Distribution Books

"...The Odysseus guide is easy to read, maps are simply drawn giving access to the data, and country descriptions are concise and informative. In fact the whole construction of Odysseus is a well packaged and manageable guide book..." Our World Magazine NOV.'98

The new 16th edition of Odysseus International Gay Travel Guide is filled with great vacation ideas for gay travelers in the USA and some 120 countries worldwide. The guide is up-to-date, reliable with accurate descriptions, photo and contact information. It is very easy to make international travel plans with Odysseus. I cannot imagine getting my travel plans right without it.

Covering more than 110 countries worldwide, Odysseus features the world best resorts, hotels and guesthouses for the most sophisticated gay traveler. The guide is organized by countries alphabetically starting with the USA and Canada and followed by the countries in the rest of the world. Each section includes vital travel information for the country selected, airports, climate, law regarding homosexuality, list of nightlife spots, city maps and detailed description of hotels, resorts and guest houses that cater to the gay market. The Apendix includes list of airline toll free numbers, travel agents, bookstores, magazines and other services of interest to gay travelers. Excellent travel assistant at your fingertips when you need it most. The guide includes a beautiful 36 color pages of resorts and hotels for the best holiday

Odysseus is a wonderful guide for gay men who plan to travel abroad. The book lists select accommodations, bars, restaurants, saunas, sex shops, and other businesses and places of interest (including some public cruising areas), and there are handy maps for many major cities (like Amsterdam, Florence, and Sydney) and gay resort areas (like South Beach and Provincetown). Additionally, Odysseus is an excellent source to find "facts in brief" about foreign destinations, including each country's official language, population, unit of currency and exchange rate, telephone codes, and laws and attitudes regarding homosexuality. There are several useful indexes, including a listing of gay travel agents and of local gay publications from around the world. The book features a good amount of advertising for gay hotels and other businesses, and there is a smattering of hunk photos interspersed among the listings. Odysseus Enterprises, the publisher, also operates a worldwide reservations systems and can handle travel arrangements to many of the places in the book.

So many Christians are going through life settling for mediocre, settling for second best, and choosing the path of least resistance. Not Dr. John R. Noe, author of this old (1984) and new (2006) book . . . . He reminds us that the first mountain we need to conquer is that of ourselves and that God wants us to accomplish great things for His glory.

Dr. D. James Kennedy, Ph.D.
Senior Minister
Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church

If you are looking to make some positive changes in your life, changes that will touch others in a positive way, this is the book to read and re-read often. I can't say enough good things about it. I rate it as a life changing book!

Dare to confront your fears. Learn from devastating failures and climb the road of high achievers. This book is a must for anyone who seriously wants to make an impact in this world. I cant emphasize this point enough. BUY THIS BOOK!

This little book, by a little known author, imparts more useful information in about 100 pages than most other big name success writers can convey in 500 pages. The book reads much easier than most success literature not only because of its crisp style, but also because of the setting the author uses to impart some genuinely useful wisdom. The author uses the story of his successful ascent of the Matterhorn as a jumping off point. Each stage of his quest provides a lesson of general applicability. Without being preachy, the author also talks about some of the spiritual components of achievement. If you're easily annoyed by spiritual references, you might be turned off and miss out on a real gem! For everyone else, this is one of the most useful and inspiring success manuals around.

Victor Finmann has to be one of the best minds in the country when it comes to definitive answers on the toughest retirement distribution guestions. His book is well thought out and is easy to follow to find your needed answers. You can not hold yourself out to be an 'expert' in this field without the help and guidance of Victors book.
I'm fortunate to know Victor personally and to call him my friend. We belong to a professional organization and I get the pleasure of hearing Victor speak often. He is an excellent public speaker. He is able to make a very difficult subject understandable and enjoyable.
Without this reference book you will be out of your league.
Buy it today and become an expert.

I just re-read PLANNING FOR RETIREMENT DISTRIBUTIONS over the holidays!

Mr. Finmann's book is the most comprehensive book on retirement distributions that I have ever read. I now feel a new level of confidence when assisting my clients (and their CPAs and attorneys) with this complex area of planning. Retirement distribution planning is going to be a big planning focus in future, I am now prepared.

W. W. (Buzz) Hankinson, CLU, ChFC
CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional

Victor Finmann is one of the few national experts on the subject of Retirement Distribution Planning. He has distilled the issues into a very readable and complete text that is an important 'go-to' resource for advisors. I strongly recommend the book to any professional advising clients with retirement assets.

Victor Finmann's book, "Planning For Retirement Distributions" is an excellent resource for professionals practicing in the retirement market. To really become proficient and to remain competitive in the retirement field, Finmann's book is essential reading. If you purchase this book, it could be the best investment you will make in 2004.

Richard E. Deam CFP®

alot of info and facts also alot of art
if your a fan of Al or Beck you'll love this book

Do you know anything about Al Hansen? Before buying this book, I had no idea that he was such a renown member of the Fluxus/Happenings community. Al was colleages with such icons as Andy Warhol, Yoko Ono, and John Lennon. In the book, it is mentioned that as children, Beck and his brother Channing would be sent on missions to collect cigarette butts for their dear grandpa's art. I used to wonder how Beck could be so inventive, but now I see where his roots lie. Al is the reason we have our beloved Beck. Al is why we can today defy all sexx laws. And so even though he is deceased, it is comforting to know that his legacy lives on, not only in his art, but in his eccentric rock-star grandson.

Note: In case you were going to buy this for your Beck-crazed teeny-bopper, be aware that this book contains some nudity.

beck hansen and his zany grandpa use cigarette butts as artistic media. you wouldn't think that something so trashy could be so beautiful. it's miss-shapen, partially grotesque, and acutely obtuse. human shapes composed of matches and cigarettes provide a uniquely symbolic look at what makes us-- bits and pieces of what others throw away. i personally drove from seattle to nyc to see the opening of the art exibit featured in the book. although i wouldn't suggest everyone go to such extents, injesting the book is nice start.

Al Hansen was my advisor in college. Having said that, let me also add that his teaching continues to impact every day of my life in a most positive fashion. i had the good fortune of being a member of a small group of earnest students at Rutgers University in Newark who basically followed Al around for four years and never regretted it. perhaps, my most memorable experience was going with Al and a few other students to a party at Andy Warhol's factory for the Velvet Underground. i also collected hersey chocolate wrappers and empty camel cigarette packs for Al.

This is an excellent book that leads you through switched-mode power supply design in plain English with a practical and straight-forward approach. Highlights for me include the conversation on trade-offs for topologies, the end-to-end design examples, and the detailed treatment of magnetics design and implementation. I have many power supply books (including a very good one by Ralph Tartar), but this is my favorite. To put it simply, if you have any responsibility for designing or understanding power supplies, you need a copy of this book on your bookshelf.

Fairly clear, a little generic but useful to grasp the basic concepts. A good first step towards the design of Power supplies.

Best book about practical design of electronics (power supplies).
There is no "PHD BSing", all formulas are simple and easy to use.
Many, many advices and shortcuts.
If you are EE (and you know what a resistor looks like), but never designed power supplies - you can start your first design after reading this book.
So, spend $70 and buy this book. If you have no money (or you rather buy beer than book), ask your boss to buy it (book) for you...

This is far and away the most practical, comprehensive and useful reference on power supplies I have ever read. It covers it all from component level through EMI control in a very straight forward manner. EXCELLENT!

In case you have no idea how the cover looks like as this page, I'm here to enlighten you. PURE MEN (BEST OF MEN MAGAZINE) looks as sure as the title suggests, a matinée charming model in sail captain suit upon nothing but a pure, clean white hardcover paper background.

This attractive copy at one glance was a Year 2003 Christmas specal in lovely maroon ribbon for every BOOKAZINE store in Bangkok city. The best gift one can think of for any lovers (including the ladies why not) if a little bored of wines or underwear, because this is no way to disappoint. The men here are a great mix of colours and uniqueness but all American chic, astoudingly confident and relaxed under the lens of some international male picture experts. My favorite is the brown-eyed, sharp-nosed stubbly Arabian mix sitting down with a smile so warm and a dark, cut, thick mushroom head not really engorged but appears very promising.

You can't be disappointed with this book, if you prefer those men with a more experienced functionable ASSET.

This very special edition is a cooperative effort from the publishers of Men magazine and Bruno Gmunder, the European leader in high-quality photobooks. High quality bindings, ultra heavy-stock paper and painstaking attention to detail are hallmarks of Bruno Gmunder publications, and Pure Men is no exception.

Since it's launch in 1984, MEN magazine has taken gay male erotica out of the closet and into the newsstand, simultaneously building attitudes of pride and virility in its models and readers. The publishers of MEN team the hottest models and most talented photographers in the industry, and by following this principle they have made MEN the best selling all-male erotic title in the world.

PURE MEN features photos of Bo Garrett, Austin Masters, Bill Derringer, Jordan Scott, Ted Matthews, Chris Champion, Stud Michner, Zane, Vincent Marco Rossi and many others.

Just one look into this photographic masterpiece and you will know you are in possession of one of the finest collections of male nude photography ever printed! MEN'S MAGAZINE is long known for the quality of its photographic representations of the gay male figure, and this book is a collection of same. I unhesitatingly recommend this book...buy it, enjoy it, and treasure it.

Bruno Gmunder has compiled a stunning collection of the male nude with almost every type of man included. The photography comes from the best of male photograhers whose work has been featured in "Men Magazine" over the past 17 years.The all colour plates are reproduced on high quality paper and the quality of the book speaks for itself. Never shocking,these are male nude studies rather than exploitive pictures and as an addition to your library or even coffee table, this is a must for the serious collector.

. . . visit ministryofrum.com (Edward Hamilton's website). Or travel to Culebra, Puerto Rico (a beautiful, sleepy, non-commercialized island off PR's east coast) and pick up a copy. Life's an adventure - this book will help ease you along the way!

My wife and I spent 6 years sailing our Bristol 45.5 in and around the Eastern Caribbean between 1996-2001. We bought the 1995 copyright edition at a boatyard in Trinidad and went to most of the distilleries between there and Guadaloupe. Most of the small distilleries had never heard of the book and were surprised to see it. It was a wonderful adventure for us and we still use the guide as a reference. Jim and Kathi Hancock, Oakland CA.

Mr. Hamilton's in-depth research is evident as he takes the reader by the hand to visit rum distilleries, both large and small, throughout the islands. Details on the methods, contents, and history of each rum is finely detailed. One of the finest touches this book has is an almost complete visual listing of most of the rum bottle labels used. For the serious rum collector/taster, I found this guidebook to be indespensible when shopping for pedigreed rums in the Indies. I collect and display the artful bottle labels of these glorious and hisotical spirits and wouldn't dream of rum-shopping in the Caribbean without this valuable reference!

A great resource for the rum lover planning a trip to the Caribbean. The brief introduction to the history of rum and its distillation process can serve rum enthusiasts and neophytes alike to better understand and appreciate this wonderful spirit.

The book is divided into sections, each one dedicated to one of the Eastern Caribbean Islands. Within each section, readers will find a complete listing of the local distilleries, along with pictures of the labels produced and a brief descriptions of what makes the particular rums unique.

While some rum connoisseurs may be disappointed by the lack of detailed tasting notes for each rum, they will certainly be delighted by the otherwise generous amount of rum-related information for each island, such as distillery tours and rum shop locations.

I bought this book out of curiosity, as Runyan's golf era was long before mine, but wound up using more of it than I anticipated. It is an excellent book on short game strategy and the basics of producing various trajectories from different lies. I found it more concise and an easier read than the Dave Pelz "Short Game Bible", probably the closest modern equivalent. I've modified my chipping and putting strokes to match each other, as Runyan advocates, and have been getting excellent results.

Yes, Pelz is great, but Runyan's book is unmatched. He has an engineering approach that will appeal to analytical types. This guy averaged less than 2 when chipping so he holed it more often than he two putted. An he can explain the principles of what he is doing so you can take his approach without taking his grip for example.

A MUST for any serious teacher, student, or even casual sufferer of short-game hiccups. It is the best attempt at simplifiying an extrememly misunderstood but crucial portion of the game of golf. Since it is out of print, I guess I should make sure I get one before I write such a wonderful review and everyone wants one

This book is the best of the best on short game. I've read every short-game book and viewed every short-game video since -- and none is better than what Paul Runyan explains in this seminal book. I have owned this book for 25 years, and go back to it as my bible whenever any part of my short game is even slightly off. Mr. Runyan can fix anything by providing the right idea and visualizaiton of the easiest way to execute any short game shot.

I had the good fortune to grow up as a teenager in La Jolla, CA in the late '60's when Gene Littler, Billy Casper, Mickey Wright, Craig Stadler, Phil Rogers, and John Schroder were all "regulars" at La Jolla Country Club, where Mr. Runyan was head pro. They were there because of Mr. Runyan. He attracted and helped develop the great players of the time because he could help them improve their short games better than anyone else. Unlike later short game teachers, Mr. Runyan proved that what he taught works under pressure -- by beating Sam Snead 8 and 7 for the PGA title in 1938 (even though Snead was outdriving him by 100 yards on many holes) -- and by logging 28 additional PGA tour wins based on his short game. Mr Runyan was a role model not only in golf's short game, but in every aspect of life.

This is a must read for anyone interested in economic inequality. Excellent social science and readable.

No feature of American political life astonishes me more than the almost complete silence of politicians and journalists and the media concerning the most pressing problem is contemporary American life: the dramatically increasing inequality between the haves and have nots in the United States. According to Federal Reserve figures the share of the national wealth held by the top 1% of the population has risen from 20$ in 1979 to 37% by 1997. I have not seen figures since that date, but after Clinton continued the deregulation started by Reagan and continued by Bush 41 and then Bush 43 engaged on an inconceivably lavish give-back program in the nation's history, it would be impossible to imagine that the figures have improved since then. What is the figure now? 40%? 45%? 48%? Here is what frightens me: Edward Wolff published the revised version of his novel in 2002, submitting the manuscript to the publishers before Bush's incredible largesse to the rich took place in 2002. The problem was, in Wolff's view (and in the view of most responsible economists), pressing and dire in 2001. How much worse has it gotten since a string of tax cuts and policy changes that have unquestionably have made a serious problem vastly worse?

Wolff's concern in this well-documented work are twofold: first, he wants to delineate the nature of the economic inequality that currently pervades the United States to a degree found in no other developed country; second, he wants to suggest one way partially to rectify the problem: for the United States to adopt a wealth tax similar to one that exists in several other nations.

Most people, when they think of economic inequality, think in terms of income inequality. Such inequality does indeed exist, but Wolff shows that the most damaging inequality is wealth inequality. The point, once stated, is obvious. Two families with the same income could nonetheless have very significant differences in economic well-being if one has far more wealth than the other, i.e., property and durable goods and other holdings. The problem in the United States, as demonstrated by the Fed statistics I noted above, is that virtually all the wealth is held by the top 20% of the populace, with the top 1% holding a disproportionate amount of that.

Wolff proposes one way to close the growing and vast gap between the wealthy and the mass of Americans: taxing wealth. Even the most conservative of taxes on aggregate wealth would, based on 1998 figures, generate approximately $52 billion dollars in tax revenue. The goal in Wolff's conception is to shift the tax burden more fairly toward the ones who possess the greatest wealth. He notes that in 2001 the United States had only two forms of wealth tax in place, both of which Bush has assaulted with impassioned intensity: estate taxes and capital gains taxes. Eliminating both of these are regressive taxes in that they ease the tax burden on the wealth while doing nothing to aid the poor or middle class. In other words, instead of the Bush administration doing something about economic inequality, they have intensified it.

I found Wolff's proposals to be highly persuasive. Unfortunately, we are still nationally in the throes of all kinds of mythology about taxes. We imagine that taxes are harmful to the economy, that it is unfair to expect the wealthy to pay a significantly higher tax rate, and that cutting taxes somehow stimulates the economy. In fact, as Wolff points out, a wealth tax would actually be highly stimulative by forcing the very wealthy to shift their wealth into more productive forms of investment.

But quite apart from whatever is economically productive, there are a host of moral and political questions. Is a society that allows wealth to accumulate among those who already have an inordinate amount conducive to the greater good? Is a society that persistently fails to aide those who have the least just? I will confess that my heart never bleeds for the very wealthy when they are asked to pay a bit more. Nor do I buy the rather absurdist arguments that tax cuts for the wealthy promotes economic growth. Historically, shifting wealth to the middle class has always been vastly more stimulative to the economy than shifting it to the rich. And shifting wealth to the rich has never generated any benefits to the middle class or the poor. As Will Rogers pointed out in the 1920s, another era where people thought giving more to the rich would benefit all, some people think that gold is like water: put it at the top and it runs down and nourishes everyone down below. But, Rogers pointed, out, gold isn't like water at all. You put it at the top and it just stays there. Until we as a nation start addressing the problem of our nation's severe economic inequality, the gold is just going to stay there.

Ed Wolff's book--a review of his earlier work on wealth, with some new additional material added--documents that the United States today is a more unequal society than at any time since the Great Depression.

According to his numbers--which are lousy, but are nevertheless the best we have or are likely to acquire-- in 1929 the richest one percent of households had about 41 percent of the economy's total wealth. But the leveling associated with the Depression and World War II had reduced the richest one percent's share to about 22 percent by 1945. Thereafter, the leveling trend continued. By the mid-1970s, the richest one percent's share--including the implicit value of rights and claims on the Social Security system. of total wealth was down to 13-16 percent of the economy's total wealth. But by the late 1980s, the richest one percent's' wealth was back up to 21 percent of the economy's total wealth. And scattered pieces of information suggest that the trend toward increasing inequality has continued into the 1990s.

Increasing inequality is not due to a surge in entrepreneurial activity: economic growth was unusually low in the 1980s (in substantial part because of the drain on investment resulting from the Reagan deficits). The fortunes made were, for the most part, not to any unusual extent the by-product of especially rapid economic growth.

Rising inequality is cause for alarm for two reasons: First, in a time of high inequality politics becomes nasty and democracy becomes less secure and stable. Second, an unequal economy--an economy in which the chances of striking it rich are larger and the chances of failing to maintain middle-class incomes are larger--fails to provide adequate social insurance. Risk-averse people would, if given a choice when young, overwhelmingly prefer to live in an equally rich overall but more equally distributed society.

This study of the distribution of wealth in America is disheartening indeed. Though it only surveys the economic scene until 1989 (a postscript brings it up to 1992), it is not hard to believe that things haven't changed much since then. Basically, it concludes that the gap between the rich and the poor has increased to a greater extent than at any time since before the Great Depression, and that the gap between the rich and the poor is greater than in most European countries.

Not only does this book outline the problem in detail, but it proposes a restructured tax system similar to that existing in many European countries, a tax system which would ease the burden on the poor, while placing little extra tax burdens on the rich-- and still raise billions more in tax revenue. Though this book is filled with statistical analyses, it is slim (fewer than a hundred pages), and those not mathematically inclined can skip to the conclusions here and there, which are written in clear, understandable prose. Well worth reading, and certain to be a wake-up call to anyone who has suspected that the middle class has been disappearing in this country.

V. Kasturi Rangan (Malcolm P. McNair Professor of Marketing, Harvard Business School) presents Transforming Your Go-To-Market Strategy: The Three Disciplines of Channel Management, a guide to improving the distribution systems of one's company. Focusing on three core techniques - mapping industry channels, building and reshaping channels for optimum customer service, and aligning one's channel value chain - Transforming Your Go-To-Market Strategy presents the tools to turn around poor distribution and increase both sales and profits. A "must-read" for professional distributors and owners of businesses large and small.

V. Kasturi Rangan presents a precise and exact step by step process to not only create a channel sales strategy, but to enhance and fix one that is already in place. Many companies and managers today feel all the have to do is sign up as many "channels" as possible to be successful. Unfortunately they overlook the overlook the critical principles of a success channel strategy and fail measurably, taking down the company, its people and alienating their customers. This is a must read and keep for any level of management involved in a go-to-market strategy.

The downside of this book is no color inside and that the Channel Stewardship concept in the book reveals so many opportunities for you in your business, you ask yourself - where do I begin to apply this & take advantage?

Also, the opportunity can be so big - that some readers may be intimidated. It can take years to move a company to implement Channel Stewardship fully - possibly a major change in mind-set.

Great use of multiple industry examples & action orientation / sequence of the chapters ! Your favorite chapter depends on where you & your company are now. For example, favorite chapter for me was #3 'Building & Editing the Value Chain'.

This book is a must read for business managers of products or services or retail. After reading the first 3 chapters, I ordered 10 more copies to give to key associates and started to organize workshops to implement some of the concepts as Global Head of Distribution in my company [Fortune 100].

I really enjoyed this book by Harvard Business School professor Kash Rangan. The authors advocate a disciplined approach to channel strategy that could generate superior returns in almost any industry. In my experience, most manufacturers neither develop careful channel maps nor do they assign executives senior enough to make significant channel resource commitments. As a result, the returns to channel stewardship should be available for any company willing to invest the time and effort.

A major strength of this book is the detailed examples provided in each chapter. Most business books simply provide very short case studies that always leave me wondering what really happened. Here, Rangan and Bell combine company stories with market data. Some of the examples are a bit dated, but that has the advantage of allowing the authors to describe the actual outcomes. The examples include both retail (B2C) and business-to-business channels, showing the strength of channels thinking. They even provide fresh insights into overdone examples such as Dell and Wal-Mart.

The only shortcoming is an over reliance on box-and-arrow diagrams. These are helpful when showing product and information flows within a channel system, but much less interesting when simply summarizing points made in the text.

I highly recommend this book to anyone with channel management responsibilities. This dense and challenging book will reward careful study.