This book is good for anyone interested in or perplexed by the different ways the underwriting works in financial sector. It explains the various factors, variables and techniques used and considered while deciding the quotes/premiums on various financial instruments.

This book is good for an advanced user looking to get an introduction to administrative commands. I found this book lacking in many topics but the few they do cover are presented in easy to follow exercises. It's generic in its approach to which flavour of UNIX they're catering to with the exception of a couple of Solaris only dedicated chapters. Admittedly I never would have bought this book if I had discovered Aeleen Frisch's Essential System Administration first.

Hutchison's "Vesco", written while the Watergate scandal was just coming to a head, attempts to track the history of one of the greatest, though now largely forgotten, financial debacles in modern history: the collapse of financier Bernie Cornfeld's Investor Overseas Services (IOS, a huge offshore mutual fund and financial services entity of the 1960s and early 1970s)and its subsequent almost certain plundering by Robert L. Vesco and his shadowy associates.

Although approached by the author as a history of the affair through the printing in 1974, the author's thinly disquised bias against Vesco taints the presentation as an objective accounting. Nonetheless, the work is well written (if very poorly proof-read in the reviewed edition), well researched in the main, and serves at least as a starting point in the unravelling of an extremely complex international financial fraud that cost fund investors and stockholders worldwide hundreds of millions of dollars. It is largely the story of black money, how Cornfeld's legitimate IOS funds attracted it, and how opportunistic Vesco grabbed it to the dismay of powerless international financial and police agencies. To this day, international authorities have yet to apprehend Vesco, now believed to be held up in Cuba, despite one of the greatest manhunts in law enforcement history.

The parallel narrative tracks the lives and careers of Cornfeld, mutual fund salesman cum financial services magnate /playboy extraordinaire, and Vesco, high-flying industrialist cum con man / international fugitive. The work centers around a crisis of confidence that rocked IOS in 1970 and led the corporate vulture Vesco, then desperate for a cash-rich acquisition to save his mini-conglomerate International Controls, to wrest control of unregulated offshore IOS from the flustered Cornfeld, and then, presumably, to loot IOS and the mutual funds, insurance outfits, and real estate investments it owned or managed, to the tune of no less than a quarter of a billion dollars.

Hutchison does a fine job of coloring in the story with unattributed quotes and doubtful supposed nicknames for the supporting cast and the sham corporations involved in the chicanery: this detracts from the professional, supported research throughout most of the book. At the time of the writing the author was an investigative journalist, and the book is written in such a style, which helps to captivate the reader and draw him into the web of big money, big promises, and big lies.

The foremost problem with the work is its presumption of Vesco's intentions and guilt, which, while clear in retrospect, were not at the time as documentable as Hutchison would have the reader believe.

While the book is lacking in some respects, and has some of the whitewash feel of it's Watergate-era contemporary "All The President's Men", it is certainly a worthwhile, if necessarily cumbersome read on a very tangled, intensely interesting subject for those intrigued by great true-crime stories. It tells yet another tale wherein, as the cliche' states, truth is far stranger than fiction. An edition including photos is a must. PJS 7/99.

The music of Richard Wagner in the United States in the late nineteenth century is an unjustly neglected subject. This book strives to fill that void; it succeeds, up to a point.

Wagner reformed traditional opera and created the "music drama". The European reaction to this new concept was mixed. In America, however, the reaction was overwhelmingly positive. The Metropolitan Opera came into existence on the strength of Wagner's music dramas. So warm was the reaction, that Wagner even considered (as did his son Siegfried) emigrating.

The lion's share of this book is devoted to Anton Seidl, who championed Wagner in New York in the 1890's. For many years, he worked at Wagner's side in Bayreuth, learning his craft. In the United States, he championed Wagner's music. The American public loved it. The title of this book, Wagner Nights, is a reference to the summer Wagner concerts that Seidl conducted on Coney Island at Brighton Beach.

In the latter portion of this book, the author switches from chronicler to analyst. Here, you must take him with a rather large grain of salt. He performs a pseudo-Freudian analysis on both the Wagner fans and Wagner's operas. He also tries his hand with a bit of cultural anthropology. Here, the information is subjective and marginal. These latter chapters could have been deleted without losing any important information.

In spite of these weaknesses, this book is interesting and enlightening. I recommend it, but with the previously stated reservations.

Joseph L. Badaracco Jr. is Professor of Business Ethics at Harvard Business School. He is author of several books and articles on leadership. This Harvard Business Review article was published in September 2001 and discusses his 4-year research into quiet leaders.

In this article, Badaracco explains "that quiet moral leaders follow four basic rules in meeting ethical challenges and making decisions", which are: (1) Put things off till tomorrow - When ethical dilemmas heat up, quiet leaders often look for ways to buy time. The author introduces quick fixes, cutting unnecessary expenses, and strategic stalling, "to dot all the i's and cross all the t's", as the two types of time buying. (2) Pick your battles - Political capital is the hard currency of organizational life. Quiet leaders invest it astutely and use with with care, in order to establish a good reputation. (3) Bend the rules, don't break them - Quiet leaders act like moral bookkeepers, they bend the rules and own up to their deeper responsibilities. This requires imagination, discipline, and restraint, along with flexibility and entrepreneurship. (4) Find a compromise - Although compromise has a bad reputation in some circles it is not just something quiet leaders occasionally do, it defines who they are. Quiet leaders try not to see situations as black-and-white and craft responsible, workable compromises. Badaracco concludes that it is easy to misunderstand and mock the quiet approach to leadership, but "most difficult human problems are not solved by the dramatic efforts of people at the top". The author also provides a great insight into the two characteristics of quiet leaders that disqualify them from sainthood: Their motivations are decidedly mixed, and their worldviews are unabashedly realistic. These two working assumptions work as a compass for these individuals.

Although I did look forward to this article, since Badaracco is a well-known Harvard Professor, I have mixed feelings about this article. The research into quiet leaders follows the same line as the latest studies/research by Jim Collins, David Goleman, Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones into the emotional intelligence of leaders. The fact that I have mixed feelings is the fact that the article is clear and well written, but I feel that the examples are extremely weak and not realistic. This article serves as an introduction for his forthcoming book "Leading Quietly: An Unorthodox Guide to Doing the Right Thing" (2002). The article is written in simple US-English.

... Not exactly - please be sure to understand this is an article written by the authors and published in the July-August 1998 Harvard Business Review magazine. The article, sans cover pages, is really only 10 pages long. It does indeed highlight some of the points of the book, from what I can tell without having read the book.

Don't buy this book expecting it to be related to Eugen Weber's excellent PBS series of the same name. Instead, it is a collection of historical documents that form the basis of Western thought. Documents range from passages from the Bible, to the US Declaration of Independence and Federalist Papers, to Malthus' treatises on overpopulation. All in all, this is not a bad book to have as a reference to these historical documents. Unfortunately, those hoping for Weber's incisive commentary on the history of the West will have to wait for PBS to rerun the TV series, or will have to buy the series from CPB/Annenberg for.

Jam-packed with photos, illustrations, examples of what to look for while inspecting a structure. Doesn't appear to be very deep in the valuation portion, but by following his detailed procedure (3+ hours) you will identify all potential problems with a home. Once identified, you can then hire a contractor to estimate the work to correct it.

The book John Lucas: Winning A Day At A Time by Joseph Moriarity is like a roller coaster ride though the ups and downs of the life of John Lucas. He takes you though each stage of John's life; from his early years before high school and how he won the Junior World Cup and his basketball experiences. Then he went to high school in N.C. and his first experiences with drugs. He set many college records at the University of Maryland and was the star of the team and NCAA. When he made it to the NBA people thought he could have been as good as Michael Jordan, but he got addicted to hard drugs like cocaine. The author skips through how John got kicked from team to team and went from rehab to rehab. His drug addiction tore apart his family and almost ruined his career before he finally got on track with his life.
This book is a very slow read and it trudges from chapter to chapter. It has some good times where it's an enjoyable spot; but I would not recommend buying or reading this book unless you feel interested in his life experiences and drug problems. It's not worth the time to stumble though the pages. I skipped pages at a time and still found myself in the same place. The novel is just a slow timeline of the life of John Lucas.

Dr. Joseph Murphy was a great teacher, lecturer and minister of truths that can change your life. He taught in many countries, and was a minister-director of Divine Science church for almost three decades. He has written some 40 books on spiritual growth and understanding and is good at explaining the Bible truths for New Thought students and for anyone who is interested in learning truths that literally can change your life.

In this book Dr. Joseph Murphy tells you about his world-tour that lasted for 50 days. He visits different countries, meets people and gives you great examples of his interviews and consultations with others.

If you are familiar with Murphy's other books -- this book will give you nothing new save some examples of how these truths can work in your life.

On the other hand, if you are not familiar with this author, you will learn some great techniques as Dr. Murphy approach these truths from the standpoint of a beginner or seeker who is not familiar with the science of your mind.

A great book which will give you so much good time and feelings, but nothing new for old students..and that is why just 3 stars.

I encourage you to read his book "The Power of Your Subconscious Mind" if you haven't.