Trading Books

I picked up this book later in life after many family hardships befell me. Rather than looking to religion or self help books an honest and humble friend read versus from this book to me. Having loved poetry and free verse most of my life I was struck with vivid beauty in the simplicity of the words that graced my ears that night. Kahlil Gibran in his day was renowned for his prose and how he carried it with the same simplicity that met my ear that night. In his finest work he left an indelible mark on my soul, not just for his words but how his words and their importance can change to the reader throughout their life. Regardless of religion, social preference or upbringing his words have the ability to stir the soul and to channel emotion to a strong degree. Once a gift for my late mother in her dying days it remains not a pillar of strength but a pedestal on life. Not a road map but a way to look at your surroundings when the path before you seems clouded. It gives you not direction but focuses on finding a clearer path. I've read several of Gibran's other works since then but this stands the test of time. If I could ever call any writing a masterpiece, this would be it, for I still read it and still draw from it every time I pick it up.

I've just recently been introduced to Khalil Gibran's work, and I am very thankful for it! His words are profound and thought-provoking. I find myself reading his lines over and over -- there's more to ponder everytime. Not only is his writing beautiful, but truly meaningful.

One of the most profound books I have ever read. You can learn alot about love, life and relationships after reading this book. Very insightful.

When I first started writing poetry at age 12 or 13, I was encouraged to read other poets. Something I refused to do because I thought it might influence, "My Style"...

:)

OK, so I was hard headed... I later was introduced by a Brother In Law to Kahlil Gibran and it was like finding a kindred soul. I now totally encourage any one that want's to excel in poetry to read the greats. And you won't find many of the caliber of this man!!! His words sing from the page both in his poetry and in his short stories! I love "Martyr's To Man" (It's been a while but some of the words are still singed in my brain... And I think it truly speaks of the time we are living in now more than ever... From memory so not verbatim...

Are you a soldier?
Who must forsake wife and children?
And go fourth into the fields of battle?
For the sake of greed
Which your leaders miscall duty?
Than you are a martyr to man!

There's more but the gist of what I am saying is if you love poetry and you haven't read any Kahlil Gibran you're missing out on one of the greatest poets to ever live!

And if you write poetry, I firmly believe Kahlil Gibran should be recquired reading!!!

Not that you will feel you have to plod your way through it...

You too, will fall in love with his immense gifts!!!
Sincerely,
And best wishes to all
Chase von
Your Chance to Hear The Last Panther Speak

I read this about a year ago and can't recall a great deal of the book. From what I do recall it was like a poem all the way through. While the writing was beautiful, I found it ambiguous and befuddled with meaning that I could not identify with. When Gibran speaks of God, I cannot identify because I have since abandoned those philosophies. It is thus difficult to revisit them in this book. I have the feeling a may have missed something great about this book. Indeed, I pulled wisdom from parts, but rather than go back and read it again, for now, perhaps I will move on to another of the many books out there that are enlightening and worth reading. Someday, I would like to read this again and dig deeper.

Very good insights and explanations, I also enjoyed the section with the different strategies used by well known investors and analysts.

The material is very practical and it is easy to use the analysis tools described by the author.

I borrowed a copy of this book from my local library and liked it so much that I bought one.

Easy to read, logical reasoning, and complete coverage of the subject.

I really enjoyed this book. It gives you most of the information you need to learn how to research, buy, and sell stocks. It tells you what to look for in a potential investment, and where to find the information. The writing style is pretty good so it is fairly easy to read. It doesn't go into technical analysis but most people wont need that. I think this book has everything the average investor will need.

I read a lot of books, but I seem to only write reviews/comments on the super good one's or the time-n-money waster's. This book is a 5 star and nothing less. My new high-liter is about dry because I went crazy marking everything that I thought would be valuable to reference later on. Basic? Yes, this book is very basic and gives basic info and ideas. But sometimes it's good to go back to the basics to recheck and make sure you're headed in the direction that you intended to go in the first place. It's easy to get side-tracked and even lost at times in this insane market. Jason Kelly knows what he's talking about and with his simple permanent portfolio suggestions, you'll finally be able to keep a cool head when others panic; and they panic every day, win or lose. With his simple "long-term" strategy you'll still be able to trade on the side if that suits your fancy. But with the knowledge gained in this book you'll more likely have a better chance at picking winners yourself instead of relying on the media to tell you what the hottest thing on the street is, and by then you're already too late.

For 10 bucks you can't go wrong!

This is a very good book.
Dreikurs is the second master in the history of Individual Psychology.
Go look for him on wikipedia!

He shares with us some of his wisdom.
The adlerian principles are clearly described and Dreikurs uses them to make the differences between what is useful and what is not useful in children behaviour. Also he gives solution and discusses a lot of cases.
I consider this book like a referential one to understand the adlerian psychology.
In the meantime this book is gold for those who work with children!
Have a good reading!

This was my favorite book that my pediatrician recommended when my children were little; it had the best analysis of children's behavior and how to respond to them. My kids are now grown and I am buying this book for them to read in preparation for raising their children. It is a great resource for understanding children and how to respond to them appropriately.

I've been a child/family psychologist for over thirty years. This is, I'm convinced of it, the single most important book ever written for parents who want to learn a "system" for parenting their kids. I was exposed to this book in grad school in the late seventies, and I've been recommending it to parents ever since. Everyone loves it! I give it as gifts to new parents when their firstborns come into the world.

I would recommend this book to parents. It helps the reader to look at how situations are promoted through our actions and word usage. The book is a bit annoying as it is outdated in word usage, a little stereotyped as to "mother", "father" roles. However, still a good read, promoting democracy and independece to our children.

I am not done reading this book yet however, the tips are wonderful for any parent who is having troubles with their kid. Or this book is great for first time parents who want to raise their kid different from the way they were raised.

I've used a number of books to learn Japanese over the years, and this was not the first or the last, but I immediately recognized it as the most important as a learning tool and as a reference for beginners. It gives the reader a clear and concise tour through the fundamentals. It doesn't teach you "street" Japanese, but that's better learned on the street - not from a book. It would be best coupled with spoken Japanese lessons from a native speaker or Pimsleur audio (get the CD and make MP3s). Also, you don't need to learn how to read/write Japanese kana or kanji to use this book.

What it won't give you is a gentle cumulative approach to vocabulary, instead it just tosses you in the deep end. If you are serious about learning a language, that's OK - you plan to eventually learn all of the words anyway, so what matter the order in which you learn them? It's also NOT a good book for the tourist who wants a crash introductory course.

The best part? You get through this and then you can buy the Intermediate edition and continue toward fluency. Learn one word a day and you'll be fluent before you know it!

This book is great. It is as it says a dictionary of basic Japanese grammar.
This book explains grammar in a way that is very easy to understand. With this book and the "Dictionary of intermediate Japanese grammar", you will be set. I recommend all serious students of Japanese to get these two books. Then find a good Kanji study system, and follow that up with a good workbook, to enforce practice.

There is a bit of a myth about Japanese grammar--that it is too complicated, too alien for the non-native speaker to ever really master. This is a myth that many Japanese perpetuate themselves, seen in unflattering characterizations of non-native speakers, or in the (unhelpful) praise lavished upon anyone who can speak Japanese to any degree, no matter how ungrammatical it may be. This is a myth that is also unfortunately and unintentionally perpetuated by guides like Jorden's "Japanese the Spoken Language" that do the learner a disservice by explaining grammatical points in a language better suited for a linguist than a language learner. For people like you and me, who want to surpass these low expectations and confusing explanations and start on the road to true fluency, "A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar" is an essential companion.

Let's face it--from the perspective of a native English speaker, mastering Japanese grammar is difficult. Very difficult. Don't trust anyone who says otherwise! Much is made of the difficult writing system, but mastering grammar is perhaps even more difficult and essential to smooth communication. Sure, learning the difference between "wa" and "ga" is not as sexy as learning how to write "love" or "raccoon dog" in kanji, but it's many times more useful on a daily basis. By providing easy-to-understand explanations as well as examples of both good and bad usage, the student is given a better understanding of basic (but still difficult-to-master) grammatical points. This dictionary does an especially good job of contrasting similar constructs that give beginning-to-intermediate (and even many advanced) students trouble (wa/ga, aida/uchi, ageru/kureru, hazu/beki, ni/de etc.)

Although I don't think it's possible to gain complete comfort and mastery of Japanese without living in Japan, or at the very least, interacting with Japanese people on a regular basis, this book is the perfect guide for explaining the nuances that a beginner might not notice, and an intermediate student might be aware of but not fully understand. This includes the deceptive "similar constructs" I mentioned before, words that are not easy to translate into English (sekkaku, darou come to mind), and other issues such as auxiliary verbs and onomatopoetic "sound words". Whether you're learning Japanese in school, living abroad in Japan, or even just studying on your own, "A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar" is an indispensable companion for your studies.

One last comment--there are a few reviews that have comments along the lines of "yes, but the Japanese don't really talk like this" to which I say, "You're missing the point." That's a bit like arguing against learning multiplication tables because in the "real world" there are calculators. Sure it would be nice to go directly from "Please give me that pen" to "Hey man, can ya grab that pen over there for me?" but language learning isn't that easy. If you understand the fundamentals of grammar, you will understand Japanese of all formalities, dialects, and other variations and transmutations. It is much easier to learn the shortcuts once you have a strong foundation because you are in a position to understand the nuances and principles involved. In other words, you know and understand what exactly is being "shortcutted". If you only learn the shortcuts, you will have a hard time generalizing your knowledge for usage out of a narrow, specific context. Worse, you might not even realize that you are even making a grammatical or etiquette mistake by misapplying knowledge from one context to another. The worst thing a language learner can do is to try to take shortcuts to "speed up" his or her progress without taking the time to build up a steady base. This dictionary provides that strong foundation that is needed for the serious Japanese language learner.

It is more than 1 year since the last review for this book was written here, but reading through all the reviews there seems almost only to be positive comments about this book (the few negative comments there are, are rather unimportant things). BUT this book, used wrongly, may very well teach you Japanese that has never been heard from a native speaker's mouth.

The information provided in the book is overwhelming and the explanations are almost too good to be true. However, depending on what you are trying to learn from the book, in may get you in big trouble.
I am currently living in Japan and trying to pick up the language, and one thing I have come to understand is that there is not only one Japanese language ... but several. There is spoken langauge (actually there are 2 spoken languages, formal and informal), there is written language in books etc., there is news paper language, there is subtitle language (this is a fancy one!) and there are probably many more.
This is not a unique feature to the Japanese language, that is not the point I am trying to make, but especially the difference between spoken language and written language in general is so destinctive, that you must be very well aware of it.

Now, what has all this to do with the book that this review is about? A whole lot!
One evening when I sat at the dinner table studying my host brother (I live with a host family) came down from his room, saw me and placed himself on the chair besides me. He asked me what I was doing, and I of course answered `studying Japanese`. I was reading some random entry from "A dictionary of basic Japanese grammar" and when I showed it to him he started laughing and asked me why I was studying weird stuff like that.
Of course I had no idea what he was talking about, so he explained me that what I was studying was not useful at all. He had only read it once in a book but never heard it in a conversation (he is 30 and native Japanese). After consulting my hostdad he agreed as well, the stuff I was reading was useless and waste of time to study.

That little incident made me start asking my Japanese friends about stuff I had learnt from this book, and a lot of the entries they told, they never used in normal conversation.
When purchasing this book and starting to use it as a study aid or grammar reference, you should definitely have some native speaker to ask, whether what you are studying is useful at all, because the authors of this book completely fail to provide any information on where you will find the grammar you are studying. Some of the grammatical expressions in book, you will never hear in a conversation and others are restricted to movie subtitles. So if you use this book without being critical you will end up with an understandable and grammatically correct but extremely odd Japanese.

As I said earlier the Japanese used in subtitles is a category itself. "Subtitle Japanese" is a paradise for people who has used "A dictionary of basic Japanese grammar", but you will never hear it in daily life conversations.
So please be careful to use this great but dangerous book!

Personally, I feel that these two books (basic/intermediate) goes together in order to have a complete reference. If it's separated, it's like splitting elementary school's vocabulary and highschool's vocabulary into two dictionary. Which dictionary should you buy if you want to check for words that seemed to be in between these two levels. For example, words like "honor".

The other reviewers are very informative, so i'll just give you a good example of a grammar from the "Intermediate japanese grammar". (I chose intermediate because it can better express a more complete capacity of how the book work. (I apologize if you're a beginner audience)

"believe it or not" - nanishiro

Three ways to use it

#1. (sentence 1). nanishiro (sentence 2)
#2. (sentence 1). un, nanishiro...
#3. (sentence 1), nanishiro, (sentence 2)

Example for #1 (there are 5 examples for this particular grammar)

Ano hito ha kanemochi desuyo. *NANISHIRO* bentsu wo sandaimo motteirun desu karane. (In Hinagana)
(He is rich, you know. *Believe it or not*, he has three Mercedes Benz) (gives you translation)

Unlike regular dictionaries, I find the joy in flipping thru these grammar dictionaries just because it's easy to read and it's also informative. Other than *Nanishiro* in the previous sentence, didn't you also learn what kanemochi means?

This book is a God send, or Whatever send for you non-Christians. It is a wonderful workbook that gives you various questions and methods to teach you the multiple kanji used in basic Japanese. The only down side is that there isn't a Kana section, and all of the pronunciation listings are in Kana. The plus side is that it trains you to not always have an English backup plan.

It's meant to be written on, which is something the various other books I have don't have in mind. They show you everything, and teach you nothing. I recommend this to EVERYONE.

I just started learning Japanese....oh, about 2 weeks ago. I had no trouble learning Hiragana and Katakana, but as I'm sure you already know, the Kanji seems to be nearly impossible. Well, this book pretty much solves everything.
It starts you out with the simplest Kanji and only builds each section off of previous knowledge. It is well laid out with thoughtful planning and it never eases up. I really have no idea how they managed it, but the book really immerses you in the Kanji and makes it so easy to remember with some of the best drills I've seen.

If you plan on learning Japanese, forget all of the other Kanji workbooks because this one is really the only one you need. I would also suggest getting the whole series because they are all built off of this first book.

I used this book about a week before I started taking my Japanese classes and to say that the beginning of class was easy due to the things this book taught me would be a great understatement.

I have bought several other Kanji books before buying this one. Some of the other books left me with unanswered questions. Others unmotivated me to study so i gave up studying. I bought Basic Kanji Book because one of my friends who is also Japanese student suggested me to buy it.


Basic Kanji Book is a great choice if you are learning Kanji. In every chapter you learn 10 or more Kanji characters. And at the end of the each chapter you will review them by having 30 or more questions about these characters. The good thing is that each chapter and the questions make you feel like you are learning Kanji. That feeling motivates you and makes you want to study more Kanji.

I suggest this book to everyone who is trying to learn Kanji. I am totally satisfied with this book.

Don't think about getting any other books to learn Kanji because this book is pretty comprehensive. It teaches you the stroke order and the meanings and then uses the kanji in practical context. For example, it gives you the layout of a train station and the various directional gates, N S E W, subway and the respective Kanji used. This was an invaluable resource in my learning of Kanji.

You would be hard pressed to find a better beginning kanji book than "Basic Kanji Book Vol. 1." The combination of logical progression, constant reinforcement through exercises and activity, as well as a stern instance on using only hiragana and learned kanji makes for a powerful study tool.

The first in a series, it takes you through 500 kanji giving you a solid basis in the written Japanese language. Instead of selecting the kanji based on Japanese school levels, or other arbitrary standards, they are selected by pure usefulness in written and spoken Japanese. The kanji are grouped by sections such as "kanji made from pictures" or "kanji for time," with 12 kanji in each grouping. Each section is laid out with writing practice, followed by review and reading comprehension practice.

There are no gimmicks or fancy short cuts in "Basic Kanji Book Vol. 1." Just straight-forward, old-fashioned learning by use. The constant reinforcement in each chapter is really the strong point, as each exercise compounds on previous chapters, allowing for true learning rather than just quick memorization.

Before you tackle this book, you need to have a good grasp of hiragana and some katakana. Like all good Japanese study texts, "Basic Kanji Book Vol. 1" makes no use of romaji so you learn the language directly from the language. It can be a bit hard at first, but if you persevere you will be well beyond the level of learners who stuck to their training wheels.

The Market Guys do a great job in this book of spelling out the steps for successful investing. Key in their teachings, is the risk management tools that they provide. They really understand investing on a very high level, and we are lucky that they are willing to share their knowledge with us.

The Market Guys' Five Points to Trading Success presents a complete plan for new and experienced traders alike. Following their direction in this entertaining and easy to read book will increase your probability for successful trading, and help to reduce risk. I read this book in a week, and keep it on my coffee table for quick references.

I have had the pleasure to meet with AJ, one-on-one, a number of years ago. At that time I had read 15-20 books on technical analysis and was completely confused on which tools I should use. At that time AJ introduced me to his "KISS - Keep It Super Simple" philosophy. I went from loses to gains because he was able to help remove the confusion about trading. He helped me understand even the professional stock traders don't know if a stock is going up or down, but if you have proper "Risk Management Tools" it doesn't matter. In the book, on page 243, last sentence of the first paragraph, "RISK IS A FACTOR THAT MUST BE RECOGNIZED AND PROPERLY MANAGED, NOT AVOIDED ENTIRELY." Risk management is key. All the technical analysis tools in the world won't help you if you don't have proper "Risk Management Tools" A beginner should start out with The Market Guy's book, then read 5-10 other books on technical analysis. After this education, take all that knowledge and come back to "The Market Guy's Five Points for Trading Success and read it again. This will help you understand how the Market Guy's, with their "KISS Philosophy" can teach you how to make money. I would also recommend subscribing to AJ's "Option Oracle". These are not just recommendations he gives to make money, these are his trades he uses in his personal account. Most "teachers" in stock trading don't trade their recommended stock picks. They only make money if you subscribe. Not the Market Guys, their personal money is on the line with yours! Congratulations to the Market Guys for putting all the information they teach at their seminars into their first book!!! Buy two and give one to a friend. I did.

I'm so stoked I bought this book. I'm already half way through in just 2 days and I'm getting a very clear picture of what I need to know to be successful in the trading industry. I had been reading another highly recommended technical analysis book that gave a million ways to analyze a chart, etc. but no clear path to follow or even a starting point after all that information. The Market Guys clearly define a step by step process in this book, starting with the most important step - establishing a clear trading plan and sticking to it, managing emotions, having a solid understanding of the best tools to analyze charts with, risk management and protecting your investment, and finally putting it all together and taking action. It's all here and they've kept it Super Simple! Bravo to AJ and Rick!!!

As a newbie to self directed investing (about 1 year), I have found there are a lot of "self proclaimed" gurus out there. These "gurus" use their book to sell you more stuff or hype some unproven "secret" they have discovered that you "must have". I have found most other books too complicated and heavy on the mathematics or too sales oriented trying to get me to buy more stuff about trading.

What I really LIKE about this book is the honesty of the authors with no sales pitch and no hype. They tell you trading has risk, they tell you the mistakes to avoid and they tell you with clarity and analogies that are easy to understand. While I'm reading everything I can right now, other books talk about MACD, %R, Stochastics, and a bunch of complicated indicators. While the authors cover these technical studies, Rick and AJ stress the importance of keeping it super simple (KISS). It was actually refreshing to read this book and get some common sense trading advice.

Is the book too simple? I don't think so....it's not "basic" level information, more like the wisdom of their experiences. I know this might sound like an over-the-top review of the book and I don't have any relationship with the authors. I just really loved this book and I have read it twice.

I would recommend this book to anyone looking for sound advice without all the complicated mathematics or sales hype that makes your head spin.

This book helps you really look at yourself, learn to know yourself, then you determine what traits are really important in a mate. What bugs you, what can you live with, what things can you just not stand in a mate?

This book helps you look at common wish lists for a mate and find out what matters most to YOU. Then you learn to determine if someone has these traits, so you don't waste your time on dating someone you could never be happy with.

This book makes sense, and helps people pin down what really matters to THEM. I'd recommend it highly to anyone looking for a relationship.

If you are in a relationship and its not working out, this book could also help you figure out what's wrong. This one should be on everyone's book shelves, its a great book to loan to friends and family if you don't need it yourself.

This book uses sound principals of true personality compatability.

A great book to help people identify what they are looking for when they are dating. I can honestly say that this book should be mandatory for people prior to dating! :)

An excellent guide through an introspective process, which will reveal those aspects of a potential mate that are key for you. Once you can see what is so important to you that it will ultimately make or break a relationship, the rest is pretty easy. Read it. Think about it. Second dates with people who couldn't possibly be "the one" will no longer be necessary. This was the book that made the difference for me. I give it an A+.

I am a military chaplain. One of the questions I face comes in the area of relationships. People looking around for the right one. I have suggested this book numerous times to others. It worked for me. I would highly recommend it for someone recouping after a bad relationship before going back or to another relationship.

Thanks to NC Warren, for the first time in my 42 years (through one marriage and three love relationships since then) I know how to go about selecting a compatible mate rather than just randomly going with whoever seems attractive. Knowing yourself well and listing the 10 "must haves" and "can't stands" are major keys.

We ordered several paper backs of this series and then recieved the hard back in the mail. WE DID NOT ORDER THIS BOOK AND WOULD LIKE YOU TO PICK IT UP FROM OUR HOUSE AND CREDIT OUR CHARGE CARD.
Please let me know what to do #813-835-9192.

I have always enjoyed the adult series of Left Behind books. The kids books are just as good. The kids interact with the characters from the adult series, experience the same events, etc. However, since the main characters are teens, these books can appeal to younger readers. So far, the stories haven't had the ups and downs that the adult series has had. The adult series has books that are a lot more boring than others. The kids series seems to be good in every book. These are not for really young kids, but would be appropriate for young teens. I enjoy them and I am an adult.

My 12-year-old son just devours these books, and I'm so happy about it! There are too many negative influences in today's society, and these books are nothing but a positive influence, in my opinion. My son says that these books are bringing him closer to God. How many people can say that what entertains their child does that? My son actually puts the Game Cube down to read these books..and believe me, that's a miracle!

Yes, these books are from a Christian perspective, but even a non-Christian would enjoy the good reading.

The Underground is yet another perfect continuation of the Left Behind Kids series. Logging in as book #6, The Underground finds our four teen post-Rapture heroes unleashing the power of the printed page by way of an underground newspaper that proclaims the message of God's Word to their peers at a high school named after the Antichrist, Nicolae High, which was established in book #5. The kids encounter trouble at every turn, and as schol authorities and social officers relentlessly hunt them down, they struggle to reveal the Truth of God's message and the Truth behind the global disappearances of millions worldwide in which event each one of the four kids were left orphans. They boldly face one close call after another until one of them is captured by the agents of the Antichrist's newly formed regime . . .

The Underground ends with a cliffhanger, making the reader want to read the next book to see what happens and how or if the characters survive. The story is continued in book #7, in which installment the reader discovers how the character who is caught in #6 fares.

Mark Moore has it wrong. This book may be Christian, but it is not propaganda. It tells about something that I (and many other people) believe will happen.
Mark says that it is "ludicrous" to believe that the world would go into chaos if all the Christians disappeared. Yeah right! Let's see millions around the world disappear at the same time and withount warning and not have chaos.
I think Mark's accusations are what's ludicrous. "An evil religion perpetuated by zealous idiots"?!? Give me a break! Christians are as normal as anyone else.
In the Bible, the book of Revelation takes about "20 pages" because it only gives enough information to understand what is going on. These books are much longer because they put the situation into real life situations.

As for the quality of the book? A different reviewer mentioned this and I feel the same way. The time line is screwed up compared to the adult series. From what I remember, there WAS no Global Community before the treaty signing.
All of the kids series books that I have read are good, but not as good of quality as the adult books. I personally think that the authors lost some of their good writing style by continuing the adult series so long, and it is showing up in the kids series.

It is a real-hand-on book! Although the book looks very "huge", the analysis helps me to prepare MBA class.

Mun's book is an excellent guide for those who have basic knowledge about asset valuation and want to study real options.

Mun's book shows how real options problems, like those faced in the real world, can be solved. Other books may provide a better introduction to real options concepts, but the methods employed are suitable only for very simple problems. Where other approaches require that you develop your own lattices (or other solutions), Mun shows you how to use his Supper Lattice Solver and Monte Carlo simulation software to solve these problems. I am convinced that his approach will not only facilitate the solution of these problems, but will also be more readily accepted by management. I look forward to acquiring Mun's software and applying it in practice.

As practitioners and academics continue to grapple with quantifiable uncertainties in real asset decision making, the debate about real option models will no doubt continue.

Johnathan Mun's second book and more specifically his case study approach allows practitioners from diverse industries to enter the debate with simple excel asset pricing skills. To my mind there is no better pragmatic work on the topic than the second edition of Real Options Analysis. With the book in one hand and the robust SLS software up on the screen - framing, pricing and understanding real options is pretty straightforward.

Two points to note: After 30 days, just as you begin to get hooked on the superb software it is likely to gently expire. That's when you are saved by the second point; the author is hugely supportive - His `one line insights' in response to specific queries made this a great purchase.

Edinburgh. Scotland.

This was my first book on Real Options. After this, I complemented my knowledge with more accurate researches on the theoritic foundations on the subject (eg. Trigeorgis and Copeland).
What I liked of this text is that it was a soft landing into the Real Option world, with a simple and easily understandable description. Its major pro is to present transparently the basics of a concept that is often approached at a too high and formal level.
What I did not like is the fact that few chapters at the end were not really useful but full of stuff and formulas with no explanations that cannot practically be used. I had the sensation they were out of place, since I could grasp their meaning only after passing to more comprehensive books.
One more criticism is that you don't understand the effect of the difference between private and public risk in real options evaluation as you do with other texts. However, I still consider this the book where I formed my basics before being able to master some other more detailed book (but also more difficult to master). The Crystall-Ball package was also a nice surprise. At the end, if you consider the price and the content it was surely good value for money even though it's not a masterpiece.

I read Susan Perabo's collection after being her student over Christmas. Wow.
These stories amaze me. Well written, she does so well what she has taught her own students. The gears in my head turned, and I finally understood all those things she wrote on my stories or tried to explain in class.
I love her characters. The data processing woman with the Diana dress. The pot smoking music teacher father. The woman whose baby just died. The actor whose marriage is ending so he invites a klepto father to stay with him. On and on they go, so confused, so much in pain, but she makes their lives and situations funny. It's a bittersweet pain, but Perabo has one of the most original ways of communicating pain I've seen since the writers she told us to read.
I still can't get out of my mind the one called "Explaining Death to the dog". The pain the woman feels when showing the dog the book of Time photos or showing her the dead animal, wow. I read it three times in a row the first night I read it. I am still in awe of it.
As she told my class so many times, "Show, don't tell."
Perabo shows. I can't believe I was lucky enough to have classes with her. I just wish I read these sooner.

Barring a very few exceptions, the stories presented here are top-notch. I finished this book in half a day, and wanted more when I ran out of stories. I would love to see more stories about the characters here!

I found this collection by accident and didn't know what to expect. Short stories can be so good, or so bad. These stories are very good, and consistently good. These are stories of people searching for something missing in their lives, well told stories with humor and heart. Enjoy this collection.

Should be 'nuf said -- but I want to add that the author's voice is completely true! (i think this a book for older people -- ie, over 40 -- who understand about disappointment, and transformation). What a read!

This book came with high recommendations and expectations but for me the book failed to live up to them. The characters are inventive and memorable but their treatment falls short and the stories repeatedly end on a dissatisfying note. I agree with the Amazon review that her characters' promise and development seems to stall out of some kind of self conscious regard for academic critique and conflict, etc. (I'm not an academic, but you can feel their eyes on the text.) I wish she'd just let it rip. I also think the writing suffers from a lack of a clear voice; the voice often seem contrived and forced and in some instances just competely derails the story. The good part is the characters themselves, who are memorable despite their author's too-often shallow treatment.