April Keshavarz
English 190
12/04/02
Book Title: The Timepiece
Author: Richard Paul Evans

In the book The Timepiece, David Parkins was wealthy and a good-looking man. His business flourished with riches. David lived a lonely life and had one true good friend. He lived in a mansion and spent most of his time in his den reading, while the clocks around the house rang every quarter hour. One day the women of his dreams walked in his building and changed his life forever. Her name, MaryAnne. They fell in love with one another and lived a life of experiences. The Timepiece was a heart-warming book with twist and turns that would make your heart raise and fall at the same time. The story shows you the life during the time of the 1900's.
"David could not take his eyes off his bride as she descended the stair, flanked by Catherine and preceded by Catherine's five-year-old niece, who dropped white rose petals before them as they passed beneath the great floral arches of white peonies and apple blossoms. For the first time in his life, David truly felt fortunate. When Mary Anne reached the altar, he leaned close". This passage shows the great detail in the way the character is feeling at that very moment. He gives you the sense that you are witnessing the special event that is taking place. When I read this passage, I felt like I was watching David look at his bride to be with such lust and desire and anxiousness. I was feeling what David was feeling. This passage lets you jump into the story.
"She was wide-hipped and buxom, her hair was streaked with gray and drawn back tightly in a bun with a few prodigal strands falling across her cheek. Her attire matched her manner. She was dressed austerely in a drab muslin dress partially concealed beneath a faded ivory apron, which carried the strains of previous deliveries". This author has so much depth when it comes to detail. He makes you feel like you are standing there looking at the women. You feel like you see the ivory apron with the stains of previous births on it and how she has such wisdom in her appearance. In his description you get an idea what is going on in the story at the time just from the passage.
"David shot through the door and threw it open. A black pillow of smoke billowed into the room. The end of the hallway was completely engulfed in flames and from behind the wall of fire came a horrible sound. Andrea's cry". This passage was very impacting. You feel like you are in the place of David, and his fears are running through you. You get the feel of the fear that is running through his mind and body. The cry of the young girl lets you know where David's fears are coming from and why is determined to get to her. This passage is showing emotions and the reactions that occur from them.
The Timepiece was a book of love hate and life experiences. You learn so much from just one couple. You get to get into their life and see how life's hardships can pull together and give you something new and amazing. The story wasn't repetitive and kept me on the edge of my sit just waiting to see what was going to happen next. I recommend this book to anyone that likes a fast paced book and likes love, hate , and all and all life's experiences.

"Timepiece" is the second book after "The Christmas Box". In this story you get to know MaryAnne a little more and learn how little Andrea died.

i thought it was a moving story and I have grown to love MaryAnne's character. I look forward to reading "The Locket" witch is the final book in this series.

I have become a fan of Mr. Evans writing, and look forward to reading more by him.

Of course, it's better if you read all three novels in the trilogy that tells the tale of the Parkin family, but if you're going to choose just one, let it be "Timepiece." "The Christmas Box" introduced us, briefly to MaryAnne Parkin, by then an elderly widow with a mysterious past, but "Timepiece" fills in the gaps and brings you in, through the vehicle of her husband David's diary, to a warm and wonderful story of true love and loss. Here you learn about Andrea, the little girl MaryAnne mourned beneath the famous angel statue. But most importantly, you get to know David and MaryAnne-their faults; their pain; their loyalty to each other, their daughter and their friends; and the strength of their love. Reading of the lives of David and MaryAnne Parkin is almost like hearing your grandparent's love story after they're gone. These characters really touch your spirit. I've just finished "The Letter," and, knowing it's the final installment, I'm really going to miss this family. Richard Paul Evans' talent for capturing emotion and his attention to detail make this book a delight to read. My suggestion to him now, is to go back and write about Lawrence and his Cavalry days...

The book provides good reference information with regard to the basic price/yield equations, but John Martin gives short shrift to any discussion of the finance theory behind them. It is not just an academic issue since many instruments will trade a premium or discount to the prices implied by the basic equations.

Go with the classic: Options, Futures, and Other Derivatives (5th Edition) -- by John C. Hull.

I agree with the Mr. Phillips about this book merely presenting the basic valuation equations, but I think that is the beauty of this book. Notice the title made a reference to this book beeing intended for 'non-quants'. However this book still provide 'quants' a valuable reference guide when one needs to brush up on the mechanics of a given derivative valuation.

This book is written from a risk-management practitioner point of view and as such it goes in great length in not just showing the different valuation models, which include most of the models in practice, but also the working mechanism of the specific securities market, and the associated exchange and clearing house settlement procedure. The key strong point of this book is that the author wrote every section of the book with conciseness and to the point. Each instrument's characteristics are presented, the associated equations are explained, and the spreadsheet models are shown in detail (included with the accompanying disk). After reading the book one is left with the feeling that finance is really this simple, involving setting the appropiate model to go with the relevant parameters,

One point regarding the editing: it was simply a great pleasure to browse this book. The clean layout of the book, the consistent sequence of presentation of the materials for all the instruments, and the detailed explaination of each of every equation (all the equations all the cells are shown) allows the reader to follow and comprehend the material with ease.

The contents of the books: market mechanism, valuation and model of interest rate forward, foreign exchange forward, equity forward, interest rate swap (the author is really an expert in these types of intruments, showing models of single-rate bond valuation method, simple offset valuation method, zero-coupon yields bootstrapping, zero-coupon yields: forward rate reinvestment, futures strip swap pricing, forward rate offset valuation method, zero-coupon valuation method), cross-currency swaps, equity swaps, equity options, interest rate options, currency options. The disk includes major valuation models of all the derivatives.(most requires just Excel 4.0 version)

Update: Since this book was published over a year ago, many other fine derivatives books have been published. However its straightforward simplicity still makes it a valuable part of a risk manager's personal library. One minor objection even at [...]its list price it is still priced a tad [...] for an introductory/intermediate level textbook. Anyone more quantitative-oriented, might want to check Cuthbertson's Financial Engineering and Risk Management. Comes with software and real life application examples.