No comments about Five Eminent Contrarians: Careers, Perspectives and Investment Tactics (Contrary Opinion Library).

No comments about Michael Bloomberg - Billionaire Mayor (Biography).

No comments about The Essence Of Provence: The Story Of L'Occitane.

5 comments about Heidi Klum's Body of Knowledge: 8 Rules of Model Behavior (to Help You Take Off on the Runway of Life).

1. I was at a low point in my life and this book helped me gain a lighter perspective on my situation. You can find inspiration in all sorts of things and don't have to be heavy and serious. I loved the book and would definitely recommend it to anyone.



2. This book is easy to read and is very visual much like a magazine, hence the cover art. It is packed with photographs from Heidi's long career. The layout is done in short segments so that it seems like a magazine filled with stories. There are several how-to lists like one that records what members of the opposite sex should know about each other.
   
   This book is a fun, female oriented account from a popular super model. Men will like the book for the many photographs, many of them semi-nude. It includes a bit of a biography telling how Klum got into modeling and information about her family. However, like a magazine, this book is nothing outstanding. The information is grazed over and the many how-to articles do not really add much. The opinions held are often those that can be found in the latest issue of Cosmopolitan.



3. ...I personally like Heidi's first book, although it's generally for women reader, but, as Heidi's fans (supporter), I really love this book, which includes many of her favorite pictures and her feeling of life. If you want to understand a Supermodel's Mind, you won't regret with this one..!!



4. I bought this book already being a fan of Heidi Klum, which may taint my opinion of it. But, I thought I'd post to give a viable alternative to the other reviews (since most reviews on this whole site are either "This is the greatest ever", "I give it 5 out of 5 even though it has flaws", or "This is a pile of [swear words]").
   
   First, what this book IS NOT:
   
   A step-by-step guide of how to get into modeling.
   A kiss-and-tell of all her famous relationships.
   A dish-the-dirt on other famous models.
   A highly detailed biography chronicling her entire life.
   A graduate-level text on important societal issues.
   
   What this book IS:
   
   200 pages, at least half of which is photos.
   A collection of stories about the major and/or interesting events of her life, including how she got into modeling.
   Her advice on how to be successful in work and play (including love and sex).
   Advice from some of the famous people she's met on how to be successful.
   
   Some of my thoughts:
   
   Many of the photos can't be found on the web and some of them are her best ever.
   The influence of Alexandra Postman is evident if you compare this with her TV and magazine interviews or her chapter in "Gig: Americans Talk About their Jobs". But, overall, the book is a fair reflection of the kind of person Heidi is.
   In talking about how she got into modeling, she didn't emphasize the fact that she stayed in school and kept off of drugs, which I would have liked.
   Not all of her advice is valuable to everyone, but a lot of it is. Sometimes, she comes across as not realizing that most people can't live the life she has lived since we don't all have supermodel incomes or connections, but her message comes across loud and clear: be the best person you can be, work hard to accomplish your goals, and go out there and have fun!



5. Heidi Klum has so much personality and spunk and none of it found its way to the pages of this book. I was mildly disappointed, I was hoping for the best. Her current job - as host and executive producer of Project Runway on Bravo networks is brilliant, where is any of that in this book?
   
   I was so bored I ended up reading her book in less than thirty minutes. The pictures are fun to see and her lists of what to do in order to be a model may be helpful to those looking for that type of insight. I was looking for a refreshed interpretation of a model's life. On the bright side, it is better than Paris Hilton's book!

5 comments about The Bronfmans: The Rise and Fall of the House of Seagram.

1. Attention aspiring authors! If you have a mediocre book to peddle, get yerself Nicholas Faith's agent to sell the book to St. Martin's Press. That way you'll be assured of glowing reviews in the national periodicals. As best as I can tell, that's what happened with this book.
   
   I had a difficult time getting through this jumble, and I chose to skip many pages. Part of the problem lies in Nicholas Faith's disdain for simple declarative sentences in favor of serpentine sentences with many subordinate clauses (and lengthy parenthetical asides) - so much so that I'd often have to reread a sentence to determine what, exactly, was being said about whom. I've previously seen such tortured prose only in books by economists or psychologists, and I suppose that explains this book, as Nicholas Faith attempts to be a little of both.
   
   As far as I can determine, Nicholas Faith did no original research for this potboiler. Instead, it's a digest of several previous books about the Bronfmans, predominantly Solomon Gursky Was Here by Mordecai Richler, which may or may not actually be about the Bronfman family. My advice is to avoid this book and get Richler's novel which will certainly be less of a chore to read.



2. I agree with the previous reviewers that Faith brings in too many quotes from other authors. This is strange, because he has really done a lot of "homework" so that he could make the material his own. I was slowed down by his long awkward sentences and unending attributions. I guess it's better to acknowledge your sources rather than plagiarizing, but the book reads like a long term paper.
   Some of his conclusions are just thrown out there, such as this one about Sam's two daughters: "The girls were not even given Hebrew lessons--which makes one wonder if Mr. Sam secretly hoped that they would 'marry out.'" My experience as a young Jewish girl growing up in mid-century America was that it wasn't de rigeur for girls to attend Hebrew School; the boys went because they were preparing for an eventual bar mitzvah. The author previously discussed Mr. Sam's lack of religiosity (he held business meetings on Saturday and had only a nominally kosher kitchen at home). His son Edgar ignored Jewish ritual for a large part of his life, and "married out" several times. So much for the value of Hebrew School!
   An example of the multitude of sentences needing the touch of an editor is this one: "In 1971 his mother, Ann--who remained a staunch supporter--had left his father when he was in his teens after a period in which his father had paid little or no attention to his family."
   Despite my desire to turn the pages a lot faster, I kept with the book and learned a lot about Canadian Jews, bootleggers, Scotch, anti-Semitism, and more. I wish that I had read this before I read "Solomon Gursky Was Here," since that roman a clef would have had a lot more associations for me.



3. First my biases: I'm a Canadian by birth who once lived just a couple of miles from the Bronfman house in Regina. I now live in the NYC suburbs and stood marvelling at the Seagram bldg on Park Ave only 2 weeks ago. In the interim, I've been a consumer market researcher and Seagram has been a client off and on for more than 10 years. I'm also more than a bit interested in booze.
   
   Given the above, I find this book tremendously interesting with literally hundreds of details that were absolutely new to me... and I probably know more about the Bronfman family & Seagram than the average bear. If you're at all interested in the Bronfmans, Seagram or booze, you'll find this to be a fascinating read.
   
   But there are a lot of stylistic problems here as well. First, as other reviewers noted above, Faith's constant references to other authors / biographers is almost annoying. It's like he's personal friends with the other writers for goodness sake.
   
   Second, for some reason, Faith treats the Richler book (Solomon Gursky Was Here) as a more important reference source than personal interviews, biographies or other non-fiction sources. I read the Richler book and loved it but not sure why Faith needs to keep coming back to it?
   
   Third, the editing in this book is simply a mess - there's just no other word for it. Usually I don't even think about editing but with this book, it was so bad I almost stopped reading after the first 50 pages. In the first 4-5 chapters, Faith not only makes the same point multiple times but sometimes uses the same sentence! It was like deja-vu all over again. It's this last point that is most confusing to me - Faith is a former senior editor of The Economist so if anyone should get the editing right, its him.
   
   Anyway, I'll still give it 4 stars. Its a great story and filled in a lot of blanks for me.



4. Unbelieveably badly written. How can you make this family boring? Also, seemed to "borrow" from a lot of other authors. Don't waste your time.



5. This isn't a bad book but Nicholas Faith has a problem acknowledging the gangster beginning of the Bronfman fortune. Pure and simple Sam B et all were thugs and likely murders. Mr. Faith goes to grea great endless endless lengths to explaine how anti-semnitism shaped the Bronfman's. Huh. It never seems to occur to him that the alleged anti- Jewish sentiment could have been whipped up precisely because the Bronfmans made such a big deal of their religion/heritage solely to cover up their ways. That most of the people they dealth with and enriched were also Jewish thugs doesn't help. Mr. Faith's inability to deal with this fact almost ruins the book.
   
   Luckily however he is honest enough to move the story along and present many of the dirty facts even if he does always try to gloss over them There is also a little too much info on whiskey blends. A more detaled analysis of the ethnic root of prohibition and a clearler focus on the political bribery that grew the Bronfman fortune might put some of their alleged present day charitable acts in a clearer focus. Since Edgar is big on reparations how about reparations for the lives ruined by thier crooked empire? You might want to read this book but keep one eye over your shoulder wide ope for the whole truth.

4 comments about Architect of Quality : The Autobiography of Dr. Joseph M. Juran.

1. 
   This is an excellent autobiography by one of the most renowned quality gurus in the world. His contributions to the field of quality management in his over 70 active working years is outstanding. Dr. Juran was the first to incorporate the human aspect of quality management which is referred to as Total Quality Management.
   
   Among the quality management ideas and concepts for which Juran is well known include top management involvement, the Pareto principle, the need for widespread training in quality, the definition of quality as fitness for use, the project-by-project approach to quality improvement.
   
   Juran was born in 1904 in Rumania. The family immigrated to the USA some few years later in search of the American dream and to escape poverty in their country. Young Juran was a gifted scholar with special aptitudes for mathematic and science. In 1920, he enrolled at the University of Minnesota. By 1925, he had received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering. He worked at the Western Electric Company in the Inspection Department of the famous Hawthorne Works in Chicago. This was a huge and complex factory, manned by 40,000 workers. This presented Juran with his first challenge in management.
   
   Juran was one of two engineers for the Inspection Statistical Department, one of the first of such divisions created in American industry.
   
   By 1937, Juran was the chief of Industrial Engineering at Western Electric in New York. His work involved visiting other companies and discussing methods of quality management. During WWII, Juran served in Washington, D.C. as an assistant administrator for the Lend-Lease Administration. He and his team improved the efficiency of the process, eliminating excessive paperwork and thus hastening the arrival of supplies to the USA allies. Juran finally left Washington in 1945 and chose to devote the remainder of his life to the study of quality management.
   
   Juran became Chairman of the Department of Administrative Engineering at New York University (NYU), where he taught for many years. He also created a thriving consulting practice, and wrote books and delivered lectures for American Management Association (AMA). It was his time with NYU and the AMA which allowed for the development of his management philosophies which are now embedded in the foundation of American and Japanese management. His classic book, the Quality Control Handbook, first released in 1951, is widely used reference work for quality managers.
   
   This is an excellent book that is highly recommended for managers as well as quality specialists.



2. Juran is known as a Quality "guru", but this book makes clear that he made significant contributions to management theory, human resources management and consulting as well. The historical perspectives provided by such a distinguished leader in these areas is illuminating. The book is a fast read, and is focused on his professional journey, with only a little about his life outside work (I would have liked more about this side of his life). His affection for the United States, and his work with the Japanese come through as high points.



3. This autobiography of Dr. Juran, who overcame childhood tragedy to make an impact on business and society, examines his career and work life with an eye to showing how they influenced his professional development and eventual reputation in the business management world. His concepts of quality eventually became a part of businesses around the world: Architect Of Quality will appeal to any interested in how the quality concept became embedded in the business plan.



4. This book was a real eye opener for me. I know a little about the Quality world -- and Juran is the #1 man in Quality.

   He pulled the tools together into one place for identification of waste, putting the ideas into forms management could understand, and developing problem solving methods for fixing it.

   It was really interesting to see where this man came from and how his concepts and ideas came together.

   Easy reading and the sort of book that will make you want to dig into his other heavier management and engineering books.

5 comments about Truman Capote.

1. Anyone who has read In Cold Blood by Truman Capote knows that it was his best writing. He created a new genre of reporting and fiction combined by immersing himself in the subject of his book. He spent months living in Kansas where the Clutter family was murdered and many hours with the two young men who did the killing. After the blockbuster book came out, Capote was catapaulted into celebrity and high society. This book is so interesting because it follows Capote's life from childhood through his rise and fall from grace. His friends and acquaintances tell the story as if you were sitting there listening to them discuss Capote, the good and the bad. Truman was an elfin sprite, full of stories, not all true but extremely entertaining. But at the end of his life he was using drugs and alcohol to deaden the frustration of being unable to top his masterpiece book and finding nothing better to write about, turned on his high society friends, writing a tell all book about them using thinly disguised characters. Because of this, the people who made him, dropped him out of their lives completely, leaving him bewildered. He had wrongly assumed that they would understand and forgive him. After that he simply drifted and declined physically, drinking until his body gave out. He died in the arms of his best friend Joanne Carson, exwife of Johnny Carson. He knew he was going and begged her not to call for help, as he was worn out and finished. I think I would like to read In Cold Blood again, this time with a different understanding of Truman Capote.



2. As a fan of Plimpton's witty style, I picked up the Capote biography, only to realize that Plimpton didn't write it. Instead, he interviewed dozens of people and let them tell Capote's life story. At first, I was mildly disappointed but soon understood the irony: Capote was infamous for his gossipping, and now these acquaintances are gossipping about him. In the same way that Capote created a "nonfiction novel" with In Cold Blood, Plimpton compiled a "subjective biography" that focuses on Capote's public persona more than his private life. (Perhaps because much of his private life was public.) The interviews are colored by the subjects' relationships with Capote, and many of them have an agenda in talking about him, so I would not recommend the book to someone who wants to read a factual chronicle. However, it is entertaining and gives a portrait of the New York high society--in which authors had a place, unlike today (I think)--probably better than a standard biography could provide.



3. Full of salacious detail and struck through with the the vagaries of human nature, this oral history highlights, in an immensely readable way, the arc of ambition that propels the talented Tuman Capote to reach beyond the world into which he was born. The journey takes us on a wonderful romp through post WWII New York society and careens toward a place where our subject falls to his own singular sirens. It was a great Nantucket beach read.



4. I really liked this book. I am a Truman Capote fan, and the book was wonderful. A must read for Capote fans especially!



5. Honestly, Capote would have loved this book, he loved the subject above all others. Ths late Plimpton does a fine job getting many of Capote's friends and admirors, as well as detractors, to give an insightful look at this singular man. Capote was complex and manipulative, but people were drawn to him, he was the ultimate self promoter. I really think even those who hated him, missed him when he died. He could be heartless and cruel, but he had a certain quality, I guess it's called star power, that made him a very powerful friend to have, he rode the success of In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffanys to the apex of society. He was painfully insecure and it's sad that he felt people were only his friend because of his ability to write great books, it's tragic that late in life he felt the need to make up the fact that he was writing this masterpiece, I think he was terrified of writing the book that would follow In Cold Blood, that I believe is what lead him to write the ill advised Unaswered Prayers. You will really want to avert your eyes when the vail is pulled away on Capote.

5 comments about The Reichmanns: Family, Faith, Fortune, and the Empire of Olympia & York.

1. The Reichmanns
   
   The book, "The Reichmanns; Family, Faith, Fortune and The Empire of Olympia & York" by Anthony Bianco is a 668 page mind boggling tale of a family dynasty that came from nowhere and rose to one of the most wealthy families in the world in one generation. The book explains how through Paul Reichmann's insatiable drive and willingness to parlay the profit from each successful project into a much larger endeavor, their wealth exploded to over $10 billion at the peak, just before risking everything on Canary Warf on London's East End.
   
   At times it's a bit of a fight to get through the sections that are not related to business and real estate, but those sections give you a good idea about the family's morals and values and bring you closer to understanding their thinking.
   
   A memorable section is when they braved the NYC real estate slump of 1976 - 1997 and purchased eight skyscrapers from the Uris Building Corporation for $46 million down. Within a decade the package would have a value of over $3 billion.
   
   The book is packed with similar anecdotes that both inspire and encourage someone wanting to build a real estate fortune of their own.
   
   By Kevin Kingston author of, "A 20,000% Gain in Real Estate"



2. The book discusses in great detail the Reichmann family's role both in Jewish culture over the last couple hundred years and in the real estate developement business over the last 40 or so years.

   The part I liked the best was the descriptions of 18th and 19th century Jewish life in the "oberland"(sp?) of Hungary. A lost culture, thanks not only to the Nazis but also to Jewish Emancipation.

   In a way, it is inspirational, as it shows how one family managed to integrate a healthy, traditional religious expression with philanthropy and business acumen. It also shows that you cannot understand what makes that family "tick" without understanding the rich culture and religion of orthodox jewishness.

   The greatest strength of this book, in my opinion, is that it is a _history_ of the family and its business, religious, philanthropic, and cultural dealings. It isnt the hagiography that so many business biographies in the popular press tend to be.




3. As the Reichmanns anticipate another rush to the top of the heap we shall watch with amazed eyes as this family woos our imagination, yet again! As renowned as the Reichmanns have been there are still followers of scrappy success stories that do not know much about what this family, with brother and son Paul at the helm, contributed to New York City's skyline. The World Financial Center was a creation of their delicately named Olympia & York. Read this from beginning to end so that you can grasp the rise and fall and now, again, rise of this amazing family. As is usually indicative of most business minds through time, the children are not as capable as the original "originators" themselves.



4. For those interested in real estate development, I recommend skipping through the first half of the book and starting at page 256. From there on it is fascinating reading on the possibilities of development for those with seemingly infinite capital on hand. Paul Reichmann's passion, drive and high tolerance for risk makes for better reading than most novels.



5. Though well researched and well written, the author accepts rumour as facts, and thus published reports of personal misconduct which are totally false. It does not do justice to the tragic story of the collapse of the fortunes of a family that was world reknowed for their kindness and generosity. For those that were acquainted with the true facts, and recognize the Reichmans as the great men that they truly are, this book is a travesty.

5 comments about Greenspan: The Man Behind Money.

1. Justin Martin's "Greenspan" -- from beginning to end -- is a delightful read. I was laughing over and over as the pages turned, and was disappointed upon running out of pages to read.

   Here is one humorous example (page 225), about Greenspan changed his seating position at the FOMC meeting table.

   "Then there's the table flap. Since 1977, the FOMC has conducted its business around a twenty-seven-foot-long table fashioned out of Honduran mahogany, with a center section made of black granite. It weighs two tons. Since becoming Fed chairman, Greenspan had always sat at the head of this table. But in November 1998, attendees at one of the Fed's periodic public meetings noticed that he had moved to a spot in the middle.

   "The hubbub began immediately. What did it mean? Was Greenspan sending a message about increased 'collegiality' at the Fed? Turns out the move was for the sake of acoustics. 'Given the speed of sound, the advice arrived too late and inadvertently we got behind the curve,' joked Greenspan, during a meeting of the Fed's Board of Governors."

   I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in economics.




2. Read all about the frightened little ec0nomist who happens to be (pragmatically) the most powerful man on the planet.
   Greenspan's dreadful fear of inflation is really the origin of our current economic recession, his timing is worse than a paranoid knife thrower afflicted with Parkinsons disease.
   This book isn't written objectively and will only benefit those who worship the detritus he leaves behind. It works too hard to portray him as well meaning guy who just happened to luck into his current job, but skims or omits his blunders and mistakes.
   This book is best for the Greenspan groupies.



3. This book is an excellent journalistic account of Alan Greenspan's life up to the first part of 2000 - the zenith of his career and fame.

   The book is not a serious biography. You will be disappointed if you expect the book to give you a deep and insightful analysis of Greenspan's life philosophy, his work methodology, or a revelation of the detail working of the Federal Reserve System.

   On the other hand, this book is a fascinating account of his life - both its private and public sides. Greenspan's brush with band music, his own economic consulting business which employed mostly female economists, his relationship with Ayn Rand and as an esteemed member of her Objectivist Collective, his role and relationship with the Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush and the Clinton teams. There are also some vivid accounts of how he handled some high profile financial and monetary situations as well as how he left his handprints on several important presidential commission reports and recommendations. And, of course, the book has not neglected to give brief but interesting accounts of the women in his life.

   This book is very well written - the material is interesting and well organized, and presentation is smooth and captivating. I find it to be very enjoyable reading.

   Read to the end. The last two paragraphs of the book were as weighty as everything written prior!




4. The principles that Alan Greenspan follows politically and economically are all accounted for in the in-depth writing Justin Martin presented in this book. Justin Martin even gets into small details about Alan Greenspan that not many people know about. I recommend this book to anyone willing to learn rock solid principles surrounding our economic conditions.



5. An extremely shallow book that offers no insight how Greenspan thinks or makes his decisions. The reason Greenspan is such an interesting character is how he has managed to constantly adapt to changing market conditions. The real story would be why and how he came to the decisions he did, but this book just reports his actions. There is almost no economic anlysis or justification. Anyone looking to gain some understanding of Greenspan's thought process will be left wanting and extremely disappointed with this book.

4 comments about The Driving Force: Extraordinary Results from Ordinary People.

1. I feel that Peter Schutz has some unique insights to offer on working effectively with people. The book has a narrative style that I found pleasant to read and the style worked nicely with the points that Peter made. I felt the book was more that worth the small investment in time and money to purchase and read. He has had several interesting positions through out his career including his time at Porsche. He's also had some great mentors and coworkers that helped him through some of the tougher times. I could relate to his early engineering background. I did find myself wondering at times when he was going to cut to the chase, but felt he effectively used the intro stories to help bring home his points. I found his business experiences with the very powerful unions in Germany at Porsche to be very interesting. I've already tried his method of how decisions must be made and how they have to be implemented to be effective and he's right. I've also paid attention to his different methods of management, authority and control noted in the book and it definitely makes a difference in the way people respond. I didn't realize till purchasing the book that he now works as a consultant and speaker to help with management/work issues.



2. Driving Force is an amazing book by Peter Schulz. Everyone aspiring to be a manager or is a manager should read this book.I read this book in three sittings. Peter is down to earth and wants to share his experiences to the world. He is a proven business leader and his writings come across with boldneess and clarity.



3. I found The Driving Force to be both delightfully engaging as biography and sanely instructive in its discussion of matters relating to business. Mr. Schutz writes in a direct and self-effacing manner, with both wit and conviction; his stories often having the character of parables in that the "lessons" they contain would seem not only applicable to business but to other areas of human interaction and decision making as well. His are not views commonly held, or practiced, by most of today's MBA trained business leaders but, given their many failures and Mr. Schutz's documented successes, perhaps should be. For those interested in management skills, a fascinating history of Porsche's return, and triumph, both in racing and business, or just a good story well told by a man whose own life seems itself to have been a most "extraordinary" journey, I would recommend this book most highly.



4. I read this book in two sittings. He did not write this book out of a desire for fortune or fame. He has plenty of both. He wrote this book out of a desire to humbly share some of the things he has learned, and is on point. His focus on accountability, values, and the workers and customers is very similar to some of our other current business heros, such as Herb Kelleher and Michael Dell. This is a must read for any manager, executive, or leader. Or anyone who aspires to something better.

   I have read probably 100 books on management/leadership, and this is in the top five.