors of this book could improve their writing style if they were to incorporate the message of The It Factor into how they write.

Earlier this morning I read a book titled Financial Intelligence (ISBN: 9781591397649) which discusses the basics of accounting and finance to help small business owners or managers "manage by the numbers." I think the instant book being reviewed would be a wonderful follow-on book to Financial Intelligence. And anybody who is not well versed with accounting and finance would do themselves a great service by reading both books.

Accounting and finance are jargon-filled subjects. The terminology used in both is uncommon and pretentious to many people. Authors that write in these subjects should be cognizant of this fact and pay special attention to writing so they connect with their readers. This book in many ways is fairly well written. But in my humble opinion it could have been a lot better if the authors had worked harder at connecting with the reader. 4 stars!

My husband and I are starting a small business and need to learn the basics of non-personal financial planning and budgeting. Maybe this book will be useful to you if you have these after your name (like the authors); Ph.D., CPA, CFE, CMA, CIA, CDP, CSP, CPM, and CPIM. I don't even know what half of those stand for!

I found their use of jargon and vocabulary posturing (gee, how many big words can we fit in one sentence?) hard to read. I was so busy just trying to figure out what they were saying (in simple terms), that I couldn't absorb the lessons they were trying to teach. The books is filled with things like, "Another strategic issue involving production capacity is the anticipation of changes in the corporate break-even point as the result of adding extra capacity". Ugh.

I forced myself to read the entire first chapter and part of the second, but could go no further. I scanned other sections of the book to see if it ever got any better, but it didn't.

If you have some financial background and need to know more, then this may be the book for you. If you are trying to find simple step-by-step instructions and general information about setting up a small business budget, and you don't have a financial background, I would advise you to look elsewhere.

The Case Against "Jesus" is the most important book on Christian religion ever produced. It makes all other books on the subjects of Jesus and Christian religion irrelevant. The book proves, by irrefutable evidence, that "Jesus Christ" is nothing more than an invention of ancient Hebrew scribes and that the entire New Testament consists of fiction. The revelations in this book are shattering to the beliefs of Christians or anyone who has thought of the Jesus story as historical fact. But the truth had to come out sometime, and now that Burton Wolfe has proved that the story is fiction, all believers will have to face that fact. - Susan Loebl, Marketing Consultant

Burton Wolfe's book doesn't just speculate on whether or not Jesus actually existed and whether or not the New Testament is fiction, it proves it by irrefutable evidence. This meticulously researched book is fascinating in it's content and qualifies as an IMPORTANT book that deserves a place on the bookself of anyone who is interested in religion, especially those whose common sense tells them much of the bible and Christianity in general is more mythical than real.

Being raised as a strict Catholic, I often wondered why I should worry about burning in hell if I ever got hit and killed by a truck without doing 'confession' or even burning in purgatory for years if your friends or relatives don't pray for you after you die. Reading Burton Wolfe's latest book 'The Case Against Jesus' explained so much to free you from that fear that it is difficult to put the book down after the first few pages. The constant revisions and contradictions in the Bible proves that the Christian institutions are desperate to maintain their flock and reading the book helped me realize that.

I mean it! This is an absolutely AWESOME parody of the absolutely worst arguments used against the existence of a historical Jesus. Truly! I commend Burton Woof -- er, Wolfe -- for this tremendous contribution to historical Jesus studies. No joke! I mean, just in the section on Tacitus, look at these wondrous, never-revealed facts:

* Peter Jennings was a "propagdanist" for Christianity!
* PBS is Christianity's "private broadcasting service"!
* Annals 15.44 is a forgery! Heck, the entire Annals are a forgery! Yes, just forget what is said by dozens of classical and Tacitean scholars and textual critics; Burt KNOWS the real score! Wooo hooo!
* No copies of Tacitus date earlier than the 15th century! Right on, Burt! You TELL those Tacitean scholars like Mendell how WRONG they are that that copy from the 11th century was actually in their imagination!
* Whiston's translation of Tacitus is the ONLY one out there! The rest are just your imagination!
* You have to be an "imbecile" to accept any of the Annals as historical fact! Ronald Syme was an imbecile! So are Mendell and all the rest! You go Burt! I always KNEW imbeciles ran Tacitean studies!

I can hardly wait to write my own book verifying Woof's findings! And I plan to do that just as soon as I go and hit myself on the head repeatedly with a giant wooden mallet!

Burton Visotzky, in his down-to-earth voice, brings a new way of reading the heavenly work. He looks critically at Genesis 25-50 and in doing so opens it up to less experienced readers as well as people very familiar with the Bible. While some of his interpretations are "out-there" and others even mildly offensive to traditional readings, all are interesting and inspire as well as encourage original thinking. The Hebrew Bible may be the most read work in Western Civilization but Visotzky's book opens the reader's minds to new ways of thinking and new possibilities as to what is really there and how to relate that to contemporary life.

Rabbi Visotzky brings light to the events of Abraham's family in a way that few commentators have really explored. His insight into midrash and Tanach blends this ancient world with his insight of the dynamics of today's family. He creates refreshing and believable discussions of some of the most controversial topics and applies their relevance to us today. I personally feel much more comfortable and secure in the classroom now that I have been able to view "our family" from his perspective. I look forward to reading many more of his titles.

Rabbi Visotzky employs a tension between derash (tje implicit text and exegeses in light of the current community) and peshat (the explicit simple story in its context). Throughout the book he tries to make you have compassion for the characters. He states, "it is the whole point of moral education to be able to imagine being in another's position" (and he references John Rawls: A theory of Justice). For example, in the story of Abraham and Sarah, he tries to imagine Hagar's view not as a vessel, but as a prophet and mother of a nation. He using his own life experiences, even his divorce, to bring home the point that no one really understands what is happening in another's life. This is not your Sunday school teacher telling you what the stories mean, but rather insight into the process of discussion and moral development (with reference to Lawrence Kohlberg's moral development levels.

Much of the book focuses on Abraham and Sarah. Perhaps the story of Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac, begs the problem of ethical interpretation of God's action, and he references Kierkegaard's teleological suspension of the ethical. These few chapters in Genesis offer many ethical dilemmas, and this book would probably be best in a discussion group. Readers of this would also like Bill Moyer's video discussion "Genesis: A living conversation" (Visotzky is in that as well) as well as Moyer's book "Talking about Genesis".

Using the "tawdry little soap opera" school of criticism, this rabbi proceeds to reduce all the ancient matriarchs and patriarchs to charictatures and harpies. His "personal" characterizations are laughable, his name-dropping is irritating, and his interpretations are more about his divorce than about the actual characters that inhabit the first book of Torah.

It's not that his characterizations are offbase, but they are just tedious. Besides that does the reader really have to know that this unmarried "rabbi" is trying to decide between vasectomies and condoms for birth control methods?

Great if you are unfamiliar with the book of Genesis and you want something to make you look at the Bible in an un-Sunday school fashion. Awful if you are looking for anything in the way of serious scholarship.

"The Major Writings of Nichiren Daishonin" were
published by Nichiren Shoshu International Center,
and the editor-translator is the Gosho translation committee.
Unfortunately, the major writings do not list specific names
of who was on that committee.
So, perhaps Burton Watson was among the editor/translators,
and if so,he is (perhaps) entitled to duplicate some of the gosho
in "Letters of Nichiren". If not, "Letters of Nichiren"
is simply a plagiarized copy of the major writings,
with the order of the writings changed.

Nichiren (1222-1282) was a figure of central importance in the history of Japanese Buddhism as the founder of an orthodox form of Buddhism which strictly adheres to the teachings of the Lotus Sutra. Letters of Nichiren is a collection of seventy-three letters to disciples and other followers. Written throughout years of persecution and exile, these letters are as much a source of inspiration today as they were to his contemporaries.

The Kamakura period (1185-1333) in which Nichiren lived was a time of great unrest, when threats of foreign invasion, natural disasters, famines, and epidemics ravaged the country. The letters gathered in this volume display Nichiren's conviction that the chaotic state of his country could be attributed to a failure to follow the teachings of the Lotus Sutra, which is considered to be the foremost of Shakyamuni's teachings.

While communicating the major doctrinal themes, the vivid metaphors and clear arguments of Nichiren's correspondence also reveal the rhetorical flourish of a powerful spiritual guide. Alongside Burton Watson's lucid and accurate translations, editor Philip B. Yampolsky provides a brief introduction to each letter, notes, a glossary of terms, appendixes of Chinese and Sanskrit names, and a bibliography.

A companion volume to Selected Writings of Nichiren, published in 1990, this unique collection will appeal to Nichiren Buddhists as well as scholars and students of Buddhism, Japanese thought, religion, and history.

Nichiren (1222-1282) was a figure of central importance in the history of Japanese Buddhism as the founder of an orthodox form of Buddhism which strictly adheres to the teachings of the Lotus Sutra. Letters of Nichiren is a collection of seventy-three letters to disciples and other followers. Written throughout years of persecution and exile, these letters are as much a source of inspiration today as they were to his contemporaries.

The Kamakura period (1185-1333) in which Nichiren lived was a time of great unrest, when threats of foreign invasion, natural disasters, famines, and epidemics ravaged the country. The letters gathered in this volume display Nichiren's conviction that the chaotic state of his country could be attributed to a failure to follow the teachings of the Lotus Sutra, which is considered to be the foremost of Shakyamuni's teachings.

While communicating the major doctrinal themes, the vivid metaphors and clear arguments of Nichiren's correspondence also reveal the rhetorical flourish of a powerful spiritual guide. Alongside Burton Watson's lucid and accurate translations, editor Philip B. Yampolsky provides a brief introduction to each letter, notes, a glossary of terms, appendixes of Chinese and Sanskrit names, and a bibliography.

A companion volume to Selected Writings of Nichiren, published in 1990, this unique collection will appeal to Nichiren Buddhists as well as scholars and students of Buddhism, Japanese thought, religion, and history.

This volume, with its superb explanations and background, will appeal to Soka Gakkai members as well as anyone interested in Nichiren. Excellent.

I prefered this to Permanent Italians, perhaps because I knew who more of the people were? Nice biographical sketchs of many of the people mentioned and very nice directions on taking the underground to each cemetery.... well I have never been to London, I assume they are good directions :o) It has a small map of each cemetery with marks designating where the more notworthy monuments are located. It's a great boo if you love cemetries and possible valued beyond money if you are visiting London and love cemeteries. I believe it is part of a set with Permanent Italians and Californians.

Sixteen cemetery sites are listed and many graves discussed in this fine addition to the series by Culbertson and Randall: Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London, Bunhill Fields, St. Paul's, Brompton, Kensal Green, Highgate and St. Michael's, St. John-at-Hampstead, Hampstead, Golders Green and St. Marylebone, Putney Vale and St. Mary Magdalene, St. Nicholas in Chiswick, and Windsor Castle and Frogmore.

I've used this book as well as Permanent Italians and Permanent Parisians, and have not had the bad experience others have mentioned; in my experience the directions are fine, and I've visited maybe half of all the places they've written about in these three books.

Names are highlighted so they're easy to find, and there are plenty of maps and photographs.

This is a great book if you are interested in adding these sites to your travels in London.

I used the book on visits to some of the most interesting London cemeteries. It has good maps and many details on the various famous residents. I found the historical data quite accurate and some of the stories very amusing. Highly recommended!

I enjoyed the book but found at least one innaccuracy. It claims George Wombwell (1788-1850; buried in Highgate West) was the first person to exhibit the Elephant Man (Joseph Merrick). Mr. Merrick was not born until 1862, twelve years after Mr. Wombwell's death. Since the book is primarily a historical guide, I cannot trust it's research and therefore could not recommend it.

I came by this book by accident, and enjoyed it immensely. I have not even known before that my favorite movies had Burton in common.

As a hardcore, die-hard Tim Burton fan I was very excited to get my hands on this book and start reading. The more I can learn about my favorite film maker -as an artist and person, the better. After reading Ken Hanke's unauthorized biography on Mr. Burton, I had learned so much about the man and his films. Hanke did an amazing job with the book.

When I picked up this book today, and saw that it also contained a foreword by Martin Landau, and an afterword by Rick Heinrichs, I really was excited. Also, after reading on a Tim Burton fan site that this book was the best auto-biography to have been published so far, I was expecting A LOT. Unfortunately, it did not live up to the hype.

Not that Smith and Matthews did not put any effort into the book -I believe they put a lazy effort in cause it just does not deliver. The book is divided into chapters on each Burton film, yet it does not go the traditional route. Each chapter is broken up into categories that the authors feel each Burton film contains: Tagline/Trailer, Title Sequence, Story, Source Material, References, Production, Casting, Burton Regulars, Critics, Music, Cinematography, Plot Problems, Death, Children and Families, Clowns and The Circus, Dogs, Love Triangles, Checks, Stripes, Dots, Autobiography, Just Plain Weird, Dialogue To Skip For/Skip Past, Afterlife, Awards, Expert Witness, Trivia, Analysis, Availability, The Bottom Line.

Are you bored yet? I certaintly was after the first few chapters. Not only did it feel like I was reading a 3rd grade book report -only on films, but every other sentence was a recycled Burton quote from past articles, or quotes from actors involved in the project. This would have been fine if mixed in with a great in-depth analysis of Burton and his films written in an intelligent and thought provoking manner with the authors' individual opinions and analysis (like Ken Hanke did). Not to say that Smith and Matthews are not intelligent writers, they just never display it in this book. They basically let the recycled quotes write the book for them -only occasionally throwing in some in depth analysis.
Yes, Hanke's book was full of Burton quotes from interviews as well, but it was mixed in with great information and analysis of the man and the films, and really got deep into what may or may not have been going on in the artist's life, etc. It had personality behind it -this book does not.

What also bothered me about this book is that there are a few typos -one that especially bothered me is the spelling of the late and great production designer Anton Furst's name. When first discussed, the authors introduce the designer as Anton FIRST, then in the next sentence call him by the correct spelling of FURST.

Also, most of the trivia -like all the information given in the book, is nothing new to the die-hard Burton fans. For example -if they really wanted to impress me they would have talked about the scene in "Batman" where Bruce Wayne is watching The Joker and his henchmen cause chaos in front of City Hall. After The Joker does his "The Pen is truly mightier than the sword" speech and stabs an official with his pen, gun fire takes place. There is a shot of Bruce Wayne walking closer and closer to The Joker and Wayne is hit with a bullet. You see in the frame the bullet-hole appear on Wayne's coat, yet he is not affected and continues walking. This has always bothered/confused me in the film but Smith and Matthews don't even address it even though they have a category for Triva and Plot Problems. This would have been a perfect place to talk about it.

One thing I like about this book is the availability category - that basically vents out at the studios for not putting out special edition DVDs for certain Burton films. Maybe it will wake some of these studios up and make them realize there is a hunger out there for extra features and commentary on many of these Burton classics. Touchstone finally realized it and will finally release the brilliant "Ed Wood" on DVD (with features) in August. Hopefully something good will come out of this book and getting Special Edition DVDs released of Burton films will be it.

Though I believe this book is a total waste of time for a die-hard Burton fan, it is not a total waste if is picked up by someone who is just starting to get into Burton and his films. To me this is like the cliff notes to Ken Hanke's book. This is for someone who has seen every Burton film yet does not know much about the man behind the camera and is slowly becoming a fan or simply wants to know a little bit more about the filmmaker. It will give you a BRIEF glimpse of the man and his art, but will not go into DEEP detail.

So in conclusion, as a die-hard Burton fan I was very disappointed with this read. To me Hanke's book, besides "Burton on Burton" of course, is the best book to read if you really want to dig deep into the mind of Burton and analyze the deeper meanings in his films. So if you're a die-hard like me, don't bother -you won't learn anything new about the man. Just read Hanke's book again, and listen to all of Burton's commentaries on the DVDs -they'll give you more insight into Burton's work and life than this book will.

It covers everything you could possibly wish to know about the films, and even provides a summary of one I'd never even heard of - Luau. This isn't even listed on the IMDB, and no other books on Burton mention it, but they've got an interview with Rick Heinrichs (the guy who designed Sleepy Hollow and worked on Luau) about it, so it must be for real!

It's really well written too, and pretty amusing in places - the level of research is amazing - they even give notes showing where they got all their info from, so you can check it out for yourself. The stuff they got from Martin Landau and the two guys who wrote Ed Wood is incredibly interesting - a load of stuff I'd never heard about that film - some that isn't even included on the DVD's commentary.

Basically, this book's great. I'd read Burton on Burton (which is very good), that Pocket Essentials one (which is pretty good), that biography (which is really poor), and the "CHild's Garden of Nightmares" one (which is interesting, but doesn't cover nearly as much detail as this). NOne of these other books on Burton come close to this one.

I'd recommend this book to anyone.
It is a great analysis of each of Tim Burton's movies. It is written clearly and has information which I haven't read in any other Burton book.
I'm not just becoming a Burton fan, I have every other book on Tim Burton and I believe this one to be the best and most informative.

The book may not have the authors comments, but it is written in so much detail about each Burton movie that it doesn't matter.
If you want to find out more about Burton then this is the book you should get.
The book also includes quotes from people who have worked with Burton and from the man himself.
The length of this book proves that much time and effort went in to write this, and I think it was worth it.
I have found out some new things about some of his movies from reading this book.

So in my opinion I think this book is really worth buying!

there is no preview but it is the right version, so I will keep it.

The book was not the best textbook.....there is no study guide

This is one of the best book on global history, you can find every religion from east to west, north to south. You can read about all empires and kings, you can know all cultures and traditions. There is no other book which have reviewed and presented true picture of three major religions; Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

My daughter have to carry tree of these size books. Her school bag is 18 lbs. Why not divide all of these schoolbooks on two parts and make our kids happy. I believe school (elementary, middle and high) is not military training base.

Gregory Yamin

The delivery of this book was speedy, and the book was in excellent condition. Good purchase!

This book helped me to understand that Alan my son is growing up and I need to give him more space so his spiritual being may grow. He now realises his flower inside him can expand. Thankyou

This book does indeed have a "meditation" for each day, accompanied by a religious referenece, reading or psalm. I was not aware when I ordered the book that it had such a religious foundation.

Danker is the greatest living Greek lexicographer. This volume includes a biography of Danker and his essay on the challenges of lexicography. The essay by John A. L. Lee was particularly interesting as he told some of the findings of his larger book on New Testament lexicography. You will also learn about the state of Septuagint lexicography, as the leading scholars in that field had contributions. The book will create an awareness of technology and its effect on Greek scholarship, related to lexicography of course. There are also some articles which touch upon pedagogy and the Greek language with a nexus of course to lexicography. A couple of the essays were very myopic and less than interesting, which is to be expected in an academic work of this sort.

These expert essays in honor of lexicographer Frederick Danker represent robust scholarship that is nonetheless not too arcane or inaccessible for this amateur reader. Beginning with Danker's own essay "Lexical Evolution and Linguistic Hazard," and including essays on the Septuagint, the BDAG, concordances, and aspect theory, this book is an immensely helpful and timely addition to the similar but smaller and out-of-print 1993 collection "Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics." (...)

The eighteen contributors, including Dr. Danker himself, discuss
new approaches to the advances in the field of lexicography, particularly as they apply to the New Testament,the Septuagint,
and some aspects of Hebrew. Various themes include lexical
expansions, development of the BDAG Lexicon,electronic resources for Greek, certain functions, the organization, function and structure of the Greek-English Dictionary; there are also concordances, semantics, verbal aspect and linguistic analyses.This well-written book will be a valuable addition to the libraries of students, researchers, scholars, and even self-learners.

The contents also include an introduction and acknowledgments, key to abbreviations, a bibliography of Dr. F.W.Danker to whom the book is dedicated, an appendix,a list of the precursors to the BDAG Lexicon, an index of Greek words, and of Hebrew words, and indexes of grammatical and lexicographical terms.

I highly recommend this book because of its excellent coverage of the history of lexicography; and the variety of its topics is rich as a result of the contribution of eighteen scholars.Not
only that, I gained an additional appreciation of Danker's
great work in his contribution to this area of study. His outstanding work is well known around the world. The book is
well written and it was a pleasure to read literature such as this. I hope others will enjoy the book as much as I have.

I disliked the class that this book went with, and I am tired of buying Terry's books for school. He sure loves his arrows for all the diseases, not helpful when learning a whole bunch of diseases so quickly.

Whatever you're looking for is here. This is a great book, well-organized, easy to search, has very interesting images, I think it's a must for every Respiratory Care Practitioner, I'm going to keep it as a reference forever.

This is a really good book and very easy to understand. The chapters aren't too lengthy, just long enough to give the important aspects of each respiratory disease. I purchased this for my respiratory pathophysiology class and it covers everything from the etiology, manifestations, symptoms, lab workups, and treatment of all of the major respiratory diseases and syndromes. I highly recommend this book to those who are wanting or needing to know more about respiratory pathophysiology.