1 comments about Financial Founding Fathers: The Men Who Made America Rich.

1. This book provides very good explanations of how the early American economy was financed. Would be a good gift for a college student majoring in Economics.
   
   However, I did not think the interesting concept at the core of this book was helped by the extended digressions into the private lives of the men chosen by the authors to illustrate their public policy points and financial explanations.
   
   Stephen Girard is titled "The Saint" for both helping his fellow citizens during an epidemic and funding a school for white male orphans. At one point, Girard's complicity in slavery (in that he owned a coffee plantation) is mentioned as his "one asterisk to our dubbing him for sainthood." Two pages later, Girard is described as having bribed customs officers, evaded taxes, violated usury laws, and manipulated shipping records to gain better insurance rates. Some Saint.
   
   The authors are better with the history of financial transactions and banking, than political history. For example, they call John C. Calhoun "illustrious" with " a distinguished career", while I think this Southern senator helped propel our country into the bloodshed of the Civil War through his long career of defending slavery as an institution and state's rights as his political God.

5 comments about Fast Company: A Memoir of Life, Love, and Motorcycles in Italy.

1. It is almost as much fun to wonder how David Gross, in a "inside Italian motorcycles" book learns so much, so fast. But he is smart, and he falls in love with Italy in more ways than one. Arriving in Bologna, Italy as "creative director" of the newly financially juggled - hell, can I say that it was "Ducati" now? - motorcycle company, the author adjusts quickly, first seizing upon advertising strategies that center on visualizing Italian grit, and helping to inject a world personality into what the cognoscenti know is the world's most sexy motorcycle.
   We're reminded of the woman - a non-motorcyclist - who once gazed on a 1973 Ducati "Super Sport" 750 cc. twin (upon which the modern dukes evolved), and exclaimed, "This is the most beautiful motorcycle I've ever seen!"
   And so it is. The imagistic makeover is spliced by Gross'es personal introduction to what we had always heard - that Italy is wild, vain - and unlike the United States - more than mildly corrupt.
   `Fast Company' gives hilarious portraits of "crazy genius" motorcycle designers, their temper tantrums, roaming union gangs, and hair-raising motorcycle rides on the cobblestones.
   This is a fast-paced, well-written book, tracking the birth of the single-cylindered dukes (great vintage road racers today!). It deftly changes names and dances away from potential lawsuits in a chase for grace and meaning.
   In the end, you'll not quite understand the Italian mystery, but for sure, you'll get stylish prose from David Gross, say, the antithesis of a Harley book, which will never get beyond its own narcissism. "Fast Company" is for fans of the finest - a literary rocket for the mountain road.



2. The book was a good read on several levels. As a motorcycle
   enthusiast and as a designer.. the stories from Ducati.. the inner
   workings.. design process.. people were fascinating. Having worked
   with all sorts of clients and designers I related easily to the events.
   Bologna was presented in vivid descriptions, with its culture,
   people, society coming to life. I kept having flashbacks to my 2
   years in Milano as well as subsequent visits. I toured most of Italy
   but sadly I only stopped at the train station in Bologna. Hopefully
   on a future trip I can go to Bologna and visit Ducati.
   I thought the sections at the seaside were hilarious.... the descriptions
   were like Fellini on Jolt cola I was more exhausted with those stories than
   the moto giro ones.
   The sections on the MotoGiro were also very compelling for one that rides a
   motorcycle....the good, the bad, the ugly, the danger, the exhilaration were all there.
   Personal life was interesting, full of irony, but in the end none of my business.
   Throughout the book I especially enjoyed kind of a deadpan
   description of the theater of the absurd that is Italy..left me with
   lot's to think about.



3. Within captivating literary style, Gross's portrayals illuminate an Italian world as it is now, and this is clearly not the world of "Room with a view". Surely the Italian journals and "Corriere della Sera" are well versed with the struggles of Italian boutique businesses trying to meet the challenge of growth to an international level, but to follow the chain of events of Ducati from within and during a major transitional effort is a special gift. To become acquainted with personal and detailed snapshots of corporate design processes and the trials of prima donna designers is equally rewarding, and sheds a fair light on recent Ducati products. From the beach exploits and dreams of characters depicted, one senses the struggles of modern young Italians. Add to this the author's struggle to rationalize infatuation with a young and arrogant love, and one finds another level or dimension of the Italy of today. This love may have equally been heterosexual, it's characteristics in modern day Italy would have been the same. The vignette descriptions ranging from learning to ride a motorcycle, different bikes, and tours reach out to the motorcyclist in all of us, as these motivate us to reach beyond ourselves whether or not a leg is thrown over a bike. This is a book for everyone where one truly gains a view into the beauty, challenge, and flavor of Italy today. On other levels, having been an Italian ex-pat for three years, ridden motorcycles for 30 years, and a Ducatista for 15 years, this book has touched on many levels and reminds of the need to return.



4. Different..... a great read. My daughter lived in Bologna for a few years, and I visited the city which made the book more interesting to me. It really helps to have spent time in the culture on this one. After you get over the funny "attempt" to cover up the Ducati name..very wierd...it's just a wild ride through a culture on many different levels.
   Don't read this book to get page after page of mototcycle details. This is a story about people and culture that produce the bikes from the viewpoint of an outsider..who in the end becomes a part of it all. I enjoyed the writing style and content more because it's a true story.



5. David Gross has taken the art of living your dream to the next level. Basically, he was a corporate lawyer in NYC who while very successful, could not stand what he had become- an overworked cog in the corporate machine of America. He was offered a job to help rebuild a legendary motorcycle company not named but anybody who knows anything about motorcycles will be able to identify it. They were emerging from a period of financial hardship where they were having trouble paying their suppliers and needed to shut down production. An American firm bought them (Texas Pacific Group) and was attempting to restore them to profitability. The author would be head of their marketing department, so with what most likely was an easy decision for him, the author leaves the mundane world of corporate America behind and heads for Bologna, Italy.
   The book chronicles his new life as an expat American in Italy. The refreshing insights of the real Italy instead of the honey dripping descriptions so present in Hollywood productions these days. The preening Italians at their vacation places in the Summer to the prostitutes and skinheads omnipresent throughout Italy. Contrasting the corporate cultures of Italy versus the US was one of the more interesting parts of the book. One passage particularly illuminating, because of the powerful labor unions in Italy, he notes that "in the US, the workers try to impress the boss while in Italy, it is the boss who tries to impress the workers."
   At the heart of the book is the seemingly unreasonable devotion many Italians and others have to this motorccle company. The perfectly Italian way of making something beautiful and functional at the same time is embodied in this motorcycle- I know I own two of them. It is no accident after all that the likes of Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, Aprilia, and of course the company at which the author is employed- Ducati are made in this region of Italy. It is hard for a non-motorcyclist to understand the way riding these bikes make you feel but suffice it to say, the 40 minutes a day I spend riding my Ducati on the way to work is the best part of my day. The feeling of freedom and excitment is one that is invaluble in our normally prepackaged world.
   David Gross is able to weave these seemingly disparate stories together in a way that makes his book a facinating read for both motorcyclists and non-riders alike. The unique perspective he offers from his stranger in a strange land to his eventual understanding of Italy as an insider (he speaks Italian, lives, loves, works , and vacations with Italians) is unique. His full commitment to making his life into one he wants to lead and is excited about is very inspirational. I recommend this book wholeheartedly and also recommend learning to ride and buying a Ducati motorcycle- you'll know what I'm talking about if and when you do.

No comments about A Spy on the Bus.

No comments about Irons in the Fire: The Business History of the Tayloe Family and Virginia's Gentry, 1700-1860.

4 comments about Vesco: From Wall Street to Castro's Cuba </br>The Rise, Fall, and Exile of the King of White Collar Crime.

1. Beyond the obvious research the author has done on the subject; he has painted a picture of one of those men in history who lived a colorful life at possibly the wong time. In today's world Robert Vesco would probably be a hero.



2. The book is about as good as any book could be, given the secrecy in which its main subject operated. It never gives the reader any clarity about why Vesco committed the crimes that made him famous (he could have made just about as much money legally, and would not have ended up in jail in Cuba as a result.) But in a case where little is known about what precisely happened, it is unfair to expect Herzog to explain why it happened. Anyway, this is the only book on Mr. Vesco that discusses his later career, and it sorely deserves an update. Required reading for any scholars of 1970s finance or Wall Street scandals.



3. VESCO:FROM WALL STREET TO CASTRO'S CUBA by Arthur Herzog is a riveting study of while-collar criminal, Robert Vesco, accused by the Securities Exchange Commission of looting Bernard Cornfeld's Investor's Overseas Service (IOS) of 425 million in 1986. Vesco fled the USA before he was brought to trial, presumably, taking the money with him. The ingredients of "game playing", secretiveness, manipulation, bravado, and a "slippery streak" mixed with a more than usual dose of greed and chutzpah is the foundation of the Vesco legend.
   Herzog looks at his ambitious childhood in Detroit, his early marriage at seventeen, and his knack of losing jobs. After awhile Vesco decides to start his own businesses, ultimately creating wealthy conglomerates. But Vesco did not work alone; he sought out and persuaded powerful, wealthy men to join him in his various get-rich schemes. After he left the country, he still had a line to the best attorneys to represent him and to powerful politicians to protect him, as he hop-scotched around the Caribbean--Costa Rica, the Bahamas, Nicaragua, Antigua, and eventually Castro's Cuba. It is here that Herzog catches up with the fugitive financier and gets the first interview ever with him. Ironically, Herzog's last question, "Bob, was it all worth it?" is left unanswered as Vesco scurries away.
   * * *



4. I would love to meet and greet the person the book is about. It is as if he has left no stone unturned. Mr. Vesco if you can read this please call me @ 1-313-577-6951. Thanks Carole McCormick.

3 comments about Profiles of Power and Success: Fourteen Geniuses Who Broke the Rules.

1. Author hand picked the profiles in order to validate his own feelings regarding what makes a person great. Most very powerful figures do not fit into the mold cast by Landrum.
   Although there are some interesting quotes and stories, Landrum rambles and goes off topic frequently. I would not recommend this book.



2. This is another in a series of "Profiles of...." volumes in each of which Landrum focuses on exceptional men and women who have achieved great success after having overcome all manner of barriers, obstacles, and adversities. I was especially interested in this book because of the diversity of the 14 subjects examined: Napoleon Bonaparte, Walt Disney, Isadora Duncan, Amelia Earhart, Adolph Hitler, Howard Hughes, Maria Montessori, Rupert Murdoch, Edith Piaf, Pablo Picasso, Helena Rubenstein, Marquis de Sade, Nikola Tesla (more about him in a moment), and Frank Lloyd Wright. Let's pretend. What if you were asked to compile a list of those to be invited to a private dinner and you came up with these 14. Let's assume that there would be no language barriers and each was in her or his prime. What a lively evening that would be! Hopefully all of the guests would survive it.
   
   With regard to Tesla (1856-1943), frankly I knew nothing about him until reading this book. According to Landrum, Tesla was "arguably the greatest inventive genius who ever lived. Some called him mad, others a genius, but everyone agreed that he was an enigmatic superman." His achievements include AC induction motors, first wireless (radio) transmission, fluorescent lights, solar engine, Tesla coil, VTOL, and concepts which led to the electron microscope, cosmic rays, guided missiles, and radar. He also predicted (in 1915) the inevitability of television and space satellites, with one of countless benefits being television reception via satellite. Given Tesla's obsessive-compulsive and megalomaniac behavior, he was presumably not always a pleasant fellow to be associated with but none can deny his importance in so many fields of scientific inquiry.
   
   This is a thoroughly entertaining as well as an immensely informative book. Landrum devotes a separate chapter to each of "the fourteen geniuses who broke the rules." I especially appreciate his inclusion of 25 "Figures" which range from "Manic Achievers and Power Brokers" to "Twelve Principles of Instilling Creativity in Children." Great stuff.
   
   Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out Landrum's Profiles of Genius, Profiles of Female Genius, and Entrepreneurial Genius as well as Howard Gardner's Leading Minds: An Anatomy Of Leadership and Creating Minds: An Anatomy of Creativity Seen Through the Lives of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, and Gandhi.



3. Good read but not necessarily accurate. Nikola Tesla was ripped off by Edison after Tesla created the AC system of power distribution. This contradicts the title and purpose of the book. Better titled "Profiles of Brilliance". Overall though a facinating book with insight into some very smart people.

No comments about Dear Father, Dear Son: Correspondence of John D. Rockefeller and Jr..

No comments about Good Guys Finish First: Reflections Of A CEO And How To Start A De Novo Community Bank.

No comments about Brett Kebble: The Inside Story.

5 comments about Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones.

1. This is a dangerously important and uplifting book. It is subversive in the sense that it reveals one of the darkest secrets about the "real souls of Black people:" That music provides the streetlights that illuminate "the royal road to hope and survival."
   
   This book recalls in my own mind, during the same times that Q's musical life literally exploded (the two years from 14 to 16) -- the years when he literally went from "street urchin to musical genius" in one giant step, that it so happens that this was the same period that my stepfather and his returning army WW-II buddies were teasing each other about "combat boots" being their first real pair of shoes. Being essentially true made the joke all the more painful.
   
   Yet, all of these Arkansas farm boys were in college on the GI Bill; and most importantly, they could all play musical instruments and could sing and dance and read music - especially the Harmonica, the piano, and the guitar. I naturally grew up thinking that doing these things was innate. It came as a great shock to me: when after getting a harmonic for Christmas, it did not play itself. I could not play a single song on the darn thing? I naturally thought that there was something terribly wrong with me: Maybe I was genetically defective? Although I did eventually learn to play the trumpet after a painful and lengthy apprenticeship, it still mystifies me, as to how it was that those in my father's and Q's generation picked up music as if it blew in through the window from off the wind?
   
   That among other reasons is why this book is so terribly important: right after the war, music and sports provided the cushions for finding a semi-normal existence in a world gone mad with poverty and its racist rules and traditions. Q's life was different than most other inner city black kids only in the fact that his mother had to be committed to an insane asylum while he was young. This of course made the urgency for music in his life an even more important existential imperative: As he notes, his discovery of music became, not just his mistress (as it was for Duke Ellington), but also his mother.
   
   But that is only part of the uplifting story told here, somehow, poverty, depravation, and humiliation during the era of "full" American Apartheid, could always be turned on its head: Somehow, there were always unguarded existential escape routes to both sanity and occasionally to success. Q followed his heart and found his talents, which as it turns out were considerable.
   
   Living on the margins, on the outskirts of mainstream society, can either empower you or embitter you, or send you to the insane asylum as it did Q's mother. But either way, music and sports (and not the bible, the only thing that Q's mother took with her to the insane asylum) will help illuminate the way.
   
   Five Stars



2. I was amazed at how good this book is. This book makes you want to know what's going to happen next. I never knew Quincy Jones had a hard childhood. I think I would rather starve than eat rats. I love the fact that Quincy doesn't just talk about music all the time but Quincy went deep into his personal life. I admire the fact that Quincy never gave up on his dream to become a trumpeter. I'm surprised at how successful Quincy is with all the problems he had. Reading this book inspires me to always follow my dreams, no matter what. I recommend this book BIG TIME to anyone interested in his life!



3. I loved it! I'm learning the piano and thought I could learn something from the best. I learned more. I'm a big music lover and love Quincy and his music. He's worked with the best of the legends, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Billy Holiday, Sarah Vaughn, Dina Washington, Ray Charles, Michael Jackson etc. etc. He's had an incredible life! And not without tragedy and set backs and overcame them all. His family is beautiful. How he forgave the sad and unfair things done to him. Tears and laughter, so moving, especially about his brother Lloyd. Quincy's my hero. I knew he was great, but he's more. I'm so grateful he shared his life with us. I learned so much! Let the Light heal the dark places, and listen to God's whispers is where I want to be. Thank you Quincy!



4. I was extremely impressed. Scouting the library, I saw the book and I thought, Hey, this might be good. That night, I read 45 pages, with the school the following day: it was almost a priority. He really is a multi-talented fellow. Of his biggest accomplishment, (arguably, I mean besides his 29 Grammys) was Michael Jackson's Thriller album, but this guy can do anything. The stories are humble, the style down to earth and approachable, and above all, the stories were great. This isn't your ordinary 900 page presidential autobiography. I recommend it to anyone who appreciates autobiographies, truly something worth reading.



5. Like all of the other singers and musicians, Quincy Jones should stick with music. But i guesse if you can write music you can write a book. I just found it pretty boring. Quincy does awesome music though.
   
   If you liked this book check out all of Quincy Jones's Cds