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While at Foo Camp this year, Mike Hendrickson, Associate Publisher at O’Reilly, told me about a recent letter O’Reilly received. “Barry Cuda” wrote them about being unsatisfied with one of MY books: Windows Server Cookbook. Barry said he is a short-order cook and since he serves from a window and saw the baboon on the cover, he thought my book might provide interesting recipes on cooking exotic meals. Well, this was quite a hoot, but of course it was a prank.

Apparently, Barry (actually Bruce Burns) is notorious for writing companies and organizations such as DHS, University of Texas, Starbucks, Nike, etc about some concern of his. A sharp person at O’Reilly discovered the ruse and replied directly to Bruce about it. It seems this is the first time Bruce has been caught in the act.

Barry Cuda’s Letter to O’Reilly Media and O’Reilly’s response

Prank Letters from Bruce Burns

Out of all the O’Reilly books, he had to pick mine :-)