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Book reviews for "Lawrence,_Michael" sorted by average review score:

Fundamentals of Investing
Published in Hardcover by Addison-Wesley Publishing (2002)
Authors: Lawrence J. Gitman and Michael D. Joehnk
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Fundamentals of Investing, 7th
Fundamentals of Investing leaves a good deal to be desired as a textbook for a first course on investments. It is too wordy, being nearly 700 pages in length (not including tables or the index), making it somewhat challenging to cover the entire book in a single college semester.

As with any book, Fundamentals of Investing has its good features and its bad features. The chapter on investment planning (chapter 3) is quite good as it gives the reader an understanding of the motivation for investing. Another good feature about the book is the treatment of the security analysis process and how the investor should approach the analysis of investments for inclusion in a portfolio.

However, the deficiencies of the book appear to outweigh its benefits. First, the authors appear to assume that the reader is already familiar with the concept of the time value of money (TVM). Since the TVM concept is vital in assessing the worth of an investment to an investor, a reader that is unfamiliar or not well versed in the TVM concept is likely not to fully understand how securities are valued. Second, many of the examples given in the book are not always of great help in assisting the reader in understanding the concepts that were presented. Finally, the problems at the end of each chapter do not seem to provide much of a challenge to the reader to apply the concepts that were covered in the chapter to reinforce what was supposed to have been learned.

On the whole, the book can be useful in introducing the reader to the investment process and in understanding the variety and value of different types of securities. But a reader who is less familiar with investing can do better than to buy this book.

Caution
This book although well written was disappointing because it only covers the fundamentals and the basics of investments and portfolios. I suppose I was looking for something more in depth and challenging and this wasn't the write book. But if you are looking to learn the basics this book seems like a good start.

A "Must Have" book for beginning investors!
Time for me to upgrade to the Seventh Edition! I used Fundamentals of Investing, Fourth Edition around 10 years ago in a college course at WCTC in Waukesha, WI. My instructor was a V.P. at a major brokerage house. It was one of the best and most rewarding college courses I ever took. We covered the entire book in one semester.

As with any book, Fundamentals of Investing will please some and not others. This book lays the foundation for investing by covering topics such as stocks, bonds, insurance, and the like along with understanding the risks of each. This book is not a "get rich quick" self help book. You will not find "trendy ways" to invest, hence the title "Fundamentals of Investing."

This book is where I learned Time Value of Money (TVM). Before I learned of TVM and investing, my retirement plan consisted of the value of my home and social security. Now I am well on my way to achieving my goal; retiring as comfortable as or better than I live now. If there is any social security when I retire it will be a bonus.

On the whole, this book (including my 4th edition) is useful even as a reference to the investment process. I use it to refresh my understanding of the variety and types of securities. Others may disagree but this is my investment bible. It has paid for itself time and time again by reminding me of the basic "Fundamentals of Investing."

You can remove a lot of risks to investing if you read and understand those investments in "Fundamentals of Investing."


Diving and Snorkeling Dominica (Lonely Planet Pisces Book)
Published in Paperback by Pisces Books (1999)
Authors: Mike Lawrence and Michael Lawrence
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Great photography and good guide
Good guide except that we couldn't find one of the snorkling sites described just by following their directions.

Rare Informative Guide
With so few informative guides available on Dominica, this guide is truly a gem written about a gem of an island. Descriptions of some of the finest and most unusual dives in the Caribbean, including down the crater of a volcano and through hot bubbling springs called "Champagne." The sea life in Dominica is more prolific and untouched than anywhere else in the Caribbean and this guide tells you EVERYTHING you need to know about getting to this offbeat destination, staying there, and seeing the sites both above and below water.


90 Days With the Christian Classics: Devotions from Yesterday...for Today (One Minute Bible)
Published in Hardcover by Broadman & Holman Publishers (1999)
Authors: Michael Bauman, Lawrence Kimbrough, Martin I. Klauber, Keith P. Wells, St Augustine, and John Calvin
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walking with saints
90 Days with the Christian Classics is perfectly suited for once a day dosing! For each day there is a portion of the Bible connected to a passage from a Christian author of yesteryear. My only disappointment was some difficulty in identifying the sources cited for each authors. The lives of the authors cited spans over 1000 years, so these are words from history for our age! Pertinent biographical information on the authors is also included briefly. The editors have done well to anchor this work with substantial amounts of Bible excerts. The Bible, which is the best selling book of all time, is truly a treasured echo from history for our age! The hard padded book cover is magnificent and will serve well when readers bring it along on their travels.


The American Presidency
Published in Paperback by Johns Hopkins Univ Pr (1987)
Authors: Clinton Lawrence Rossiter and Michael Nelson
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Sometimes dated, but always a fun read
Though this book was written close to 40 years ago, and though Rossiter knew nothing about the Kennedy assasination, Watergate, or Vietnam, this book makes bold predictions about the future of our country and our presidency with surprising accuracy. The book is written sometimes in a conversation-like tone that makes for easy reading, and the author (while incredibly knowledgable) makes no effort to talk over the readers head. It is a bit old though, and the type of analysis Rossiter uses (namely a constitutionalists point of view) is out-dated. However, it is an optimistic and inspiring book that every future president should read.


Bridge of No Return
Published in Paperback by Avon (1996)
Authors: Mike Dunn and Michael Lawrence Dunn
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review for mike dunn's book
I thought that the book was very good. The reading was easy and kept me interested. His depiction of war was accurate. The book showed good character development. I like war books and this was one I would let others read. It was a book I did not want to put down. I kept on reading because it was also easy reading. The book had an excellent recollection of the war in Korea and I would reccommend that others read this book.


DK Classics: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Published in Hardcover by DK Publishing (1997)
Authors: Robert Louis Stevenson, Michael Lawrence, and Ian Andrew
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An informative but intrusive retelling of this classic story
Robert Louis Stevenson's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" is one of the classics of horror literature because it provides the paradigmatic example of the "werewolf," the human being with a monstrous alter ego. However, originally it was much more of a mystery story and that is the best way of describing this adaptation of Stevenson's novella by Michael Lawrence. The book's complex structure is simplified and Lawrence employs a narrator to help retell the tale. The adaptation is certainly competent enough, but the story clearly takes a back seat to the illustrations in this particular volume.

This Eyewitness Classics adaptation of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" is full of the illustrations and details we have come to associate with books put out by DK Publishing. A two-page spread before the first chapter details The Two Face of London, contrasting the rich West End of Victorian London with Soho area where criminals stalked the poor. Background about how Victorian gentlemen dressed for evening and how women were second-class citizens is provided. Once the story commences there are not only illustrations by Ian Andrew depicting events in the novella, but the borders are usually filled with small photographs and detailed text amplifying the action. One such note might explaining the gas lighting system in use at the time while another actually explains the significance of the key Jekyll supposedly gave to Hyde. These pictures and notes are certainly informative, but they are also somewhat intrusive, especially when the reader is trying to decide when they should read each of these additional bits of information.

The attempt here is to provide something more than a straightforward presentation of the novella without going so far as to provide an annotated version. The information provided is quite useful for young readers, for the most part, but their intrusiveness may well get in the way of enjoying the story itself. The illustrations by Andrew are stylistically evocative of the shadowy, misty streets of London we associate with tales of violent crimes such as "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." A final spread in the back of the book looks at the Legend of the story, which includes the various dramatic versions on stage and screen. More interesting are the insights into how the story reflected what people were thinking about evolution, psychology, and drugs at the end of the 19th-century. The best solution might be to just try and read the story without always resorting to the additional information and then going back and filling in the details (maybe on a chapter by chapter basis). This approach is used in a pair of other "horror" classics, "Dracula" and "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," in the DK Classics series.


Michael: A Gift of Trust
Published in Paperback by Romance Foretold, Inc. (1901)
Author: Margaret B. Lawrence
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Michael: A Gift of Trust
1. Michael "Mickey" Mainwaring is living a nightmare. No matter what she does, the midnight phone calls continue. No matter what she does, the scary things keep happening, like the appearance of dead roses on her doorstep. And now, a handsome, but persistent cop won't leave her alone. Could he be the one stalking her? 2. J.B. Anderson loves Mickey. He's loved her since the first time he saw her. He thought if he could just get her used to seeing him around, he could eventually break down her icy exterior and make her say yes to going out with him. When he finally works up the nerve to ask her out, he quickly realizes that Mickey is not just an ice princess, she is truly terrified. So J.B. sets out to discover why. What J.B. discovers about Mickey's life is enough to make him swear that she will never be hurt again. But soon, J. B. realizes that whoever is stalking Mickey just might stop at nothing, not even violence. 3. Margaret Lawrence sets up a terrifying premise--that of an unknown stalker, in Michael: A Gift of Trust. J.B. happens to be tall and handsome too. Suspenseful and heart-wrenching.


Mustard Seeds
Published in Paperback by University Press of America (12 June, 1991)
Authors: L. Brent Bozell and E. Michael Lawrence
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Valuable gems too easily overlooked
Someone encountering this book on a used-bookstore shelf, or in an online listing, might understandably pass it by with hardly a second glance. If the author's name is recognized at all, it might be as the founder and president of the Media Research Center -- although in fact that L. Brent Bozell is this author's son. The subhead, 'A Conservative Becomes a Catholic,' might seem to limit the appeal to conservatives or Catholics or, most likely, conservative Catholics. And if the browser picked the book up and glanced through the pages, she would find references to the Vietnam War, Joe McCarthy, Pope Paul VI, Earl Warren, President Nixon, and other oh-so-dated names and barely-remembered controversies. Back on the shelf it would go.

What a mistake. What a loss to the insightful and curious soul.

Because the political and social analysis are only serve only to introduce Bozell's deeper concerns, his own philosophical and moral wrestling with the question of what it is to be and live as a Roman Catholic. He explores his own spiritual evolution -- his 'journey,' we would say today -- and applies his insights to questions that are just as important in the twenty-first century as they were in the 1960s and 70s, when most of these essays were written:

Is there such a thing as a distinctively Catholic philosophy of politics and economics? Does being a Catholic require one to be pro- (or anti-) capitalist, pro- (or anti-) Marxist? And in modern America, where the culture has rejected its Christian inheritance and, instead of persecuting believers ridicules, sneers at, or -- worst of all -- ignores them, what are Catholic Christians called to do?

I am neither Roman Catholic nor conservative (at least, not precisely in the way Bozell is). But I found much here to 'ponder in my heart.' I recommend it for Christians of any stripe concerned (as we all should be) with how our lives and our faith intersect contemporary culture.


Whose Right to Bear Arms Did the Second Amendment Protect? (Historians at Work)
Published in Hardcover by Palgrave Macmillan (2000)
Authors: Saul Cornell, Robert E. Shalhope, Lawrence Delbert Cress, Garry Wills, Don Higginbotham, Edmund S. Morgan, Michael Bellesilts, and Edward Countryman
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Historians fight over interpretation!
"Whose Right to Bear Arms Did the Second Amendment Protect?" edited by Saul Cornell and Robert E. Shalhope is a collection of essays and journal articles debating the interpretations of the Second Amendment by top notch historians on the subject. The book encourage debate and therefore has a well balanced assortment of articles covering the full spectrum of debate concerning the Second Amendment.

Books from the "Historians at Work Series" are designed to encourage debate and deeper thinking on a particular historiographic issue in American history. Books from the "Historians at Work Series" are designed for upper-level undergraduate and graduate level American history courses. This being said, its not an introductory text. The authors of the articles go directly into their subjects, with little significant background information. Therefore, you need to have an historical base-level to work from. Nonetheless, it is an excellent tool for students, scholars and general readers of American history.

Editions in the "Historians at Work" publish the entire article or essay, introduce the author and most importantly: it includes all endnotes--a rarity for books that are collections of articles/essays on a related topic.

Overall, an excellent representation on early American historical scholarship.

ADDED NOTE: The final chapter in this book, writen by Michael Bellesiles and his book were later found to be full of misrepresentation and misconduct in research. He has since lost his award and has resigned from his position @ Emory University.


Women in Love
Published in Audio Cassette by Penguin Audiobooks (1995)
Authors: D. H. Lawrence and Michael Maloney
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Way too much theatre and not nearly enough play!
I was tricked into reading this book due to it being a well known classic and from a desire to read a good romantic story which I thought it would be. Well, um, IT'S NOT.

I like to read books that draw me right into the story and then a couple of hours later you notice you are turning page 250 when the last you recall touching was page 97. This book was not like that at all. Unfortunately, I was always conscious that I was reading print from a page but kept reminding myself that a book this famous had to get good sooner or later. Far from not being able to put it down, I found myself often looking to see what page I was on and if I had read my quota for the night. It never did get good and when I had finished the last sentence I felt frustrated and cheated.

I worried that my lack of appreciation for this classic must be due to my inferior intellect and that I must after all be just some obtuse hill-billy. Thankfully I found that several people who had offered their reviews here shared my opinions for this book and I was quite relieved that I was not alone in my reaction.

For me, Lawrence's supremely descriptive, possibly brilliant (although I really wouldn't know) and flowery writing is all for not because of selfish, unlikeable and unbelieveable characters who don't really do anything. At the very end, the only care I had for anyone in the book was poor little Winifred. I hope she was alright.

In conclusion may I suggest that you pass on Women in Love and read instead Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy. It is so much more a wonderful book about believable, likeable, women in love.

Women In Love
Women In Love written by D.H. Lawrence is not as explicit as his other novels, and instead of concentrating on sexual content, Lawrence chose to depict the relationships between two sisters and their boyfriends. D.H. Lawrence goes deep into the minds of human beings and reveals the real secrets of emotions, feelings, and thoughts that people usually hide inside. Statements such as "The Dead Should Bury the Dead" illustrate the content of living and dying, which the book frequently discusses. The book is difficult and long to read, but it opens up the reader's mind and forces the reader to reavaluate the content of his or her relationship with other people.

One of the best I 've ever read
First of all, I have to own you up that reading Women in Love was one of the best experiences on books that I ever had. I know it's not Lawurence's masterpiece, but I touched me very deep. Everthing seems to wok in this book, from the characters to their enviroment.

It seems to me that Lawrence took daily events and showed them the way they are: unglamourised. He showed me what love and support seem to be. It's not about being happy all the time or that kind of love that happens only in movies. The book deals with the ordinary love, the one that normal human beings have the chance to face.

Following the experience of both couples made me see how different love can be and it is the still the same. I could perfectly understand all the worries and anxiets Gudrun had. And I think Gerald and she made quite a couple! Yet Birkin and Ursula look very nice together since the begin. Their love is not as 'wild' as the other couple's, but it is very strong indeed.

When the book was over I got down because I had to let them go. Following the lives of such people for a few days made quite an impression on me. Even though they may not be XXI century people like us, they have the same essence we do.

All in all, I know this review may read very emotive and personal, but this is a book that I couldn't apart in other to write about


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