This biography is well written and researched. Unfortunately, it becomes painfully clear at times that the author, Robert Alan Goldberg, is writing from the Left. The book's strengths lie in his discussion of Goldwater's family history and upbringing. On the other hand, Goldberg's rants on Goldwater's racial complacency get old after a couple chapters, and do not relent. Goldberg essentially accuses Goldwater of turning a blind eye to racism, but then defends him by saying he himself was not racist.

Of course Goldwater was not racist. He did not "accomodate" racism, either...Goldwater just wasn't a "Civil Rights" activist like Goldberg, but then again, who is Goldberg to judge a man such as Barry Goldwater? When he sticks to the facts, this book is good. When he strays, it is awkward. Overall, though, its at least worth borrowing from the local library.

Barry Goldwater,as someone once pointed out, last name speaks of the 2 most important things in the American west. this biography,meticulous in its balance,shows Goldwater from his lonely days as a western conservative ina republican party dominated with eastern power and money{how wird does that sound now?],to his latter days a conscience of the conservaties,who found little to cheer about from the new right who claimed its parnetage to him.From his biting prescience on LBJ and Vietnam, to his condemnation of modern politcs,Goldwater was an original.truly .Would his vision and sheer balls be available on this convuluted and viscious landscape of politics today.Very,very well written,balanced,nuanced biography of a seminal figure of modern america.

In this wonderful biography, Goldberg provides a clear and enjoyable narrative of a rugged individualist, an independent thinker, and a man steeped in contradiction. Goldberg's book provides for a well-organized outline of Goldwater's life as a young man, businessman, Air Force pilot, and public servant. Unlike other Goldwater biographies, Goldberg's fair and impartial analysis of Goldwater's successes and foibles was a refreshing read.

First-hand interviews, existing documentation, and family information gives the reader a remarkable view into Goldwater's extraordinary life.

Highly recommended.

This was a great (5 star rating) book in 1998. However, there have been many changes in the tax laws and retirement saving instruments (like roth IRA, education credit etc.)since 1998. WSJ needs to update this great book soon.

Nearly all young people and most of the rest of us do not want to think about the time when we will have to live off some portion of what we are earning during our working lives. We face so many financial pressures each and every day that we end up spending all (or more than all) we earn. We can't seem to find any surplus to put away for that far away retirement. We have to deal with today.

But tomorrow comes and we need to face that. And the sooner the better! This guide is a good introduction to the basic concepts of the issues that need to be considered when thinking about your future financial needs. It is especially good as a text for young people to help them form their thinking about the basic issues of earning, spending, and saving and how to plan and control all three.

This is NOT detailed or current enough to serve as a guide or manual for financial planning. This is an introductory text to help you understand some basic concepts and terms. This guide helps you gain a working vocabulary of the terms and issues involved in preparing for a nice retirement. It is VERY colorful with many illustrations that add to the text and many which are there as eye candy.

Its a very easy to read guide on planning your financial, future, I bought this one, and after reading it, I also bought the one on "money and invesing" and the one on "personal finance". I live in Mexico, and altough retirement doesnt works the same way as in US, the books does works in some parts (65%) to planning your financial future in Mexico

Between Earth and Sky sees the characters of Guardians of the North face the destructive path of General Custer and the Seventh Calvary as he ventures close to the Canadian frontier in the Dakota Territory. Will Custer's presence bring a destructive Indian war between the Sioux and the Cheyenne, or will the North West Mounted Police be able to keep the peace in this hostile territory? Reena receives a telegram from her injured uncle who has been serving as a scout to General Custer, requesting her help in nursing him back to health. Taking her very life into her own hands in order to reach her Uncle, Reena embarks on the voyage across the hostile lands with Hunter Stone, Del Dekko, and missionary Jack Sheffield as her excort. As a battle seems to be looming on the frontier, Jack seeks out Chief Crazy Horse in an attempt to talk reason and smother the building fury of the Indians. Will they remain safe in General Custer's army, or will they venture through hostile Indian territory in order to make their way back home? Will God protect these honorable people, or will they see destruction before the novel ends? A suspenseful novel based on the tensions between the Indian nations and with the pioneers encroaching on the home of the Indian people.

Solid Christian romance with an interesting historical backdrop - Canada and our mounties! A good read.

The book has chapters on Money, Stocks, Bonds, Mutual Funds, and Futures & Options. Each chapter is written very clearly and pictures are used frequently to simplify descriptions of complex economic and financial ideas.

I would recommend this book to all of our customers who are just getting started with investing in stocks or who would like to know more about more complicated investments such as mutual funds, futures and options.

Many books about investing in Asia are quickly made useless by the gyrations in the volatile Asian markets. Unlike most such investment books, the Asian Wall Street Journal/Asia Business News' Guide to Understanding Money & Investing in Asia focuses on explaining the basic fundamentals of investing. It should be classic introductory investment text for years to come.

Justin Hunter

General Manager

BOOM.COM, Asia's first Internet brokerage

Heart of Valor continues the saga of the establishment of the North West Mounted Police as they attempt to bring law and order to the wild and rugged Canadian frontier. Battling the destructive whiskey trade, Hunter Stone and Reena O'Donnel, attempt to bring down the man who controls it. Stone, a North West Mountie, travels the rugged terrain in search of the whiskey smugglers. Reena, missionary to the Blackfoot Nation, watches the destructive influence of the whiskey on her Blackfoot tribe. Particularly troublesome is one renegade, Dew Eagle, who teeters on the brink of violence under the influence of the polluting whiskey. Together, fighting the whiskey trade, Stone and Reena grow closer together and passions rise. Will they admit their growing love for one another or do outside distractions strive to keep them apart? A well-written novel on the real evils experienced by the native Indians with the introduction of whiskey. This novel takes the reader down a trail of deep suspense as the characters struggle against the true nature of evil on the rugged frontier. A good read.

The world of personal finance and investing has exploded, as witnessed by the growth of books on the subject. But for many people, the understanding of the difference between an IRA and the IRS is a bit hazy. That's what this book is for. It is not a deep analysis of how to invest. It is however a quick primer to bring you up to speed for the more detailed books. Issues are covered on a high level, but are meant to introduce the reader to what Personal Finance encompasses - banking, investing, buying a home, paying taxes. It is a springboard for starting to learn more, or to just grab when you're unsure what a convertable bond is compared to a zero coupon bond. Today it is taken too much for granted that people know what they need to in order to even start making financial decisions. This book is a good cheat sheet for those who just want to get a basic understanding.

I highly recommend thsi book, I live in Mexico, and altough some things are different in my country regarding to investing it works for me a lot (85%) I suppose that this is a great book to American people, it helps a lot understanding issues that you do no get, like calculating all kind of interests and yields.

An excellent first step to understanding your financial activities. It really does start at the beginning: your local bank and its services, checks, ATMs, savings, monthly statements etc. In the other five chapters (Credit, Home finance, Financial planning, Investing, Taxes) most of the other money matters that you'll encounter are explained.

Finance seems to be a mystery to a lot of folk so the writer's and designer's of this book have done their best to make it as straightforward as possible and rather than have page after page of what could be very dry text each spread has lots of smart graphics, colored panels and jargon-free text that flows between these visual elements. It is all very controlled and as a publication designer I can appreciate the creative input that has gone into these pages. (I liked it so much I included it in my Listmania 'Ten of my favorite well designed books').

If you think you know all about your money this is not the book for you but if you don't then get this book and find out about your finances in these very user friendly pages. The same editorial folk have done another excellent book, 'Guide to Understanding Money and Investing', using the same straightforward language and graphic techniques and although the subject is a lot more complex it is still easy to understand.

This classic of basic definitions has a new edition that came out in 1999. Although I have not yet read that one, I do suggest that you skip this one.

The book is filled with discussions of how investors value stocks that few serious investors would recognize. There is almost nothing about investing outside the United States. NASDAQ gets almost no mention. The information about discount brokers is wrong. The terminology for describing many types of stocks was never correct, as best as I can recall.

The facts that are correct relate mostly to trivia, like what the number on a stock certificate means. It could help you answer a question on Do You Want To Be a Millionaire? but has little other practical use. Many of these facts (such as how to read the stock tables) can be garnered by simply reading the footnotes in The Wall Street Journal or Barron's.

This book is a good example of the communication stall. We tend to believe everything that we read from what should be reliable sources, even when the information is often faulty.

Donald Mitchell....

This book is excellent for people who are new to investing and managing their own money. It is colorful, easy to read, gives great real-life examples and provides a great index to the book can be used as a referrence manual. The book can be read rather quickly to give someone a feel for understnading stocks, bonds, mutual funds, futures and money in general. It's a must read prior to investing money.

"Tracks of Deceit" is the first mystery story in a series about the 19th century American detective Katy Steele. After her father is murdered, Katy's determination to find her father's killer brings her to the construction site of the transcontinental railroad. With her partner Sam Bronte, Katy uncovers a ruthless plot to sabotage the railroad project, and finds herself faced with murderous and money hungry villains who will stop at nothing to achieve their aims, even if it means Katy and her companions need to be "eliminated."

"Imperial Intrigue" is the second volume in the series, and describes Katy and Sam's new assignment in protecting an Austrian prince and princess who are settling down on a ranch in the American West. Katy soon shares in the struggles faced by the foreign royal party: adjusting to ranch life, befriending the ranch family, facing the murderous attempts of a greedy neighbouring rancher to take over the property, and avoiding death at the hands of a skilled assassin.

What NOT to expect:

1. Solid theology and a thought provoking message.
Typical of much evangelical thinking, this book offers only shallow theology. Typical are the ideas that heaven will be "enriched" by a wonderful Christian ("Tracks of Deceit" p.45), a false contrast between an Old Testament God of justice and the New Testament God of love (p.129), the idea that it is entirely wrong to judge someone even from their lifestyle (p.195), the pop-psychology assessment that an evil self-centred life is not really sin but rather indicative of being "seriously sick...insane." (p.216), the secular notion that Christians must learn to love themselves more ("Imperial Intrigue" p.178), and that it is possible for an unbeliever to be "basically a good person." Despite the fall into sin, the authors have rather too much faith in human nature, which is probably not surprising considering their Arminian theology (p.50,142). Such shallow thinking is evident throughout, and results in a grinding down of the gospel of Christ into a super-sweet sugar coating and sprinkling it over the story-line. Also of concern is the Biblical thinking that is missing from these books. Instead of focussing on the "unseen" heavenly promises, the authors focus with nauseating regularity on the "seen" qualities of physical beauty and physical attraction ("Tracks of Deceit" p.76,164, "Imperial Intrigue" p.32,47). When this secular focus was combined with a liberal dose of sappy romance ("Tracks of Deceit" p.125, "Imperial Intrigue" p.81) where characters habitually wind up kissing at their first meeting or soon afterwards, at times I could hardly believe I was reading a Christian book.

2. Strong characterization.
Katy herself is rather one-dimensional. While barely shedding a tear over her father's death, she immediately goes off to play detective and find his murderer. Although the characterization does improve in "Imperial Intrigue" (especially the attention devoted to the internal relationships of the ranch family), on the whole the characterization leaves much to be desired. Even the unbelieving "good guys" are surprisingly unselfish or else become Christian at the tip of a hat, whereas the "bad guys" have no redeeming qualities whatsoever, and are nearly always presented as "human monsters" that are always evil all the time.

3. A surprising and unpredictable plot.
The authors left so many clues that one of the surprising plot twists at the end of "Tracks of Deceit" came as no surprise whatsoever, but was instead entirely expected. When there are surprises, in both books they are frequently the result of most remarkable coincidences that are hardly credible, and thus hardly satisfying. Although "Imperial Intrigue" was certainly more credible and convincing than "Tracks of Deceit", weaknesses are still evident - among them an incident where the authors resort to having one of the characters have an unexplained urge to visit a grave in the middle of the night (p.195) in order to get three of the characters out of the house. Oh please!

What to expect:

1. Lots of action, intrigue and murder.
There is constant riveting action and intrigue, as Katy tumbles from one hair-raising situation to another. There is action aplenty, and by the end of the "Tracks of Deceit" there are several corpses, gun battles, kidnappings and sabotage. "Imperial Intrigue" also features constant action and intrigue, and probably even surpasses the effort of the first book. Despite the lack of realism at times, it is really the story-line that gives these books any measure of success.

2. An informative historical picture.
Despite the presence of a few questionable anachronisms (such as Katy's strong anti-discrimination and pro-feminist sentiments, as well as the frequent portrayal of minority groups as Christian), both books give interesting historical information without being tedious. "Tracks of Deceit" passes on many interesting and accurate historical details about the construction of the transcontinental railroad project - without allowing the novel to degenerate into a history lecture. Especially the conflict between two rival railway construction companies and the conflict between the Irish and the Chinese laborers is finely portrayed. Similarly, "Imperial Intrigue" gives a fascinating portrait of the prairie setting, and the trials and triumphs of ranch life.

In short, if you are willing to overlook the over-sweetened sugar-coating of shallow soap opera theology, you can enjoy these books as mediocre mysteries. But at best, these books offer little more than a so-so story-line, shoddily dressed in a rather poor-quality garment of thin Christian content.

This book is really great. It is a great action book with alot of turns and thrills with a slight love story as well. I recommend this book to those who want a great book to read.

Katy Steele Mystery No. 1: Tracks of Deceit & Katy Steele Mystery No. 2: Imperial Intrigue

"Tracks of Deceit" is the first mystery story in a series about the 19th century American detective Katy Steele. After her father is murdered, Katy's determination to find her father's killer brings her to the construction site of the transcontinental railroad. With her partner Sam Bronte, Katy uncovers a ruthless plot to sabotage the railroad project, and finds herself faced with murderous and money hungry villains who will stop at nothing to achieve their aims, even if it means Katy and her companions need to be "eliminated."

"Imperial Intrigue" is the second volume in the series, and describes Katy and Sam's new assignment in protecting an Austrian prince and princess who are settling down on a ranch in the American West. Katy soon shares in the struggles faced by the foreign royal party: adjusting to ranch life, befriending the ranch family, facing the murderous attempts of a greedy neighbouring rancher to take over the property, and avoiding death at the hands of a skilled assassin.

What NOT to expect:

1. Solid theology and a thought provoking message..... Typical of much evangelical thinking, this book offers only shallow theology. Typical are the ideas that heaven will be "enriched" by a wonderful Christian ("Tracks of Deceit" p.45), a false contrast between an Old Testament God of justice and the New Testament God of love (p.129), the idea that it is entirely wrong to judge someone even from their lifestyle (p.195), the pop-psychology assessment that an evil self-centred life is not really sin but rather indicative of being "seriously sick...insane." (p.216), the secular notion that Christians must learn to love themselves more ("Imperial Intrigue" p.178), and that it is possible for an unbeliever to be "basically a good person." Despite the fall into sin, the authors have rather too much faith in human nature, which is probably not surprising considering their Arminian theology (p.50,142). Such shallow thinking was evident throughout, and results in a grinding down of the gospel of Christ into a super-sweet sugar coating and sprinkling it over the story-line. Also of concern is the Biblical thinking that is missing from these books. Instead of focussing on the "unseen" heavenly promises, the authors focus with nauseating regularity on the "seen" qualities of physical beauty and physical attraction ("Tracks of Deceit" p.76,164, "Imperial Intrigue" p.32,47). When this secular focus was combined with a liberal dose of sappy romance ("Tracks of Deceit" p.125, "Imperial Intrigue" p.81) where characters habitually wind up kissing at their first meeting or soon afterwards, at times I could hardly believe I was reading a Christian book.

2. Strong characterization..... Katy herself is rather one-dimensional. While barely shedding a tear over her father's death, she immediately goes off to play detective and find his murderer. Although the characterization does improve in "Imperial Intrigue" (especially the attention devoted to the internal relationships of the ranch family), on the whole the characterization leaves much to be desired. Even the unbelieving "good guys" are surprisingly unselfish or else become Christian at the tip of a hat, whereas the "bad guys" have no redeeming qualities whatsoever, and are nearly always presented as "human monsters" that are always evil all the time.

3. A surprising and unpredictable plot..... The authors left so many clues that one of the surprising plot twists at the end of "Tracks of Deceit" came as no surprise whatsoever, but was instead entirely expected. When there are surprises, in both books they are frequently the result of most remarkable coincidences that are hardly credible, and thus hardly satisfying. Although "Imperial Intrigue" was certainly more credible and convincing than "Tracks of Deceit", weaknesses are still evident - among them an incident where the authors resort to having one of the characters have an unexplained urge to visit a grave in the middle of the night (p.195) in order to get three of the characters out of the house. Oh please!

What to expect:

1. Lots of action, intrigue and murder..... There is constant riveting action and intrigue, as Katy tumbles from one hair-raising situation to another. There is action aplenty, and by the end of the "Tracks of Deceit" there are several corpses, gun battles, kidnappings and sabotage. "Imperial Intrigue" also features constant action and intrigue, and probably even surpasses the effort of the first book. Despite the lack of realism at times, it is really the story-line that gives these books any measure of success.

2. An informative historical picture..... Despite the presence of a few questionable anachronisms (such as Katy's strong anti-discrimination and pro-feminist sentiments, as well as the frequent portrayal of minority groups as Christian), both books give interesting historical information without being tedious. "Tracks of Deceit" passes on many interesting and accurate historical details about the construction of the transcontinental railroad project - without allowing the novel to degenerate into a history lecture. Especially the conflict between two rival railway construction companies and the conflict between the Irish and the Chinese laborers is finely portrayed. Similarly, "Imperial Intrigue" gives a fascinating portrait of the prairie setting, and the trials and triumphs of ranch life.

In short, if you are willing to overlook the over-sweetened sugar-coating of shallow soap opera theology, you can enjoy these books as mediocre mysteries. But at best, these books offer little more than a so-so story-line, shoddily dressed in a rather poor-quality garment of thin Christian content.