In the past, I have generally hated the X-Men's adventures in the Savage Land, or whenever they would go to outer space or get into really super sci-fi type situations. I always felt the X-Men stories worked much better when they were grounded in very normal, down-to-earth settings, because it made the X-Men themselves stand out and seem that much weirder. But this book is an exception to the rule. It's a big, crazy, larger-than-life adventure, part of which takes place in the prehistoric Savage Land, and part of which gets hyper technological, and it works out OK.

The artwork is tough and gritty. Jim Lee draws a mean, shadowy, ugly Wolverine who kills lots of villains and looks like he needs to take a shower very badly.

And Lee's women - whoa. This book contains more gratuitous cheescake shots than any X-Men graphic novel I've seen, but it's all very pleasing to the eye. Especially the scenes with Rogue, whose bare skin can kill anyone she touches and thus, understandably, was always the one major female character who kept herself completely covered at all times. This was the first storyline in the series where they finally drew her as a scantily-clad, sexy heroine. A real treat for male Rogue-fans who'd been reading the series patiently for years.

This storyline also chronicles the transformation of innocent young Psylocke into a mature woman trained in the art of Ninjitsu, and she becomes an ultra-violent, sexy bad girl. And then there are cameo appearances by other Marvel superheroes, namely Captain America (from the Avengers series) and The Black Widow (from the Daredevil series). All in all, it's a satisfying, action-packed, well-drawn, crowd-pleasing comic book in trade-paperback format.

You might be asking how then does a business grow. The authors would say first by defining the core business. What business are we really in and good at. Once the core business has been defined and focused on growth opportunities come from opportunities adjacent to the core business. A few example adjacencies could be new customer segments, new channels, new geographies, new value chain steps (forward, backward...), new business, and new products.

If you are trying to define a sustainable growth strategy then this book is worth the read. If you have many non core business that are under performing then this book is worth the read. If you have a successful business and are looking for the next growth vehicle you will want to read this book.

Zook starts his book with a sobering fact: only one company in eight achieves sustained growth over periods of 10 years or more. He then sets to explore the common thread between the chosen few, and bases his resarch on more than 200 actual consulting assignments, a database of 2,000 public companies, and the records of private equity (venture capital) firms.

Zook's most important finding: It is your best performing businesses that are likely those furthest form their full potential! Thus, the best source of sustained growth is to strengthen the best among your businesses, and build on these winners to expand through logical and reinforcing adjacencies.

To accomplish this, Zook offers a clearly conceived and easily understood framework, that is chockfull of practical advice, and refreshingly bare of catchy phrases and obfuscating lingo. Zook's exploration offers timeless reference points that managers can use in every business.

Of course, this review is somewhat biased: my company has been a believer in adjacency strategies built around strong cores, and I have seen first hand how Zook's principles can reenergize a business, build management enthusiasm, and drive profitable growth.

Impressively, Zook achieves the feat of condensing his findings and advice into 150 extremely well-written pages, delivering a concise reference book that every management strategist can (and should) carry in his briefcase as a constant companion.

Second, the author makes many important recommendations about how you should manage your company... strategically. Again, these recommendations are based largely on research done by the author or his peers mostly at Bain & Co. regarding maintaining competitive advantage.

With the exception of Jack Welch (and previously Geneen at IT&T, I'm sure), large conglomerates can not maintain growth rates over long periods of time (ten years was the period used in the book).

So, the recommendations that your company stick to its knitting ("the core") is the foundation of the book. But many people already know this. So, most interesting, are the recommendations and research that show the nuances.

For example, the author shows how the areas around your core business offer the most profitable opportunities for fast growth... yet also contain the most dangers from encroaching competitors, or bad fitting investments. He calls this area your adjacency.

The author suggests that how you manage your adjacency largely determines your success at long term business growth.

There are too many concepts and details to summarize here. There is a lot of meat to the book (although it is not a huge book). Still it is fairly easy to read. You will not whiz through the book because you will often pause to consider the ramifications of the author's points. But it is not a difficult read.

The books major points are well illustrated with many examples (Dell, Microsoft, Starbucks, W.W. Grainger, etc.).

This book is most appropriate for management involved in strategy, and investors trying to figure out the appropriateness of acquisitions by companies.

Most of the pages in my book are underlined. The stories fit the observations and recommedations well. The research presented was most interesting, and was often summarized into easily read charts and tables.

I highly recommend this book. There are lots of implementable ideas in this book. As an investor you will be able to spot an inappropriate acquisition much more easily. ...

If you buy this book, make sure you know exactly what it is. It is a simple list of 1001 BRIEF anecdotes, three per page. Some are only two or three words long, and many seem obvious, stupid, trite, or otherwise useless. One of the reviews says: "It contains numerous interviews with different women about what they really want and expect from sexual relationships." I feel this implies much more depth than the book really has -- while the author may have interviewed women, we only get short anectdotes. Here are some examples from flipping through the book:

#978 Big penis = lousy lover
#485 No burping or farting in bed
#286 Foot massages
#829 Turn off the television, please

To be fair, they aren't all his bad. And if you read them all perhaps you will pick up a couple gems that relate to you. But very few are insightful. Just be sure you know what you are getting into before you purchase this book. Don't expect anything more than a coffee table book of anecdotes. I would have much rather had interview transcripts (or at least excerpts more than one sentence long). For me this book was a very cheap mistake. I am giving it two stars because I found it slightly interesting to browse through, even if the info wasn't very useful or practical.