No comments about Young Henry Ford: A Picture History of the First Forty Years (Great Lakes Books).

2 comments about BEN LOVE: MY LIFE IN TEXAS COMMERCE.

1. This well-written book details Love's rise from poor farm boy to his chairmanship at Texas Commerce. It is an easy, engaging read peppered with photos from the family archives. I knew Ben Love and admired him greatly. This book will inspire many to "make something of their lives." He makes it clear that having goals and being tenacious can make the difference.



2. "Nothing in this world is worth having or doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty . . . I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life; I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well." (Theodore Roosevelt, Des Moines, Iowa, November 4, 1910)
   
   Ben Love left us a tightly-woven, well written, account of his extraordinary life -- a life well lived during some of the most dificult times and situations. His story is real. His account is inspirational. His life was excellent from beginning to end.
   
   To date this is the best book I have read in 2006 -- A "MUST READ" for all young men and women wanting to make a difference in life.
   
   Greg Ford
   Houston, Texas

2 comments about Newhouse: All the Glitter, Power, & Glory of America's Richest Media Empire & the Secretive Man Behind It.

1. This is a biography as much of a media empire as it is of a man. While Maier spends as much time as he can on the private side of S.I. Newhouse Jr., he in the end focus on what is most seen of this most private of media moguls-- his media properties.
   
   Maier uses the device of choosing figures and brands important to Newhouse history (Roy Cohn, Random House, Tina Brown, the New Yorker) and spending a chapter on each one, tracing their history in relation to both Newhouse and Advance Publications. While a good device for giving a thorough overview, be warned that it does make for a slightly disconnected read. I found that I had to flip back through the chapters to remember how events relating to particular chapters related to each other in time.
   
   Nonetheless, one of the more complete media biographies you are likely to encounter and a must read if interested in magazine history.



2. The book shows how American media are controlled by a single family company. It owns many of the famous and influential publishing companies, magazines, and newspapers. It is a very dangerous situation that American media are under control by the handful people. As a matter of fact, the author mentioned in the paperback edition that the Newhouse company banned any mention of this book in their publications. The book, which won the 1995 "best media book" prize, seems to be neglected, but this is a very important book that more people should read. A sole purpose of media isn't a simple means of entertainment for people, and isn't mere profit organizations for the owner either. Media have the responsibility to execute the social role, and its fair execution is questionable under such a monopoly situation. The author proposes not-for-profit newspapers, and I believe it is time to consider to go back to such a fundamental point. Through various incidents the Newhouse company have initiated, the book leads us to consider what media mean to us. It is a very good book to think what true journalism means to us.

2 comments about Staking Her Claim: Life Of Belinda Mulrooney.

1. Excellent! The writers thorough research and love of Belinda's character brought the Gold Rush to life in in glorious detail. Thank you!!



2. This is a most amazing book about a most amazing woman. Mayer and DeArmond have been reasearching for more than 20 years, and many of us have been patiently awaiting the finished product. It was definitely worth the wait. They have patiently worked all the research, all the, newspaper articles, mentions in other books, census data, etc. into a well written and coherant narrative. The sum of Ms. Mulrooneys life adds up to so much more than the individual incidents. And the analysis by Mayer adds even more to our understanding of her as a person.

5 comments about Art Czar: The Rise and Fall of Clement Greenberg.

1. A amateurish and useless read. Reads like a undergraduate paper and has the tone of a rank outsider peering into the grown up intellectual world. Pass on it.



2. While Marquis seems to cover all the surface facts, she fails to give us a look into the theories that made Greenberg so important. And her concern with Greenberg's reputation appears slanted; for example, the controversy surrounding Greenberg's stripping the paint off the late David Smith's sculpture is defended and his detractors are summarily dismissed. It made me curious to read Rubenfeld's biography, though better yet would be to get Greenberg's Art and Culture and read what the man himself had to say.



3. Award-winning journalist and historian Alice Marquis presents Art Czar: The Rise and Fall of Clement Greenberg, a balanced biography of the man who was arguably the most influential American art critic of the twentieth century. Drawing from unpublished and previously unavailable documents, interviews, and archives, Art Czar portrays the tangled elements of Greenberg's life, including his relationship with family, friends, lovers, and rivals. Art Czar also reveals how Greenberg's tastes and gift for rhetoric spoke to the American art scene from 1940 to the 1980s. A painstakingly accurate evaluation of the nuances of Greenberg's lasting influence as surely as it is a chronicle of the events of his life.



4. This is another biography letting us know what a thoroughly bad person Clement Greenberg was with little evaluation of what the man accomplished, how he accomplished it or why he is acknowledged as perhaps the greatest art critic who ever lived. Where Rubenfeld went after him with hammer and tongs, Marquis does it with innuendo, spin and an incessant stream of disparaging adjectival phrases. Every paragraph, every account, every anecdote is worked over to make him look cruel, thoughtless, short-sighted, careless, nasty, pathetic, dogmatic, passive, neurotic and on and on. She gets facts wrong, talks constantly about his "theories" (he was not a theorist), leaps into supposition and speculation at every opportunity, lards the text with quotes from bitter associates, and demonstrates in several places that she does not understand anything about art or the simple esthetic approach he used unwaveringly during his whole career.
   
   How and why Clement Greenberg continuously draws this kind of pathologically virulent hostility is something for a social psychologist to figure out. He himself said "I have an argument with my reputation". I knew the man for 35 years, saw him often, ate with him, drank with him, argued with him, looked at at art with him - the man in this book and the man in the Rubenfeld book is not the man I knew. We need a book that sets the record straight. But then I guess the question would be, who would read it?
   
   If one could rinse out all the arbitrary negativity in this book there would be a residue of simple biographical history. There is certainly some value in that.



5. This book may be enjoyed by those deeply interested in modern art as practiced in New York in the 1940s through 60s. However, if you have only time to read one recent book on this era, buy Jed Perl's New Art City.
   
   Art Czar is about Clement Greenberg's life. Which in sum was a pathetic mess from childhood to death. He is not a noble person to read about and the fact he was a noted art critic fifty years ago does not vault him into the status of being interesting. At least not for me, and I would wager most people.
   
   The writing style of the author is basic. It certainly does not save the book from its subject.

5 comments about Jesse Livermore Speculator King.

1. This is the worst book I've ever read. There's lots of misleading information in it. The copy I bought is 1985 hard cover. I will throw it into recycle bin. I want to make sure that nobody will waste his/her time on this copy any more.The Livermore Market Key is not based on Dow Theory as the book described. In my humble opinion, Mr. Jesse Livermore's trading system is still the best in the world.



2. Read this book if you want an author who gives you the negative perspective of Jesse Livermore's life. The author believe Mr. Livermore was a complete failure who could not hold on to his money, leveraraged far to much debt, was an ego maniac, and womanizer. He also believes that the Livermore Key that was introduced in Livermore's own book was a complete fraud, designed to confuse the masses and bring them to turn their money over for directed investment by Livermore or others. Livermore is a personal hero of mind not for his looses but his ability to make millions from scratch several times, his resiliency until late in life, and his ability to keep a calm head and enjoy life. While the author reduces him to nothing but a two bit market manipulator running cash pools to change prices. While most of the facts the author is correct about, I still hold Livermore in high esteem for his ability to go long or short for gains and for his being a lifelong student of the market. Read Richard Smitten's book Jesse Livermore: World's greatest stock trader for a more reverent look at his life, or Livermore's own book How to trade in stocks for what the man himself wrote about his system.



3. As others have noted, I wonder what private feud lies behind Sarnoff's book. Among many strange things why wait 27 years after the subject of your bile has died before publishing this vitriolic attack? Maybe there were legal problems or he couldn't find a publisher, who knows?
   
   With regard to the point about Livermore going bust 3 times it depends on how much you think the stock market works like gambling, but a lot of the worlds greatest poker players have gone broke, often more than once. It doesn't mean that they were charlatans or hype merchants though.
   
   If Livermore really did leave a suicide note claiming that his life had been a total failure then what are we supposed to read into that? Would he liked to have been a better person? Did he think he should have used his money for some higher purpose than simply to make even more money? it's not the same thing as claiming that the man's life had been a total sham.
   
   I gave the book 2 stars only because of the personal information that had never appeared anywhere else, but really this is a strangely shoddy and utterly biased account of Livermore.



4. I have several books on Livermore and until I found this one (in a second hand book shop - it is an original edition) I had taken it for granted that Livermore was some kind of superman. So how come he went bust three times and ended up committing suicide? What Sarnoff says is that Livermore was in fact a hype merchant who planted stories of his brilliance in the press and craved adulation. That many of his brilliant coups were less than brilliant (eg when he was the great bear he was also the great bull on the quiet - his positions were hedged) Sadly it all has the ring of truth about it - another hero with feet of clay?
   It may be badly written and maybe Sarnoff did not like Livermore but it is one side of the coin. On the other side of the coin we have the version from JL himself and he definitely liked Livermore. So, buy the book and make up your own mind.



5. I read the original 1967 edition. I learned a few things that other authors seem to have forgotten about J.L.. It is a fast, and interesting read.
   Not only did Sarnoff met J.L. 3 times, but he himself started his career on Wall-Street as J.L. was exiting. It is also based on interviews with people who sorounded J.L.. Conclusion: there is too much hype around J.L..
   The plebeians want heroes, and get disappointed when they realize that their heroes are mere mortals.

No comments about From the Mind to the Marketplace: The Story of an Inventor, the Home Improvement Industry, His Wife and Her Lovers.

4 comments about Breaking Trail.

1. Hetteen was a man who never gave up threw out this book. He had plenty of hard times that many people would have gave up. Not him, he stuckwith his dream and know lok where he is. It's everythign a snowmobilier could want to read in a book.



2. This book was a very good story. It had everything a snowmobilier would want to read. I'm not one to read alot of books but, after reading this book by Hetteen, I could read alot more from him. He's just a guy who never gave up. period. Thats all anyone needs to know about him.



3. An excellent account of a true entrepeneuer's struggles to manufacture and market his dream machines. Edgar Hetteen epitomizes the "find a need and fill it" vision that has made America the cream of the crop of the industrial revolution. From the straw chopper to the "bug-o-vac" to the snowmobile the book follows the life of a man who was definitely ahead of his times and his struggle to get the rest of the world to catch up. Great reading for motorheads, snowmobilers and modern entrepenuers. I highly recommend it.



4. This story is about the experiences of Edgar Hetteen and his desire to prevail over the many obstacles confronting him, to reach the vision he had for a new outdoor activity. This story is told in the words of a man who truely experiences life, the joys and frustrations that only life can give if your willing to grap hold and hang on. If you want to be inspired read this book!

No comments about The Public Image of Henry Ford: An American Folk Hero and His Company (Great Lakes Books Publication).

1 comments about Edward Burleson: Texas Frontier Leader.

1. Genealogical Data on Burleson Family, Gives data on the migration of the Family from N.C. to Tenn.,to Georga ,to Alabama and to Texas, Biographacal data on General Edward Burleson Early life, Indian Troubles, Mexico, Gen. Burleson Captures The Alamo from the mexicans, Ordered out of the area to train troops, Later a Sen. in the Republic of Texas , President Pro tem of Texas. Stories, Data, Family history, The History of Texas is in here. A great read.