Having done a Ph.D. in optics, I have read quite some books on optics and out of curiocity I bought this book, but I am not very pleased with it. First, it is difficult to read because of the old English language and structure. For native English speakers this carries perhaps not so much weight, but for me it did. Second, because it is a collection of Newton's works, it contains of course also many not-so-interesting discussions which you have to 'consume' before realising it was not so interesting.

What is nice though, is that the book contains many so-called queries, which are possible explanations of various optical phenomena, explanations/assumptions Newton could not prove/disprove at the time. This is fascinating reading, because many of these turned out to be true (or false, but even then: still interesting to know what he thought).

Overall impression: if you are interested in the history of optics/Newton then it is a nice book. But just for browsing in the evening: no.

"Though Mr. Newton is no physicist, his book is very interesting." -- Father Nicolas Malebranche (1707)

Outdated is the only word that comes to my mind when thinking about this book. It has been edited by a finance professor who is painfully slow at solving simple mathematical equations, and I had the misfortune of having him as an instructor in Advanced Investment Analysis class. I later dropped the class, after I couldn't take any more.

Surprisingly, the content of the book is not so bad, except that the authors/editors/compilers have left out the analytical part, which is very essential to understanding derivative securities. Just learning about the structures of the instruments doesn't give a reader an ability to apply them to real-life situations. Since it is a handbook, it must carry all aspects of the subject so that the readers can use them in every possible way of reference.

Standing alone, the book is fairly decent, and I would have given it more stars, had it not been for the better alternatives available on the market. This book, as it stands now, should be skipped. If you just want to gain the peripheral knowledge on credit derivatives, log onto the internet, and search for documents. There is tonnes of information on derivative securities and their working. In fact, you might be able to find more relevant material on the web for free than this book offers you.

As an alternative, you may want to look into:

*Credit Derivatives, by Janet Tavakoli.
*Credit Derivatives, by Satyajit Das. THIS IS THE BEST BOOK AVAILABLE, AND COVERS ANALYTICAL DETAILS ADEQUATELY.

This is another book in the Frank Fabozzi vein, being a compendium of articles written by practitioners in the field and loosely strung together by the editors. As a very basic introduction, it is not bad - there are discussions of the rationale for using credit derivatives, a cursory introduction to pricing and modelling, and very general discussions of issues relating to accounting, documentation, taxes, etc. The best chapter is "Credit Derivatives Pricing Dictionary," by Hardy M. Hodges, which provides definitions of some of the most important concepts and would stand quite well on its own. However, if you expect something more than generalities, you will be disappointed. There is very little by way of practical advice on structuring, modelling or other "nuts and bolt' issues. This book will teach you enough to get past the HR department, but if you want to get on the trading desk you had better look elsewhere!

Commercial bankers, investment bankers, financial lawyers, finance professors, and (at least) one accountant who were in on the creation of credit derivatives during the mid-1990s author chapters that are non-mathematical. (Well, I guess Harvard Business School Professor Sanjiv Das's credit derivatives pricing chapter is kind of mathematical.) Each chapter author is expert in the aspect of credit derivatives about which they write. Every commercial banker in the world should read up on this subject.

Absolutely no laymen, and few lawyers (only those nerdy, dweeby law professor types) could or would read this book. I was required to read it thirty years ago in law school. I was surprised to see it still in print. Granted, a lawyer should know what the ancient English forms of action were, but not in this detail (even with charts!). Only thing I can imagine worse or more boring would be to have sat through Professor Maitland's lectures, from which this book was derived. On the other hand, we have too many lawyers as it is. Maybe all would-be law students should read this before they applyy--could cut down on applications!

F.W. Maitland is a genius at showing how the present got here out of the dim past. To do so, he takes the reader to an ancient age when the "common law" that today we take for granted was still forming, and where the modern reader can barely recognize--let alone comprehend--the assumptions according to which the English people of a millennium ago lived their lives, ran their businesses, and settled their disputes. A subject seeking to right a wrong had few choices: submit to such archaic processes as trial by battle, trial by ordeal, or wager of law, on the one hand; or petition the crown for special, personal relief. The sovereign powers of judging and legislating were still undifferentiated, so obtaining judicial relief from the crown was an extraordinary process, almost as cumbersome as enacting general legislation. This book tells how the extraordinary process of royal justice evolved into the ordinary manner of settling private disputes, eventually supplanting the more barbaric forms of justice that previously held sway (although those forms were not fully abolished until the nineteenth century).

To commence a lawsuit in order to resolve a private dispute may seem perfectly routine today, but it was a fairly new concept in ancient England--at least at the level of the national government--and it did not grow up overnight. Ancient justice was usually a private, local matter, where the feudal lord held court and physical or economic power was often more important than law or right. The idea gradually developed that certain matters fell within the "king's peace," where the central government would consistently administer a generally applied policy without respect to wealth or power. These cases were at first exceptions to the rule of local justice, and so the "forms of action" grew up as the precise technical procedures by which the petitioner invoked the royal writ against local feudal lord's court. The local nobility was naturally jealous of any royal encroachment, so the forms of action were narrow and technical, and any deviation from the precise formula was fatal to the petitioner's case. Gradually, more and more cases fell within the king's peace, the writs grew more flexible, and--over the next half a millennium--the right of petitioning the central government for the redress of grievances became so common that the fledgling United States recognized it in the first amendment. But that process was a long slow painful one, and Maitland unmasks it with great care and detail, so that the evolution of an ancient and alien system of justice into the familiar modern system is evident to the modern reader.

If you are interested in the evolution of the English system of parliamentary government from the feudal era to the present, I also recommend Maitland's "Constitutional History of England."

Nicholas Whittaker, Blue Period: Notes from a Life in the Titillation Trade (Gollancz, 1997)

Nicholas Whittaker, just out of school, jobless, and dreaming of writing the Great British Novel, answered a small ad for an assistant editor in the Sunday paper. This started him on a seven year career at two of Britain's men's magazines, Fiesta and Razzle. He distilled the essence of those seven years into this little autobiographical yarn. And having finished it, I'm still not entirely sure what to make of it.

Whittaker strikes me as the self-deprecating type, and that tends to bleed over into his descriptions of his co-workers and office areas. Obviously, it's a different-colored lens than that of the usual self-aggrandizing autobiographer, but it still telegraphs to the reader to take everything herein with a grain of salt. It also says quite a bit about what working in the porn industry did to Whittaker; it always seems as if he's just this side of uncomfortable talking about sex, whether he was involved with it or not.

That's not to say the whole book has the "nobody knows the trouble I've seen" pall cast over it. Whittaker is possessed of a quick wit, even if it is usually turned on himself, and there are parts of the book that are laugh-out-loud funny. The balance is a bit rigged, it seems, but the attempt is there, and for the most part it succeeds. There's never quite so much despair that the reader stops caring.

Whittaker's ultimate aim, when one reads between the lines, is the demystification of the porn industry. He often compares himself and his workmates to the more public porn barons (for Americans, the comparison would be the guy in the copy room looking at his life as it relates to Hugh Hefner's), and wonders how the rest of the world can think everyone who works at a magazine could possibly live like that. But it's the illusionary atmosphere of the whole thing that keeps people buying the magazines, and Whittaker shows us the illusion time and again. It is in this where the book best succeeds; Whittaker relates his anecdotes and lets the reader's mind make all the necessary connections. One thinks that, after he's done with the Great British Novel, he'd probably make a fine living as a barrister. Assuming, of course, they don't castigate him for his shady past. ***

As Ronald Seth ever so casually admits, this is a novel that is so partial so Mr. Alger Hiss that one wonders why one of Whittaker Chambers' descendents did not bother filing some sort of a complaint against him? Perhaps it was because the Chambers's were by then used such people lashing out against Whittaker, and after all, there is such thing as the right of the freedom of the press. Mr. Seth was indeed entitled to say as he wished, whether it be kind, or even necessarily true.

One of the things that bothered me most about his writing was hypocrisy, a tactic he seemed to use when comparing the acts of Mr. Chambers to the acts of Mr. Hiss. Seth views Chambers as some sort of liar for mishandling dates, but when Hiss did the same, the excuse became "but what man doesn't after so many years?" He also believes that Chambers is some sort of fake for saying that Alger Hiss was 5'9 when he was really 6'0, that he was never really in his house because he could not remember a distinctly patterned mirror, and because he said their library was "simple" and "non-descript", even though Alger was always supposed to show off a book that was important to him. True, it would have added to the credibility of Chambers's testimony, had he remembered such things, but forgetting them should not deem him a liar, as Mr. Seth seems to think. If failed memory deems one a liar than what does that make Hiss, who could not even recall the name of George Crosely(the man whom he said was Chambers, using one of his many aliases)and even flubbed the address of his own street once while cross-examining Mr. Chambers?

Besides glorious praises of Hiss and numerous insults aimed at Chambers(he didn't have to call the "Letter to my Children" section of Witness nauseating!), this book fails to account little more than some re-hashes of the trials, as well as a section of Seth's view of "what really happened", which at times was so outrageous I was literally laughing out loud. Not exactally earth-shattering material in other words, but he does have a smooth writing style, and his vast knowlege of espionage and spy tactics was actually quite interesting, a point in his favor.

With that in mind, I would advise that people read this book if interested in getting a "pro-Hiss" view on the cases, but it would simply not do to ONLY read this book if wanting to find out about the case and nothing more. You would surely be missing out.

You can expect more from Triangulation than what the blurb on the back of the book says. Its an interesting story of the intertwined lives of three young people in post-war England. Its provides an great historical setting. You feel as if you are living in the fall of the British colonialism. The details are amazing, but its really the character development that makes this book good. John, Helen and Laurance become so real that you are anticipating their next move. You're not surprised when they do what they do because you knew it was in them. Its amazing that an author so young could write a period piece like this.

Occasionally interesting, but mostly disappointing, this book seems to be the result of interviews in which the right questions were not asked. Even interviewees who in other contexts have had a lot to say for themselves came across as tongue-tied. Read _Beyond Risk_ instead.