Michael Phillips is a great thinker who always looks at business from a deep unusual perspective. Since his early work with Honest Business, I have been reading his books with a lot of attention. Gods of Commerce is a great and ambitious book that brings a very interesting world view of business and a lot of insights like the concept of Social Sorting and its implications to our era of merger and acquisitions. Even with a feeling of truth about most of Michael's ideas, the downside is that it lacks more factual evidence to the points that are made, and a frustration feeling if you want to go deeper in some of the ideas presented.

The titlle of the book implies that it has much to do with hazardous waste management, although in reality, it is more about remediation or site cleanup. Classic hazardous waste management deals with the MANAGEMENT of hazardous wastes within an industrial setting and how NOT to let it get into the media in the first place. In this regard, while the authors had the right intention, they fell short. For example, the chapter on environmental auditing was very weak and not given much attention, which is really at the heart of hazardous waste management. In addition, a troubling issue that took away from the book was the blatent self-promotion of ERM in the book, beginning with the foreward by Paul Woodruf, ERM's CEO, and the profuse listing of ERM self credits from editing to graphics. Who really authored the book, the authors listed, or ERM?

Phillip Michael Carnagie, a detective with the Hawaiian Police
Department, as a confusing string of murders to solve.
Seven people, all found on a beach, next to taboo type relics, called Kapu
sticks. Is there a connection to where they're
found, and what they were doing? The Kapu's held simple rules on them,
modern laws for the beach, instead of ancient laws
to be obeyed. Yet it appeared the victims had disobeyed those laws, and had
died for it. But had they, or had they died for
far more sinister reasons? And thrown into the mix is the sudden suspicion
that at least one of the deaths was committed by
someone else.
With the help of his friend Julianna, and the detectives working with him to
solve the string of confusing deaths, Detective
Carnegie latches onto the one suspect who links them all. But is David a
suspect, or the victim the killer has intended to
take out all along? Is it a plot to destroy a young man's life, or a young man's
plot to further himself? Who can tell, who
knows? The Last Death steers you through a maze of "what if's" and
suspects, leading to one, then to another, until the
reader is turning page after page, seeking the answer.
Clues, suspects and victims slowly mount up, until Detective Carnegie
receives a confession he can't quite believe. Yet
the deaths then stop, the case becomes closed, and it appears all is well. But
the killer isn't yet finished. There are lose
ends to tie up, a detective to kill, and yet more pieces of the puzzle that need
to be fitted together.
The Last Death was rich on detail, exploring in great length the culture of
many of Hawaii's ancient beliefs. Many of the old
Hawaiian words were used, though many came off as confusing to a reader
who had never seen nor heard of them before.
The mystery and the clues would confound even the most ardent mystery
reader, and keep them guessing until the very
end, where the surprising last chapter suddenly vindicates the victims as well
as the reader and the detective.
By Shadoe Simmons-All About Murder Reviews

This book contains a collection of some 93 poems (if I counted correctly) that the editor feels define the United States. Indeed, a very wide net was cast in collecting these poems; there are patriotic poems (such as The Star-Spangled Banner and The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere), and poems disparaging America (including one about an ex-Confederate's hatred for the U.S., and some decrying American culture, racism and/or damage to the environment). There are two wonderful Shaker contributions, seven by Native Americans, some by famous poets, and some that are anonymous.

Overall I found this to be a good collection of poems, though I did find the lack of a unifying theme made the collection seem rather haphazard. Michael McCurdy provided the illustrations for this book, but their stark, black-and-white appearance contributed toward giving the book a negative feel to it. Overall, this book did not impress me, and I give it a rather guarded recommendation.

I had hoped for useful tips on financial investing. Those who choose voluntary simplicity as a lifestyle do not always want to invest their savings in NASDAQ, so alternative, secure investments are very desirable, particularly for those who hope to one day live off their investment income.

I was very disappointed to discover that "Simple Living Investments" is essentially a booklet about the standard ideas of old age. I found little substance to this book. Chapter four shares a tip that "the importance of friendship to a satisfying and meaningful life is greatly underestimated..." I regret that I paid $ for this "wealth" of information.

I loved this book. I came prepared to think about things like money funds, bonds, paying off my mortgage and ended thinking about flexibility and friends.It takes thinking about old age, retirement and money and turns things on their heads in a very sensible way. I laughed aloud and then agreed with his conclusions about what makes a happy and successful old age. I recomend it for my class on waste reduction. I loved the investment charts.

I had high hopes for this book, but was a little disappointed. I bought conspiracy x, expecting great stuff, and it met with my expectations. Cryptozoolgy didn't. First, it's set up with information divided into two parts: the gamers information, and the GM's information. the result is that you have to look in two different areas for information on different "supernatural creatures". Most of the regular freaks of nature are covered--Loch Ness monster, Bigfoot, Sasquatch, etc. I was pleased to see a few others like the Mokole. The writing is a lot more pendantic than I'd like--but that may be a direct result from being written in character, where teh character is old, stuffy, and bombastically long-winded. If your game will run into a supernatural creature, it might be worth checking this beek out. If not, I wouldn't bother.

I was required to purchase this text as part of a course taught at USC by Michael J, Driver, one of the authors. There is nothing overly enlighting to be found in this text. Much has already been covered in detail in numerous other sources on the subject. Furthermore, sadly in person this author could not elaborate or provide any greater ensight on his writings. Save yourself the money, or if you must buy the book as I did resell it immediately after using it. This text is not worthy of maintaining in one's personal academic library.

This book in my opinions has several serious flaws, which render it unhelpful to a reader keen to penetrate the issue on a scientific level. Prof. Phillips apparently is not being informed on the final verdict about the measurable effects of subliminal advertising as summarized by Pratkanis/Aronson or other social psychologists.Instead he shares some unsubstantiated rumours of the lay public. He seems to be totally ignorant of the current state of advertising research centering around the valid measurement of persuasion of advertisements (System of McCollum/Spielman, Single Source Research as analysed and presented by John Philip Jones and others). Some statements suggest, that Prof. Phillips may not be in command of some basic qualifications his topic requires. (On page 61 "studies..usually try to establish the correlation.. to determine causation between them through regression analysis..".N.B. neither correlations nor regressional analyses can determine causation) Having paid a whopping price of $ 62.95 for a clear nonperformer qualifies this work of Prof.Phillips an example of unethical manipulation in the book trade!