Bikers from all walks of life, professional and blue collar,
articulate their "wisdom for the ride", accompanied by some great
pictures. All this in an elegantly designed package small
enough to put in your pocket or saddle bags. A timeless "big"
little book that really gives you your moneys' worth. 'Two
thumbs up, way up"

I was just a kid when I was sitting on the back of a bike and holding on for dear life. My arms around these two wide shoulders holding on with a vice like grip. I trusted my father and I knew he would never put me in danger. I remember the sound of the engine and the wind as we broke through some kind of a sound barrier or something. The sharp turns that we didn't slow down for and for sure I was going to fall off.The sounds and the screaming of the wind were a memory I grew up with.I didn't realize it then but it was the most exhilarating memory of my life.
It all came back as I breezed through my new copy of The Biker Code. Was it the fear of getting on the bike or was it just something that I just never got around to doing?
Every page brought me closer to that memory so very long ago. Did I just see my old man on one of the bikes or was I just looking for him? Why did I run away from it? Is it not to late? My God, how I just love all of those free spirited souls on every page. Is it not too late to go back to those memories?
A great book. An emotional journey. Maybe a dream that can be lived again.

This book changed the way I drive around bikers...because I didn't really understand their vulnerability, AND because I didn't appreciate their strengths. This book shows a side of bikers that non-bikers (like myself) need to see. It is both beautiful and moving.

This book is my bible. It is perfection itself. It is the most up to date resource of its kind, and of any kind. The author is a god. Please call him Zeus, all of his friends do. I do not know the author, but he is one of the voices in my head. If you read the book backwards, you will find inner peace. Buy it

Written as a college text, it covers the general rules, banking statutes and regulations. The book explains the history of banking in the U.S. It explains how Banks are established, Bank holding companys, securities, electronic and international banking.

Most management personal I have met in the banking industry would be well served by this book. The majority seem to have no idea of the laws, rules, or regulations of the banking business.

This is the book if your looking for a general overviwe of banking

It does not have all the Federal Statutes and Regulations, but has the most commonly used codes. (Adding the text of the Statutes and Regulations would be a worthwhile apendix for the third edition.)

The 2000 supplement is needed with this text, as the rules and laws are developing quickly.

Geoffrey Miller is a wonderful writer, fully in command of the theory and evidence in evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology, and animal behavior. He is also widely read in the arts and popular culture. He has a fertile imagination and a creative bent that makes reading his ideas a real pleasure. This book is, as they say, "a good read."

But is it correct? Miller tries to explain the mystery of human intellect and creativity. Why would a creature (us) who evolved under the most primitive of material conditions, who lacked even sedentary agriculture until 10,000 years ago, have evolved the mental capacity for beauty, wit, rhythm, and truth? His answer is: sexual (as opposed to survival) selection. In short we are smart and talented because women preferred to mate with smart and talented men.

There is a problem, however. There are two theories of sexual selection: runaway selection (associated with Darwin and Ronald Fisher), and the handicap principle (Zahavi). Most of Miller's arguments require the former (although he formally disavows this early in the book), while the latter is probably the only plausible model of sexual selection.

For instance, the idea that we have large brains because women prefer intelligent men, even if intelligence imposes a fitness cost on men, is plausible only if intelligence is a signal of a superior fitness in some other hidden area (e.g., a lower parasite load). But I cannot think of one such area, nor does Miller supply one. Intelligence may have direct fitness benefits for humans, but that is NOT sexual selection, but straightforward selection for survivability.

In short, I think Miller is wrong, and I know there is no quantitative evidence for his 'just-so story,' but I loved the book anyway.

Psychologist Geoffrey Miller takes on Darwin's long ignored theory of sexual selection and gives it new life. In this book written for the general audience he uses the theory to explain all that natural selection could not and does it in a way that is most entertaining. According to Miller, all those qualities that animals and humans possess that do not give them an obvious survival benefit will only continue in future generations if they provide a reproductive advantage. The author gives several examples from the animal world as well as the human world to explain bird song,insect dance, peacock tails,and human physical traits as well as behavior.Miller claims we are attracted to beauty, youth and energy because people possesing these qualities are more likely to be fertile and have healthier offspring. Creativity,humor,athletic ability,and intelligence were all traits selected as desirable in males by African females long ago and that is why these qualities are with us today.According to Miller, we do it all for love and those animals that perform well and/or look healthy will be judged the fittest and will most likely be chosen to pass on their genes.I found most of Miller's ideas completely plausible and believe some of them testable. However, I am curious as to why human female adornment was not mentioned more. Overall The Mating Mind is a marvelous book. It explains human behavior so obviously you will kicking yourself for not figuring it out yourself. Kimberly Caldwell Evolutionary Psychologist in the Making :)

Science at its best: explaining much with few assuptions. This is a book about sexual selection: how all humans show off to tell others they have good genes. Contrary to natural selection, sexual selection explains things like telling stories, playing sports, writing books, pursuing scientific careers, struggling for financial success. Women try to persuade men they are young and fertile, and men - that they are intelligent enough to provide women with needed support. That is why we buy too many cars, waste money in expensive restaurants, possess yachts not having time to enjoy them and build 1000-feet buildings to have our headquarters there. All those strange things intelectuals sweared unexplainable are easily understood. Of course, evolutionary psychology and sexual selection are still developing, and majority of hypotheses in this book are not yet well established or proved, but they simply can't be wrong. As with publishing of 'The Origin of Species' every open-minded person is struck with obviousness and power of this theory. ...Maybe not so, because as Miller admits he is only bringing us back Darwin's theory of human nature outlined in his 'The Descent of Man'. Then people were not yet ready for the truth. Are we?

Unbelievable how a group of businessmen have changed the way kids pretend play. The process of decision making in this industry is so elementary but yet so critical in shaping our childrens memories, desires, passions, and shaping their past time. This book brought me into a world that I no longer think is just fun and games. I like that Miller gives a broad insight to the industry. At first I felt the personalities of the key players wre being told in too much detail. Now I see that it is these personalities that rule and are changing play time forever. A great book for parents and educators. I do not feel there are many business lessons to learn here as I have seen in other profiles. I completed the book with a true feel for this important industry and that was my goal. Mostly Miller writes a story about Hasbro, family and product ups and downs.

A well written book that makes for very interesting reading. It is the story of Hasbro and the events that unfold around it. Since the author had a good access to the Hasbro team, he has been able to write up about Hasbro executives in great detail. Competitiors, esp. Mattel get seen through Hasbro eye's and hence maybe make for a one sided perspective.
The book talks well about how toy brands have evolved from simple objects to complex products involving Hollywood, comics, cereals, mega blitz promotions and the like. It offers a good understanding of how the toy business is not a childs play any longer.

having worked at toys r us for many years and living near the hasbro company- i felt that the subject would be of interest to me only - but in trying to get the book at my local bookstore i found that it was difficult to obtain. When i bought the book and read it i was pleased to find that the book was easy reading. The book is fast paced and takes you through the high stakes world of the toy industry dealing with two giants - mattel and hasbro- it was fun reading how favorite toys got started and even more fun to learn about toys that you knew were doomed to failure i went to high school with one of the people that is acknowleged as helping the author and can't wait to talk to him about his contribution.

I read this book as part of an English course on late-19th and 20th century American literature. It's the first time I've read a novel by Henry James, having so far only seen the movie adaptations of 'Portrait of a Lady' and 'Washington Square'. Having been wary of reading James (because of his reputation for dense, convoluted prose) I was surprised at this novel's relatively brisk plot and overall readability. The story itself, ostensibly a simple one about one man's inability to understand a seemingly complicated woman, also has interesting things to say about gender, class and the relationship between the United States (personified by the heroine) and the rest of the Western world. I was actually somewhat amazed that the image of America created through the characterization of Daisy Miller still rings true 125 years after this book's publication.

As is often the case for Henry James, there is scarcely a detail of his work that can be made better somehow.

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY, 1878, is among the principal novellas of history and literature. Very simply, the story involves a young girl Daisy Miller, wandering through Europe, and from America. She is sensitive and capricious. Her ways attract attention, such that perhaps she appears a lustrous woman of carnal desires, or disrespectful to cultures not her own, or stupid. At any event, she catches the eye of another tourist, Mr. Winterbourne, a "nice guy" who not unlike the nice guys of our own world lucks out. He does not get Daisy, but watches as she kisses another and loses herself to unappreciatve men. She does this from anger, resentment, and want of attention. She becomes a symbol of many things, and in the end she dies. The book has been debated for decades.

The dialogue is so well crafted as to be sacred. No further editing of this story is possible, for James took very great pains to edit his work multiple times over. And here, we see a flow of talking and happenings that seem to real to even be on the page. As for instance the communication of Mr. Winterbourne and Daisy's little brother (I believe). The little boys talks, and behaves, as a little boy would. And, Mr. Winterbourne likewise behaves as a young man would to a young boy. Greatest of all are the marvellous dialogues between Daisy and Mr. Winterbourne. They flirt at times, and one feels Winterbourne's longing for her. They feel his sadness, a real sadness, as when she is not feeling for him nearly as deeply. I likened myself to to the man.

I am glad to know that Mr. James was credited as having been "the Master."

I hadn't read James for about eight years or so when I came across a copy of Daisy Miller in a pile of discarded books at a local university. It sat on my shelf for a while longer, as I knew full well that James writes in thick sentences, making up for the lack of volume by quite a bit.

What I found was what I have come to expect from James, even in his early works. This book does a great deal in terms of pulling together many levels of interpretaion: Old World versus New World, common versus exclusive, and also the chaser and the chased.

This last viewpoint in particular is what stuck with me. We have a young girl, and a young man. They meet once for a few days, and the young man becomes utterly fixated on her, if for any other reason that she is playing, in his view, hard to get. When she turns her attention elsewhere, the ante is doubled and tripled when, for a variety of reasons most likely centered around our young hero Winterbourne, the American society in Rome starts to give our heroin the "cold shoulder". Given that James writes most often to examine the person most in focus in the novel, I tend to atribute most of the troubles of this young girl to both herself and Winterbourne, not just the society of the time. This is far from a safe academic interpretation, however.

The notes included in the book are helpful for getting into the mindset of the typical reader of James' day, but are not distracting. Overall, this would probably be suitible for an ambitios middle school student, and just right for most high school students.