Alan Shapiro has, in this volume, created a world where, for better or for worse, the past is not missing: instead, it walks around in our world, befriending us or pestering us, stopping at nothing, even death. And yet these are poems of loss, or loss that will not complete itself, as in Joyce's "absence is the highest form of presence."

Take the poem "Ghost," in which a dead woman speaks to her widower: even the past is haunted by its own past. Or the poems of or to the speaker's dead or dying relatives & loved ones: the touches that have ended in withdrawn hands but remain in lingering feeling.

Shapiro's knowledge of poetry is astounding, & he uses that knowledge (which is, by the way, so much more than mere knowledge) to build subtle, strong, and elegant poetry. He has been doing it for years; his earlier work--excellent as it is--is mere exercize for the power of The Dead Alive and Busy.

The Times reviewer is right that THE DEAD ALIVE AND BUSY is "weighted with grief," but that's only the half of it. Shapiro is a master of structure, a poetic maker who understands that what makes grief bearable is the song the poet builds to contain feeling. This volume begins with an extraordinary hymn to Apollo, a poem which points to the way that poetry's work is to marry the pleasures of music to the stuff of human experience -- to sing, in other words, about our suffering, our failures and our nobility. It's a poem that points to this collection's project, and prepares us for the deep humanity, psychological insight, and formal grace of the poems that follow. This is one of the best books of the year.

An excellent book for Grduate level MBA and Finance students. Very precise and covers all details in a very simple and effective way. I recommend every single MBA student should keep this book as a reference.

As a French student and now as an MBA graduate student from an American University, I had the opportunity to read several books from both the US and from Europe. This one is simply excellent!

You can find other great books like those written by Myers, Ross and so on. They all give a good overview of corporate finance issues. But something is missing in all these books: a more friendly and a less institutional approach. You can find that in the book written by Balbirer and Shapiro.

In my opinion, you can use this book in two ways. Either you are looking for a particular issue. Then you will see how this book is well organized and how the content is strong, concise and interesting. Or you can do like I did. Read this book for pleasure and enjoy how the authors reformulate the same point, the same ideas in three or four different ways in the same paragraph to make sure that you can understand. And that is the main strenght of this book. Whatever topic you pick up in ordinaries (even excellent) Finance books, you might have to read a paragraph two or three times to really get it. In this one, just enjoy how the authors try to take different perspectives to explain things...only one reading is required to understand!

I think this book is more appropriate for undergraduate students even if it is a great introductory book for MBA students or people without any financial background. It covers a lot of different topics so you can consider that as a first (strong) or a secondary Corporate Finance book. However, I don't think that it would be appropriate for very advanced Finance major students. The latter could however consider it as their new reference books where they can come to pick up some information they might have forgotten in previous classes.

My advice...just by it or you will miss something.

This book covers a comprehensive range of topics regarding international finance and economics. A good deal of the material covers macroeconomic issues that a country will face but there is even more infomration relevant to decisions and situations that companies must deal with when entering foreign markets. The breadth of information makes this book appropriate whether you want a blueprint for doing business overseas or just want to better understand the impact of global trade.

Shapiro is very well respected as an economist and this book is a good example why. I was fortunate enough to have him as a professor in an MBA program and can say he has an amazing command of the issues as well as the ability to communicate his knowledge very effectively. The writing in this book is clear and concise with a ton of info packed into each chapter. Buy it, you won't find a better text on this subject.

Excellent book for anybody that want to have an introduction to understand international finance

Norman Shapiro's four volumes of La Fontaine translations are better than we have the right to expect in English translation--what more can be said?

If you enjoy "Fifty Fables"--and you will--do investigate "Fifty More Fables," "Once Again, La Fontaine," and "La Fontaine's Bawdy"--each volume is full of perfect gems.

This book is short with concrete explainations on various aspects of corporate finance.

The Shapiro/Burian translation of The Oresteia, one of the seminal texts of Western Civilization, combines scholarly exactitude with poetic intensity. Whereas other renderings seem at best like successful translations from one language to another, this one comes across as a carrying over of one poetry into another. This ought to be the standard version of this crucial trilogy for a long time to come.

1. Because of the music. (Gerald Stern says, "There is some strange, some delightful, some outrageous music here.")

2. Because of the dirt. So much hydroponic poetry out there nowadays--poems subsisting proudly on nothing but water and air. Smith's poems have their roots where they should.

3. Because of the work, the politics, the pleasure, the real places & dreamed release, and all the other people outside and inside the "I."

Here's a piece of a poem with a title taken from Roethke, "I'll Make a Broken Music, or I'll Die": "If the four boiled men on my block / had speech beyond the wet kiss / from the imperfect embouchure / of their lips on the bottles of the shamrock- / emblazoned Tokay, and if this / emptied oil drum fueled by jilted furniture / could be their mouth, then they could sing / of the passing into darkness / with the perfect pitch and modulation / of silence and how it feels being / what's collected in the winds / and not the song. / / Of the almost-songs we are, this / voiceless one is the loudest."

4. Because these are the fierce and beautiful "almost-songs" of the other lover, the one who loves (hurt or be hurt) whatever might be left out of the voice, riding over it, sliding under it, "a shadow boxer, a small / class struggle, a mad and fearful girl, a plural."

5. Because these poems are hungry and so are you.

6. Because Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman never slept here, and you won't sleep either.

7. Because, come on, you're curious about what makes a book a finalist for BOTH the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.

8. Because of the music.

John Rosenthal's photographs are breathtaking. While the photograph pictured on the cover is incredible, there are countless photos inside featuring people. John has a knack for catching the most extraordinary facial expressions, truly capturing the energy and essence of a moment. I highly reccommend this book for any black and white photography buff.

Shapiro writes of his brother, a performer who recently died at a young age, and he makes use of personal memories and show business songs in ironic and unexpected ways. This is not a collection of poetry in the usual sense; it accumulates power in the manner of a novel while having the precise beauty of poetry. If there is any justice, it will be a finalist for all of the prizes. Alan Shapiro is a fine poet, but the appeal of this book goes far beyond the typical readership of poetry. This is a book that will speak to anyone who loves literature, but also to anyone who had suffered grief. It is an unsentimental celebration of that which endures after a tragedy.

This tightly written little gem of a book is packed full of interesting insights about the mental side of the game. Mr. Shapiro draws on material ranging from clinical psychology to zen, and from Hogan, Nicklaus & Woods to the double-digit handicappers most of us are more intimately familiar with in shaping a realistic and workable strategy for golfers of all abilities to not only get the most out of their golf games but to find more balanced lives away from the course. I highly recommend it.

This is the 3rd book on Mental Golf that I have read, and by far the best. The author provides a great test (similar to Myers-Briggs) that helps to focus on 6 areas that can be improved mentally. Each of these areas then has a chapter that has golf-related ideas (instead of some other books that provide overall life changing fixes...yuck) to get over the mental hurdles. For me, Hazard 5 (control freak) and 4 (trying to live up to other's expectations) were right on the money as far as the test scores then the anecdotes. I now have alot of new, useful golf-related ideas to try. Thanks!

One of those "little" books that turns out to be a gem of wisdom "Golf's Mental Hazards" is a book that will definitely inform your game, whether it's the game of golf or the game of life. A clincal psychologist, Dr. Shapiro employs a deft and insightful quiz to help the golfer establish his/her personality profile and then uses the profiles to point out strategies to improve the game. The book can be read as a straight "how-to" on the game of golf (and this avid duffer clearly knows and loves the game) but it also delves deeper into strategies that can inform and enhance the golfer's life when off the links, as well. Calling upon such eclectic references as Zen, Existentialist Psychology and death anxiety, Dr. Shapiro weaves together a philosophy of golf, and of living, that will expand the mind and spirit as much as it enhances the game. Delivered with both elegant insights and the rollicking style of a stand-up comic,"Golf's Mental Hazards" is a thoughtful, funny, delightful, and very helpful book, destined to become a classic in the literature of golf.