This book is a marvelous witness to the peace and power available to us through the quiet welcoming of God into our lives each day. Carretto says, "Deep down the soul has understood that it must let itself be carried, that it must abandon itself to its Saviour, that alone it can do nothing, that God can do everything.... What matters is to let God get on with it." The author's lived-out, radical commitment is extraordinarily impressive.

However you can, as soon as you can . . . get this book. It is rich throughout, but the third or fourth chapter (apologies, I'm not sure which one off hand) is worth almost any price. It is one of the few passages I have ever read that has made a lasting, lifelong impact on my life with Christ. Go ahead, make the decision. You will be glad you did. In an age of "instant" Christianity, Mr. Carretto is a refreshing journey in the nuances of the soul, acknowledging the beauty and pain of what it means to follow Christ in a fallen world.

For any reader or beginner who likes to have a very brief idea of what Graham and Buffet preach on value investing, this book is okay.

In order to make the book readable and interesting, the author had chosen not to go into details of how but focus mostly on principles. About 35% of the book is spent, in text and no data/graph, on validating value over price as the primary consideration of any investment. I think that's far too much. That makes the part on the assessment of the true value of a stock too simple and short.

Anyway, this is just an introduction of value investing (like the first chapter in a 12 chapter book) and far from complete. Stronly suggest any aspired value investor or even trader to read the originals from Graham and Buffet for a full picture before they take up one of the most competitive and demanding job in the world.

Although the definitive popular book on Benjamin Graham and Warren Buffett remains to be written, this excellent work is certainly the state-of-the-art in this area. For those who do not have the time or inclination to read the writings and speeches of these important investment thinkers, you get the key kernels of wisdom in action-oriented doses here. This is the first book I have read that gives the stock investor who wants to outperform the market averages a sense of what is involved in order to have a chance. The examples of how to apply these methods to companies like General Electric, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, and internet retailers are very helpful. I thought this book was much more valuable in every way than Buffettology.

Both Graham and Buffett see buying stock as being the same as buying a whole company. The analytical methods involved are similar to those used by companies thinking about making an acquisition, except there is no need to consider what the joint operating benefits of the companies will be. The strength of this approach to stock investing is that if stock values for a company fall too low another company or group of cash-flow-oriented investors will acquire the whole company. In the long run, stocks should not fall too far below their intrinsic value (a Graham concept) as cash flow generators.

The book is organized into three sections. The first looks at whether the stock market is efficient or not. If it is, you cannot beat it. If it is not, you can beat it by investing where it is not efficient. The evidence here summarized estimates that the stock market is at least 20 percent inefficient and becoming more so. I am aware of a number of studies showing other kinds of inefficiency that Professor Cunningham does not cite. My own personal view is that the stock market is not very efficient at all, but is relatively predictable within a band of probability.

A particular strength of this section is in creating a summary of many of the arguments for stock market efficiency and inefficiency. Trust me. Unless you really love reading this kind of research (which I happen to), you will be better off reading the summaries here rather than the originals.

The second section discusses how to outperform the stock market. The best part of this section is an extremely well done parable about a man who wants to sell his apple tree. He is approached by many different types of potential purchasers, and they offer wildly varying prices. You get the interior logic of how each price is arrived at in a way that allows you to see the fundamental weaknesses and strengths of each approach. Nicely done!

The heart of this section emphasizes the familiar Graham and/or Buffett (their philosophies do not coincide, but rather partially overlap) concepts of sticking to what you know well, having a margin of safety, and doing your homework. I particularly liked the detailed description of how to determine where you have a knowledge edge that allows you to potentially have an advantage as a stock investor. The cautions against overestimating what you know are very well done.

The third section looks at the role of company management and boards of directors. It debunks a lot of the popular thinking about the importance of good governance. As Warren Buffett often emphasizes in his annual letters to shareholders, you should invest only with people you "like, trust, and admire." A CEO with a weakness (particularly a lack of integrity) can quickly tank your investment before you can do anything about it. Certainly, I have been sorry a number of times when I have not followed that rule. I certainly subscribe to it now. Every management will make mistakes. Only highly focused and capable ones will notice that they have and work on rectifying the errors rather than trying to explain why there really is no problem.

If you read this book carefully, it will convince you that outperforming the stock market is a pretty hard thing to do unless you have a great deal of knowledge about public companies and unusually good access to company managements. I think describing what needs to be done is the most eloquent argument that I have seen for why the average investor should be in indexed mutual funds for the stock portion of her or his portfolio. I suggest you already read John Bogle's Common Sense on Mutual Funds. I was pleased to see that this book raises an important question of valuation for when to commit to new purchases of indexed funds. People differ on this subject; but while the S&P 500's multiple is as high as sit is now and cash flow growth is so weak, many people may benefit from holding off or buying other indexes instead. Consider the small cap value indexes instead now, for instance.

I suspect that you can learn a lot by comparing your past stock investing with the patterns described here. Are you a great investor? Great investors have "independence of thought, . . . [and] utter and profound common sense . . . ." The challenge here is that "common sense is . . . it is so uncommon." On the other hand, "those who buy stocks outside their circle of competence are gamblers, speculators, or fools." Please wear the shoe that fits you.

The most accurate prediction of future stock market conditions is that they will fluctuate. Currently, the average stock varies by 50 percent in price each year. What method of stock investing will allow you to either ignore or best take advantage of that volatility? Be sure to consider your emotions at least as much as your intellect and available time in making this determination.

Get a great return on your time and on your investments!

It's the best investment book I've read in a long while. I think it should sit on every investor's book shelf. A true classic. I have positioned it on my desk next to my copy of Security Analysis (Graham & Dodd) and The Intelligent Investor (Graham) - exactly where it deserves to be. I especially liked how Prof. Cunningham touched on Chaos Theory as well as the chapter on the Circle of Competence and the Fireside CEO chapter. Of course, Part 3 of the book was so well done it is really hard to elevate one chapter over the other. Really well done. Prof. Cunningham has done the public a great favour with this book. Lastly, the satirical look at balance sheet and earnings manipulation via the fictional dotcom company was a beautiful touch! Graham would've approved and I am sure Mr. Buffett does...

Volume three of the complete journals of Thomas Merton - A Search for Solitude: Pursuing the Monk's True Life, edited by Lawrence S. Cunningham - follows on from where volume two ended with an entry dated July 25, 1952 and concludes in May 1960.

The title given to this volume does not reflect the turbulence Merton was experiencing in the years covered by this journal. "Searching for Solitude" and "Pursuing the Monk's True Life" were not easy tasks for Thomas Merton. In The Sign of Jonas Merton battles with his dual vocations of being a solitary and a writer and, by the end of the journal, having discovered solitude both through writing and through his work as Master of Scholastics, the impression Merton gives in his masterful epilogue to Jonas, "Fire Watch, July 4, 1952", is that his problems over his vocation have been resolved. As Michael Mott and William Shannon have made clear in their biographies of Merton this was certainly not true. As Shannon notes, "The Sign of Jonas ends when the struggle is just beginning to warm up" for Merton's "most serious crisis of stability yet" and this is where the third volume of journals begins.

Beginning with July 1952 this volume goes up to March 1953 where there is a break up until July 17, 1956 when the journal begins again. Cunningham provides no explanation for the missing years simply stating Merton "kept rather brief journal entries in the last months of 1952 and in 1953, with a hiatus in 1954-1955." (xiii) My major criticism of this volume is that no attempt at an explanation is provided for this hiatus. Patrick Hart, General Editor of these journals, has pointed out that the policy decision was made to publish Merton's journals in their entirety and that the publishers did not wish them to have more than the bare minimum in the way of footnotes to avoid them appearing like "a German doctoral dissertation." The lack of comment on Merton's hiatus of the mid fifties is taking this policy to an extreme and does not help the reader.

From biographies of Merton it is possible to fill in the events of these "missing years" and to find the reason for the hiatus. In early 1953 Merton agreed to a request of Gabriel Sortais, Abbot General of the Cistercian Order, that he cease keeping a journal and l the lack of journal writings from 1953 through to 1956 suggests that Merton was obeying Sortais's wishes.

In the fifties Merton experienced three major periods of instability, two of these, in 1953 and 1959 are covered in A Search for Solitude the other, from 1955 falls into the period when Merton was not keeping a journal but it can be traced in Mott's biography. These periods of instability show Merton's struggle with his vocation and with self doubt, struggles which are not found in Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander. The instability Merton writes of in his own life is an instability which has come to characterise the final decades of this century. Merton's writing in this journal serve as a witness to the qualities which sustained him through these profound periods of instability, especially a deep sense of obedience and a committment to his search for God and for truth.

In the late summer of 1952 Merton mentions three options he is considering as possibilities for greater solitude - the Carthusians, the Camaldolese or the possibility of a separate scholasticate. As Merton's crises in The Sign of Jonas had led to opportunities for greater solitude at Gethsemani so, in response to his 1952 crisis Dom James allowed Merton to use a disused toolshed in the Gethsemani woods for limited periods of time. Merton called the toolshed St. Anne's and writes that "St. Anne's is what I have been waiting for and looking for all my life" adding "everything that was ever real in me has come back to life in this doorway wide open to the sky!" (32.)

Merton's second major crisis of the fifties began in the early summer of 1955 and, though not covered in A Search for Solitude, it is worth mentioning briefly in this review as it highlights a pattern in Merton's life, a pattern very evident in this volume of Merton's journals. A visiting abbot had complained of a "hermit mentality" in the community and swept away some of the priviledges Dom James had arranged to provide Merton with more solitude. This led to Merton's application for a transitus to the Camaldolese in June 1955. Following on from this crisis of stability there followed a period of stability for Merton until in 1958 he began actively looking into opportunities once again to become a hermit and in November 1959 applied for an exclaustration to go to Mexico to become a hermit near the Benedictine monastery of Cuernavaca. When Merton's request was turned down he accepted the decision with relief and writes the next day of "a very great peace and gratitude at knowing that I have really, at last, found my definite place and that I have no further need to look, to seek, except in my own heart." (360) As with Merton's earlier crises of stability this crisis led to changes in this position at Gethsemani. In March 1960 Merton was given a quiet cell of his own in the monastery and plans were also begun for a cinder block building that would eventually become Merton's hermitage.

Merton's relentless "search for solitude" is central to this third volume of his journals. Other themes found in the earlier two volumes are present as well as many new themes. A good part of Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander was written in the period covered by A Search for Solitude and so the development of Merton's thought can be seen through comparing this journal with Conjectures. Events and themes which would later be worked up for inclusion in Conjectures are here in their raw state. In particular Merton's expanding horizons over the latter years of this journal are striking. As Merton searched for a solitary life he was also asking questions about the monk's relationship to the world, realising that his solitary vocation was not merely "cuddling in self-love" (298) but involved a "responsibility to be in all reality a peacemaker in the world." (149) These years also saw the great expansion in Merton's correspondence and the influence of his correspondents upon him is profound. Of particular note in this journal is Merton's reflections on his contact with Boris Pasternak and his correspondence with Latin American writers. Merton's correspondence has been published elsewhere but the shockwaves from it permeate the second half of this journal. Reflecting on the effect of this correspondence upon him Merton writes:
Like Dick Whittington turning again at the sound of Bow bells, because London was his life and vocation and fortune. I have "turned again" at the voice of the Andes and of the Sertao and of the Pampas and of Brazil. (169)

Merton concludes this journal saying "I know you are leading me, and therefore there is no conflict with anyone. Nor can there be" (394) and yet, having accompanied him on his search for solitude and his pursuit of the monk's true life through these pages, having shared with Merton his struggles and his solaces, we know all too well that his search will continue along with his struggles.