Bryan
Michael Lewis is one of my favorite authors, but I have to give his most recent work 3 stars simply due to the fact that it is more a compilation of his essays than new work created for a book. Having said that, his travels to various countries in the heart of the global financial crisis part 2 is very interesting.
Ordinarily not a big novel reader, let alone fantasy, but I was intrigued by the show on HBO and absolutely loved it. Additionally, the show did a fantastic job remaking the book; probably the closest I have ever seen. Since I ham now hooked, the balance of the series (4 books in total until next week when it moves to 5) will be added to my “To Read” list.
Alright, let's get this out of the way first: this book reads like one of the world's worst infomercials. There is countless promotion of the author's website, help groups, etc. I can definitely see how this might annoy someone into stopping reading this book.
Having said that, there is a lot of interesting information in how sugar impacts our health. There are countless experts referenced. It certainly could be that the experts are biased. I have heard of some and respect them, but others are completely unknown to me.
If you can get past the salesy writing, it is certainly a worthwhile and interesting read, and may just change your dietary choices.
The content of this book was very interesting. I gave it 3 stars because most of the book was not about peak oil, but rather about how oil was created, where it is found and how it is extracted. This is all valuable information, but titling alone knocked it down a star from what this book should have received.
Found this book extremely interesting, especially in conjunction with “The Big Short,” by Michael Lewis and “Too Big to Fail.” There is very little overlap and they all work extremely well looking at different aspects of the build up to the credit bubble, trades long and short through the bubble and the goings on at the various financial firms during the meltdown.
I would highly recommend all three books to get a proper understanding of what happened.
Great job, Mr. Scheuer. If people don't understand bin Laden's gripes and aims by the end of this book, they aren't paying attention. The book looks at bin Laden, past the urban legends, from a man who knows the inside scoop.
If you are interested in what motivates the man and what he is hoping to accomplish (and the United States hopefully thwart), this is essential reading.
I also saw Mr. Scheuer visit Portland for a book reading. It was a wonderful evening, and despite what one of the commenters below had to say, didn't find him crazy in the slightest. Of course, you may not like what he has to say, but that doesn't mean he's wrong.
This book does an excellent job of discussing what it was like to live through the Great Depression from the eyes of a businessman (actually a lawyer). Typically, most accounts focus on farmers, factory workers or the unemployed. While it was largely impersonal (Roth did not discuss much of his own life outside of how poorly the legal profession generally was)it was still a very enlightening story.
Roth regularly quoted economic statistics and stock prices, which gave some financial color to the picture. He often mentioned that going through the Depression was like getting an advanced college degree and was intellectually stimulating, if not for the absolute misery of things.
I thought this was a very good book to give some perspective on how things were at the time for someone who was constantly watching the markets. If you have an interest in finance, you should enjoy this book.
This book does a very good job on the genesis of and the resultant problems from the pension system which many companies and governments in this country maintained. The bottom line is that none of the three pension sponsors (and by extension, probably most pension sponsors) understood or cared to understand the ramifications of their promises.
I agree with one review of the book which said that Lowenstein's diagnosis of the problems are spot on. However, his proposed solution seems to reinforce the mistakes he noticed when corporations and local politicians made when creating and modifying their pension systems.
Having said that, it is an excellent review of the pension problems and the ways different parties have created these problems which are looming shortly on the horizon.
This was an excellent book. I can never read books very fast due to work and family schedule and finished this in three days. Mr. Jones details his frustrating experience navigating the beuracracy of the CIA as a case officer living overseas under non-official cover. It was an extremely interesting look into a side of one of the most secretive government agencies. At the end, he also details his suggestions on how to fix the problems he identified. You truly get a sense that his superiors were not pleased to have seen this published.
My only complaint is the formatting in the Kindle version. I am aware that the book was heavily redacted, but there were numerous errors in navigating these redactions. They weren't serious, just annoying. Otherwise, anyone interested in US national security, the CIA or American government in general should read this book.
I saw this author at a book reading here in Portland. I love his outlook and where he comes from (I know; don't finish a sentence with a preposition, but writing it correctly sounded too “over the top”). Aslan has a fresh perspective and does yeoman's work summarizing the history of the prophet's life, as well as the growth of the religion. While I think he payed too much heed to some current era conspiracy theories toward the end, the book was very well written and definately worth the read.
This book is a must read to understand how the financial crisis was handled by the companies involved in the meltdown, as well as the administration officials who were attempting to stave off a complete meltdown. This book reads like a novel and is the kind of book you just can't put down. It helps to humanize the “masters of the universe” as they struggled to save their companies, and in many cases, their own significant investments in their companies.
While there are some inaccuracies in how the author interpreted how investments were perceiving the crisis (esp in the excerpt from Vanity Fair), they seem to have been corrected in the Kindle version and do not take away from the narrative which is told.
Mr. Scheuer reminds us of the federal government's primary responsibility in this book; one which is too often forgotten: promote the country's national (including security) interests. Too often our federal government makes the mistake that President Washington warned against about becoming entangled in other nations' affairs.
His other primary thesis in this book is that the military, through the government's mandates, has forgotten how to fight a war, and instead has become overly concerned with nation-building and international opinion.
He proposes a national conversation about what our national interests are, one that is unafraid of unflattering labels by those who have other interests than the national interests of the United States. Like “Imperial Hubris,” I found this book to be an extraoridinarily thought provoking tome and one which needs to be expounded upon in the public sphere.
I saw Mr. Aslan at a book reading in Portland before I read this book. That was a mistake. This book was an excellent review of the fight groups like al-Qaeda are trying to make. It was also excellent in distinguishing the groups, like al-Qaeda, a global organization with no political goals save from war to bring about the end of the world, from groups like Hamas or the Taliban, which are largely nationalist groups with political agendas.
While Mr. Aslan does insert his domestic, political belief system into parts of this book, I found his narrative and overarching theme in this book to be devoid of a left-right pardigm and imminently readable for readers across the political spectrum.
I recommend this book especially for those who believe al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hizbullah and the Taliban are organizations attempting to accomplish the same goals or for those who believe the United State's goals in Afghanistan should be to erradicate the Taliban.
Joseph Serio, who spent years in the Soviet Union and Russia, following its demise, argues that there isn't some organized, heirarchical structure for the “Russian Mafia,” but rather many criminal groups which have been taught through centuries of opression and totalitarianism how to make illicit profits. This was largely borne out of necessity, especially during the Russian period, where the laws were so oppressive, one literally had to violate the law just to stay alive. Unfortunately, so many of these otherwise good citizens were sent to jail. Many of them learned new trades while in very harsh prisons and had new skill sets and contacts upon leaving.
I think Serio's bottom line is that centuries of harsh rule have created a culture within the peoples of the former Soviet Union to look out for themselves without regard to their neighbors. It was a means for survival. Their criminal groups were no more violent nor aggressive, but feared largely due to the United States antagonism towards the Soviet Union for 50 years. And because of our own cultural and entertainment experience with the American Mafia and their structure, we project our assumptions on their crime groups; projections which have no basis in reality.
This was a good book to help demystify the phenomenon of the Russian Mafia into how it should be viewed, which is a normal, organized crime phenomenon.
40-something professor Randy Pausch discovered that he was suffering from terminal Pancreatic cancer. With 3 very young children and a young wife of less than 10 years, he decided that he would create a legacy by which his family could remember him. So, he set about delivering a final lecture to his school, Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania. Additionally, he co-wrote a book with some of the lessons he learned about how to live one's life.
This book was uplifting and amazing, considering it was written by a man with less than a year to live. At all times, Pausch was realistic, but hopeful on his reflective journey, written largely to his kids about how to approach life.
This is not so much a story about his life, as it is 1-3 page anecdotes of stories from his life, which helped him learn important life lessons. This is a quick read, and likely a tear-jerker for those of you with young children of your own.
Steve Coll is one of my favorite authors of books, as well as periodical articles. This book traces the story of one of the most notorious family names in the world. It was a family involved in the creation and moderinization of the state of Saudi Arabia. Due to Islamic law and their progenitor's prolificacy, there were dozens of children and hundreds of grandchildren.
This is as close to an episode of the American television program, Dallas, as one could find in reality. Perhaps that is what makes them so intriguing: their family is like a soap opera.
There were some family members who wished to live a Western lifestyle, were educated in Europe or the United States, married Europeans and Americans and lived and played amongst some of the world's most elite families. They knew presidents and princes, they flew airplanes and wore designer suits. They were really no different in many respects from the Rockefellers or Kennedys.
And there were those who lived and worked in the kingdom, lived austere lives and continued upon Muhammad's legacy of construction. They were close personal friends with the royal family and devout followers of their religion.
Of course, every family has a black sheep, and Osama bin Laden is theirs. This book does a very good job trying to weed through the myth surrounding him, his upbringing, their family's wealth and the likelihood of family support, even at this point in time.
All in all, this is an excellent biography of the bin Laden family with all the intrigue and drama you would expect from a good soap opera.