Money Books

Wonderful book for those who want to learn how to learn how to gain control of your money and invest.

This book truly changed my life. Ms. Stephen's down to earth, friend-to-friend approach spoke to me like no other financial advice book ever had. As everyone here has said, the daily devotional style makes it easy to digest and the quotes are truly inspirational. My thanks to Ms. Stephen's for this fabulous book.

Like the other people who reviewed this book, I just love it. I first borrowed it from the library and then purchased it for myself. I like the way it is made up, in tiny steps and really easy to read and follow. It truly inspired me to take a new look at money and I found out that you can save money in more ways than I ever thought possible. I highly recommend it. It is well worth the price.

I recommend this book to anyone who needs to gain control of their finances and set up their future.
Easy to follow....straightforward....tons of great advice!

I feel that my review should be first! This book is great. Not only is it a daily financial devotional, but it is also a down-to-earth NIV financial bible. I bought this book on a clearance rack in Crown and never read it until last week(note, I bought the book a year ago!). However, buy it, read it, use it, and read it again......

When I first picked up this book I was pretty overwhelmed with all the changes the authors recommend -- some of them are fairly significant alterations to my everyday life. But all in all, I think even starting with just a few of them and working your way up can be a great way to help the Earth, which is something we all want for our kids and grandkids. I'd definitely recommend buying this book.

This is an update to a book issued in 2003. It has 51 chapters, one for each tip, plus summaries at the end of the tips, the science, and the politics.

Each chapter is clearly written, organized with an Overview, What You Should Know, Easy Ways You Can Help, a summary box, and Search for More Info. The summary box tells you clearly what your personal savings are likely to be if you implement these, the annual amount of CO2 that will not be put into the atmosphere, and sometimes the dollar savings over the life of the product.

Each of the bulleted paragraphs in the What You Should Know and the Easy Ways You Can Help lead with a bold-faced short sentence encapsulating the enformation. The rest of the paragraph expands on it.

The whole is presented clearly, enthusiastically but not intimidatingly, and with sound advice that saves you money, and the environment from more harm.

This book provides you, the reader, with the tools to look deeper into each topic, but it doesn't guilt you into it. It tells you exactly how thrifty you are being, and how much difference one person or household can make.

Recommended.

Rather than trying to explain all the science behind global warming or politics behind the Kyoto Protocol, the authors present simple, clear, and easy-to-implement suggestions on how the average consumer can make significant reductions in his impact on the environment. Even for those who think global warming is "junk science," this book provides tips on how to lower gas and electric bills-and how can that be a bad thing?

You can Prevent Global Warming provides 51 tips for lowering carbon emissions and conserving energy. Almost every tip presented is completely free and every tip saves money. Many of the suggestions are not new-putting a milk jug full of water into the toilet tank to reduce the flow of water, lowering the thermostat just a bit-however, the authors also include exactly how much money and energy it saves by doing something simple. They also provide tips for people with varying levels of commitment. Already doing the toilet tank thing? They give you links to reviews of low-flow toilets. Is that still not enough for you? They explain composting toilets!

There were a few features I particularly enjoyed and appreciated with this book. First, I liked the list at the end of the book that placed each suggestion in an easy-to-follow format of which tips to do first and how often. I also really liked the useful links included. Rather than actually getting bogged down in science and mechanics, they provide web links to [...] and other useful sites. A major barrier in me doing some of the suggestions before (like vacuuming heater and fridge coils) is that I had no idea how to do these things and was (frankly) too lazy to look it up. The authors provide a link with pictures on how to do these things. Some of the links also take you to sites on how to contact Congress if an issue is important to you if the way you want to lower man's impact on nature is to become politically involved.

I was walking around my house implementing many of these suggestions as I was reading because of how simple they are. The authors never take a strong-armed tone, never guilt you into trying something they suggest. Every suggestion felt like they were saying "Good for you for doing so much! Want to try more? Keep reading!"

I strongly recommend this book to any home-owner (though it also has awesome suggestions for renters!). I have a number of family members who are always trying to be as green as possible without seriously changing their lifestyles, a few who cringe (or cuss) at the very mention of Al Gore but who are still committed to the Biblical mandate to be stewards of the Earth, and a few who are trying to do more and more-and they are all on the receiving list for this book.

A pretty comprehensive book of tips to help prevent global warming. There are also definitions of terms one hears in the news and in other venues about global warming. Many of the tips were ones I had already heard about or were steps I had already taken so there was not a lot of new information for me. But, it is very nicely organized and easy to read. This is an update from the 2003 version, however, there were a couple of tips that were not updated such as the section on reusing old floppy disks. You most definitely can reuse floppy disks, but I don't know anyone who uses those anymore. Overall, a pretty good read for the person in the beginning stages of fighting global warming.

This was my first book on global warming. I learned alot about how I could help. I is simple to read and understand.

If you are unsure if staging works, you will get a definite hard sell that it does in this book. Over, and over, and over again. To the point of being tedious. However there is some good information to be found here. Just didn't take the 288 pages to do it. Cut to the chase, tips include fresh paint, clean the place, get rid of clutter, depersonalize the house. In short, you are trying to sell a product. Spruce it up! Its all in the packaging. Rest is fluff and repetition, such as convincing you that staging works. Apparently the author felt the reader could not get that in a few sentences or even a chapter. Would have given a higher rating if it was less monotonous on that topic.

If you are selling your home, this book will help you get ready. It has a variety of ideas. Some are complicated, some are expensive, but many are simple and easily implemented. The author helps you understand you are not selling your home, you are selling a house to be someone else's home. If this is the only thing you get from this book it is worth the price and time you invest in buying and reading it. I higly recommend it.

This book is full of helpful advice when undertaking the tremendous task of selling and moving out of your house. Some of the advice is common sense, but they offer great ideas.

Teri B. Clark shares her expert tips on how to make your house look like a model home to showcase its potential to prospective buyers. Each page is filled with tricks of the trade and advice from professionals, and each chapter is summarized with a numbered tip list for easy reference. The book also includes before and after photos, as well as true stories of houses that sold for more than the asking price.

I recommend this book to everyone, regardless of whether they have a house to sell. Who doesn't want their house to look like a model home? Or, at the very least, sparkling clean, less cluttered, and more stylish? Teri B. Clark has written a do-it-yourself, fix-it-up, reorganization, cleaning, and decorating manual all rolled into one! The best part about her cleaning tips is that all of her methods entail using natural products such as orange oil and baking soda--very Earth and wallet friendly. There is an entire chapter on how to stage your home on a shoestring budget, which is ideal, especially in the current marketplace. She has ingenious ideas, and she demonstrates with data that a small investment can bring a large return. This is a tremendously useful book for all homeowners.

Even if you are not planning on selling your house any time soon, this would be a good book to have around. In fact, by the time you get through following all of the advice here, you might not even want to sell, but if still do, there is a very good chance that you will indeed see the benefits of getting up to10 percent more from the sale.

This book looks at everything from the inside out, and from top to bottom. It is probably not the type of book you would just sit down and read from cover to cover, though you could because its style is easy to read as well as informative. Some of the best features include "This Could Be You" success stories interspersed throughout the book. These achieve their goal to inspire the reader. While these are balanced with the rest of the text, at times some of the other inserted text boxes almost become annoying. For example, the Professional Bonus Tips are helpful, but sometimes they seem to be overused. This is especially evident in the chapter, "Putting It All Back together," where it seems that most of the chapter is made up of text boxes instead of text.


Aside from this formatting issue, the tips are valuable and range from advice about how to pay attention to the smallest details such as wiping clean light switch covers to more significant aspects of staging, such as depersonalization in order to appeal to the largest number of perspective home buyers.

Before and after photographs are used to illustrate some of the main points. These include color insets and some smaller black and whites throughout. Sometimes the quality of these are not all that great--in a few cases the before and after photos are not take from exactly the same perspective in the room. Still, most of the photos do help to get the point across, so they are generally are useful.

All in all, this book is inspiring. It makes me want to get off the couch and transform my own home even though I had no plans of selling. I suspect it can have the same the effects on you as well.

When a few friends and I decided to explore commercial acting, we needed a roadmap. This book is it! There are a lot of acting books out there, but Stuart's stands out by explaining the process of breaking into commercials from the ground up without talking down to his reader. Concise, highly readable, and, most importantly, backed by Stuart's knowledge as both a working actor and casting director, this book teaches you how to be a professional and hit the ground running in a very competitive business.

This book is short and to the point. Sometimes when people write these kind of books, they elabroate forever. Not this one. There's not a lot of wordy explanations. I appreciate that. Info very precise with good advice and techniques pertaining specifically to commercials. Stone not only deals with the audition process, he helps you avoid making mistakes and falling for scams as well as showing how to market yourself.
I have not seen a more detailed or informative book on the subject.

This book is very short and the information is very general. Only a few things pertained specifically to commercials at all. There are much more detailed and informative books out there.

I read Stuart's book and became so motivated to get out and start making things happen for myself with reagards to my acting career. He give excellant advice on what to do and how to do it. Anyone reading this book, will not want to put it down. It truly is the best book ever!

Industry Insight - "Acting Out"
By Holdon Log, LLC

If you are looking to work as a successful actor in commercials, or perhaps you already are and are in need of a brush up, we'd like to point you in the direction of Acting Out written by Stuart Stone, CCDA (Commercial Casting Directors Association) and Clio Award winner and Dennis Bailey.

If you haven't had the pleasure of meeting Stuart at an audition or in a class, reading the book he co-authored, Acting Out, will offer you guidance and give you insight on what is expected before, during and after a successful audition. More importantly, as mentioned on Stuart's Web site (www.CommercialActing.Info) is how to "turn callbacks into bookings."

Several of us at Holdon Log (from all different backgrounds and at various stages in our commercial acting pursuits) recently read Acting Out and we agree that more Industry mysteries had been revealed, explained better and reinforced while turning the pages of this easy-to-read guide book complete with cleverly depicted moments that happen in real commercial casting sessions.

SOME HIGHLIGHTS

Before Meeting A Prospective Commercial Agent:

"When you get an appointment with an agent you should call and confirm the night before, for a morning appointment, and the morning of, for an afternoon appointment. This effort will show them you are responsible. Many actors forget the business part of the equation; your professionalism will set you apart from the actor wannabees. Dress like you would on a general commercial call-with a leaning towards upscale casual. Avoid perfumes or colognes. Bring an up-to-date picture and resume with you. If you have a demo reel of your commercials, bring that as well. Arrive twenty minutes early to secure a parking space and find the office. Do not be late. And call if you have any problem keeping your appointment. The agent is taking time from his or her busy schedule to meet with you. DO NOT keep them waiting."




While Preparing For Your Photo Shoot & What To Look For While Selecting Your Headshots:

"The most important thing to remember is this: You want your picture to look like you do when you walk into any given audition. We can't stress that enough, so we're going to repeat it. You want your picture to look like you do when you walk into any given audition at any time. Not how you'd like to look after a visit to the plastic surgeon, not how your mother tells you how you look when she pinches your cheek, but how you really look."


During The Commercial Audition:

"It is imperative that you establish a beginning, middle and an end to your actions. This is a hard and fast rule in approaching any type of audition. You are, in a sense, performing a complete, short scene for the camera."



"While working, whether alone or with a partner, do not memorize the lines. Fully familiarize yourself, stick an operative phrase or two in your head, but do not commit the pages to memory. Unlike a theatrical audition where you have leeway to rehearse and memorize, the time you have with commercial copy is minimal. Most actors try to impress the casting director by having the dialogue memorized but they end up trying to remember the copy and are not able to act at all. They end up leaving the acting out, which is 50% of the work. Once in the audition room there will be a cue card with the copy clearly printed in bold magic marker situated on and easel next to the camera. Use it. If you memorize the copy, it's almost impossible to use the cue cards to help you out if you forget memorized lines. Instead, develop the skill of cue card reading."


During The Callback:

"No matter how many people are crowded into the room, focus your attention on the director. He or she is in charge this time around."

"It is generally important to wear the same clothes and hairstyle you did on the original call. (Click Here To View An ActorTrack Software Tip) "



When You've Worked The Job You've Booked...Before You Go:

"Then before you climb into your car, circle the set and thank everyone. Everyone. Not only is it just good manners-personal and professional-it is good business. Human nature being what it is, people like to work with actors they know are talented and personable...Kindness and integrity-as well as talent-are remembered."

[...]

Since I am not an economist, I must leave some of the technical details of the book for assessment by others. However, the author's advocacy for financial privacy and for consumption taxes seem to be right on the money--so to speak. He writes in a very lucid and comprehensible manner.

Richard Rahn explains money concepts and how it relates to your everyday life in a simple and concise manner. He conclusively argues for the abolution of taxes on capital and why unprincipled politicians will fight to keep them. He demonstrates with examples how some countries have prospered by keeping or eliminating taxes on capital while those who didn't have fallen behind. He is most persuasive on the issue of financial privacy as a human right and without it we are at the mercy of a totalitarian government. Very easy to read.

OK, so you have your guns, you've studied the law and you've got your gold and 10 years of food stashed.

Guess what?

It's not necessary. Not now. Not anymore.

No violence, no protests, no writing your congressman.

This is a revolution that is happening one person at a time, anonymously, securely, privately and instantaneously. Each individual voluntarily removes his energy from the system that is enslaving him.

The government will simply lose revenue until it can only function within its justified duties, which is the protection of the property and lives of its citizens.

This book shows the convergence of multiple truly revolutionary technologies that will give us back our freedom and force government to adjust to this new world. This is the way we will return to true freedom.

Rahn has made a bold attempt to predict the impact of technological and financial innovations on the economy and society in general. The technological developments are the Internet, electronic money, and freely available cryptographic software of a very high standard, specifically PGP. Other commentators have also speculated on the problems these with cause to governments in raising taxes, fighting money laundering etc. However Rahn takes into account not just technological developments but also an innovation of a purely financial nature, namely securitization.

In principle, almost any kind of asset can be turned into money by securitization. Probably the most highly publicised example is "Bowie bonds" which are backed by royalties from songs. David Bowie was the first to raise money in this way, hence the name.

Throughout history governments have yielded to the temptation to allow their currencies to be debased. In the past most people had to put up with this but Rahn suggests that the technological and financial innovation will effectively give people other choices.

Rahn concentrates on the US in his book, which is natural enough - after all as well as being his own country it is the world's most influential! However he does make many references to Switzerland, particularly in connection with that nation's long experience of bank secrecy, and is also very critical of the tendency of many Americans to think that what is illegal in the US should be illegal everywhere and conversely that what is legal there should be legal everywhere. He points out that the American legal system imposes a big burden on American business and society and that other countries should be suspicious of attempts to export US law.

One of my major quibbles is that the title is a bit misleading since what Rahn is describing is not really the "end of money" but its transformation and the end of coins and banknotes. Even that is questionable since the developments he foresees are most relevant to the comfortably off. In many countries the poor will remain a large section of the population for many years to come and I expect many of them will want to continue using hard cash.

However this is a thought-provoking an fascinating book which should help us to anticipate the problems and the opportunities changes in the form of money pose for society.

Dr. Rahn explains advanced concepts of economics in a format that the beginner and simpleton, like me, can understand and use. It is an easy four hour read, is a primer in economics and is must reading for anyone who thinks the way of spending money will continue just like it is at this time. The big question is whether government will grow up in time not to get in the way of the monetary changes and whether you and I will be able to spend our money as we wish without Big Brother's nosing in. What Dr. Rahn fails to point out is that the concepts expressed in his book are basic to our constitution and to our freedom. If we do not take heed, we stand to lose both. It is must reading for every citizen.

This down-to-earth and refreshingly non-prescriptive book helps put the whole money issue in perspective. The author shows you how to question your existing assumptions and separate out common emotional responses to financial decision-making -- some of which may actually be preventing you from accomplishing your most cherished and deeply held goals in life! In addition to the sensible advice, the client stories add a lot of heart and depth. And I particularly appreciated the notion (explained in detail in the second section) that if you understand what your goals are, and clearly understand your spending habits, you'll change your behavior, not because you *should*, but because you *want to*, in order to make your dreams happen. This is a gift. Highly recommended. P.S. This author is a great speaker and if you get a chance to see her in person, jump at it. You'll be entertained and amused, and come away much wiser as well.

Wow! This book is so much more than I bargained for. I bought it in my never ending quest to see how I could earn more money. But the book gave me insights about why I don't think I have enough in the first place! This book really broke the blind cycle that we're all in about spend-consume-spend-consume and still be dissatisfied. It also gave great advice about helping to build character in my kids by setting limits regarding what I will and will not buy them and requiring them to participate in earning money for what they want. This book could be called "Everything You Know About A Lot of Things is Wrong!" I loved it and have sent it to six people already.

After reading through a few of the myths at the bookstore, I took the book home and read it in one sitting. Since then, I refer to it often, mostly in discussions with friends and family. Recently, a friend at work was contemplating the purchase of a house -- with dread. When I asked him why he didn't want to buy a house and yet was launching a search anyway, he said it was because he saw several other people at work his age buying homes, and thought it was "time." Well, I copied one of the chapters from this book and left it for him on his chair. He came to my office later offering profuse thanks. He wasn't going to buy a house, and he had this book to thank for it. He literally bounces around the office now, with the pressure of homeownership off, and a new sense of financial priorities in place. And that's the effect of just one myth, on just one person. Do you have to fund your retirement fully every year? Should you pay off your house early? Is a tax deduction a good reason to buy a home? Is a home a good investment? Is it an investment at all? Should you stay in an apartment for the rest of your life? The answers are in this book. They're accessible, relevant and enlightening. They may just change your views about your personal finances. Especially if they're all wrong.

Karen's book has provided the forum to acknowledge truisms found deep in the recesses of my mind but heretofore unable to articulate. She has a unique ability to concisely walk down a path of knowledge by shedding long held myths leading to personal happiness, and replacing them with practical, honest, proven, methods of attaining true peace through financial freedom.

Karen has done a great job of presenting the human side of spending and saving. This book has helped me to put money to work for me - for my particular needs and temperament. No longer do I need to look at saving and spending from just an investment standpoint. I can feel good as I weigh how my spending and saving feels to me. As a behavior consultant with children, I consider her advice to be sound for parents trying to teach their children how to save, spend and contribute to the world at large. What a fun and easy read!

This book puts, in novel form, virtually everything every American needs to know about the Federal Reserve, fiat-money central banking, and monetary history, and it does so following an unadulterated Austrian line, without any conspiracy mongering or Antisemitism -- two curses that plague the Honest Money movement. Author George Ford Smith is unique among popular Fed critics in his understanding that the Fed is not bad because it's a "private bank" that generates "windfall profits" for its "shareholders" -- the Fed is bad, truly evil, because it is a government institution designed to provide a blank check for the unbridled growth of the federal government at the expense of liberty.

Oh yes, there has been a conspiracy -- but it's not a "theory," it's historical fact. George F. Smith reveals this indisputable truth throughout the course of this 274-page, impossible-to-put-down thriller, and also clearly demonstrates how the Federal Reserve redistributes wealth from the poor to the rich, all within the context of a gripping plot.

The story focuses on a gold-loving, free-market economist who seemingly "sells out" and joins the mainstream, eventually rising to the position of Fed chairman. But his "sell out" was false -- he only put on Keynesian/Monetarist (as if there's a difference) garb in order to infiltrate the Fed so that he could expose and destroy it! I'm not giving anything away here since this happens very early in the book. The heart of the book is how the government reacts to having its deception exposed.

George Ford Smith's knowledge of monetary history, the nature of government, and the unfortunate ignorance and apathy of the American populace is truly peerless. This book should be heralded by the Mises Institute, LewRockwell.com, and the Ron Paul R3VOLution as the first of hopefully many great works of fiction exposing the truth about the Federal Reserve and the government it sponsors by secretly stealing from the productive class. Five stars are not enough for this heroic effort!

I don't usually read novels very often, because I think that I should be learning something when I read. _The Flight of the Barbarous Relic_, however, is the best of both worlds; it is an entertaining way to learn the truth of how the Federal Reserve operates without having to read a dry text! I really enjoyed this book; I recommend it to everyone. It's a great way to educate people on the Fed. You can recommend it to your book club or hand it to everyone who is wondering why our gas prices are so high.

The Flight of the Barbarous Relic is a completely unexpected book. George Smith makes a fascinating and suspenseful story out of a question some of us have asked ourselves: "Who stole the value of the money in our wallets?" Inflation is a faceless evil, but the author has managed to put faces and motives on the folks behind the phenomenon.

I have been puzzled by the news on the financial networks. One newscast recently said that the price of food had risen in the last month by the highest amount in years, and then went on to say that since there was no increase in the cost of living, some change in interest rates was expected. No change in the cost of living? I used to think you needed to buy food to live, but it turns out that food and energy, two of our biggest living expenses aren't included in the cost because they change too much. You can understand why this whole area can be very confusing.

As the pastor of a small church, I have seen the effects that our economic situation is having on "ordinary" people. One lady who works in a bank dreads going in to work in the morning, because the first thing she has to do is call an increasing number of her customers who have written checks--for rent, for utilities, for food, etc.--and ask them if they can provide funds for the checks so the bank won't bounce them. I have seen families cut back on everything they can think of to make payments on mortgage they should never have been offered in the first place. I have seen food pantry workers trying to fill needs for food for folks who have spent their food budget at the gas pumps in order to be able to get to work.

Those who are hurting most are the very ones who are trying to do the right thing--to work for their living, to support their families, to pay their debts, and to live a decent life. Most are too basically honest to believe that they have been robbed on such a scale. Most have trusted and supported the leaders who manage the economic environment in which they live. Business as usual has been going on for a long time.

This book, with its different perspective, shows this part of our economic system from the inside. It's a book of mystery, intrigue, and glimpses behind the scenes, which of course makes it fun. But it does also raise some relevant ideas and interesting questions to take away and consider. It is worth a look.

George Ford Smith does an excellent job of distilling the essence of an Austrian School analysis of status quo economics into 277 pages of page-turning suspense. If you're like me, and you read a lot of fiction and history, but can't make it through even the most accessible book on economics (even though you know it's an important subject) without your eyes glazing over, then this book is for you.

Smith provides a trenchant survey of the history of money and banking in America, and then gets to the heart of what ails us at the outset of the Third Milennium. As the plot unfolds in his nifty little thriller, his characters manage to find opportunities to expound on how it all went wrong with the Business of America, when we got off track, who was responsible, and how we can get back to the garden, as it were. Do I need to mention that the prescription is as good as gold?

As if that weren't enough, Smith excoriates our two-party farce, and why they are wedded to this sad state of affairs called the Federal Reserve System. And the ends the powers-that-be will go to in order to retain their power. A chilling subplot envisions how the Internet could end up being emasculated and bowdlerized to the point where it would be as original and informative as the CBS Evening News.

And you would be well-advised to look into the books on the short reading list at the end of Barbarous Relic. If those tomes are a little too daunting, look up some of the more accessible essays by the same authors (Rothbard, Mises, etc). To read these giants is to immediately recognise that you are in the company of common sense. And these are the ideas George Ford Smith is trafficking in Flight of the Barbarous Relic.

But none of this is meant to dissuade anyone who is looking for a cracking good tale to occupy a few happy hours. Barbarous Relic is filled with a plethora of interesting characters, good and bad, and once I started it, I couldn't put it down.

Forget what party you may be supporting. Forget a lot of things you have been told about how our economy works. Read this book and you will begin to understand things that we have been kept in the dark and lied to for decades by both parties.

First of all this is a pretty good story. Secondly, in delivering the story, the author is trying to shake us awake as to what is happening to us and the result is far from pleasant.

In fact, the protagonists in the story have a sense of futility as to awakening enough of us to what has been done to our economy that seems difficult to oversome.

I was asked to review this novel by the author. I did and I am not sure I was not happier living in ignorance. However, it is better to understand one's life and situation and if you agree with that premise, then please, pick up this book and be prepared to be very, very worried about our econoomy and our future.

The "barbarous relic" referred to in the title is the gold standard which at one time in our history tied the value of our currency to that precious metal. If that sounds arcane or old fashioned, I challenge you to read this book and ever feel sanguine again about your economic status in this country, especially if you feel really, really comfortable.

I'm not a gambler, at least not a gambler the likes of the hero in this book, but Mr. Evans makes the characters and the situations come to life. I felt the desperation of Chance and his gambling buddies. The description of the baseball games were eerily similar to the way I listen to a game that my wife is watching. The various plot lines converge on a riveting climax. The book is funny, sad, witty and clever. Buy it.

The first few pages of "Good Money After Bad" made me think that it would be an exercise in adjectives, flowery descriptions and word painting of places in Chicago. Very quickly though, the novel started to move faster and grip my attention. No more flowery descriptions, quick ideas being projected in my head showed me a world I was not aware of... that of sports gambling. I personally do not care for spectator sports and I was afraid that sports gambling would make no sense to me, however, the story is 99 percent about gambling as an addiction and only 1% sports. Unexpectedly, the nightmarish world of a black market for human organs entered the picture and it added a very sinister angle to the story, which read as a thriller from there on.
My only complaint is that I could not put it down even when my eyes were too tired to keep reading comfortably... this is a great story and I look forward to reading more novels by the same author.

Gamblers never win, in the long run, but it's the thrill of the race they are after, not necessarily the finish line. Don Evans has written a great book that shows the reader some of the inner workings of the rat race of the Chicago neighborhood gambling world. But it is also a book about trust, about who to trust, who can you trust and why and how do they deserve your respect. I enjoyed how the author walked you through the city and made it come alive on the page; not an easy task. Buy it, read it. ...Cuz I said so.

With his appropriately named protagonist Chance Skinner, who of course always seems to have a Lucky Strike dangling from his lips, Donald G. Evans provides a fascinating insider's glimpse into the dizzily seductive and oftentimes ugly world of sports gambling.

Using Wrigley Field, the home ballpark of baseball's Chicago Cubs, a team well-known for misfortune and losing, Evans sets a tone of doom that builds throughout his winning debut.

Like holding a pair of aces and jacks in your hand, you won't want to put this one down. Evans doesn't disappoint all the way to the end when he gives the reader a thrilling and surprsing payoff.

Put your money down on this one. "Good Money After Bad" is certainly a good bet.

Don Evans takes us into unfamiliar territory as we visit the inner workings of the mind of a gambler. His main character, Chance, doesn't so much have a gambling problem: Gambling, and the processes around it, provide the entire context for his day-to-day life.

As we follow Chance we begin to see how he is forced to operate. The story is fascinating and unique. You like him, but you know that he's made his own bed. And in the middle of the story, you have some reluctant sympathy when he says out loud he's going to quit as soon as he breaks even.

The novel is very much a Chicago story. The North Side is a major character. I didn't totally buy the love interest story line early in the book, but the 'resolution' there makes the journey worthwhile. Chance seems like more of a struggle-to-score-the-one-night-stand, quirky kind of guy; I didn't see a woman this good choosing him.

The story starts a little slow: I kept asking myself why I cared about this guy. The investment is worth it. As I read, I started to understand that the author was showing me around the town and trying to give me some basis in the day-to-day life of a compulsive gambler. About half-way through the book, the story gets humming, and the character molding makes sense, and the resolution is satisfying and surprising.

My advice? If you like realistic fiction, that's a little dangerous, with some great dark humor, read Good Money After Bad. But be sure to take a shower afterward.

A thorough review of everything you can do to save money and make your home energy efficient. Helpful photos, illustrations and charts. Good resource for understanding and maintaining major systems of a house such as heating and cooling, electric and appliances.

The first third of the book is general information about energy, how it is made, how to count it, how to work the numbers. It should be a required class textbook for High School seniors. This background information is very well written and easy to understand. But, that is not why folks should buy this book.

The real meat starts at about page 93 with some very important electrical power safety tips, followed by an appliance-by-appliance list of items that use energy in a typical North American home. It is alphabetical and organized like an index.

Each item listed includes information about the amount of energy it uses and tips on how to save money using it. The "what to do" information is very specific and easy to put into practice. It starts with Air Cleaners and goes right through to Well Pumps.

Some items get just a sentence or two and others get a whole chapter. The biggest energy users get the most page space. Hot water, heating and air conditioning get their own chapters, as they should.

Like most grouchy old engineers, I read the book looking for details to disagree with. That approach was rewarded with frustration. In fact, there is so much good stuff in this book that I put it on the shelf next to my desk where it will be a handy reference.

I am forever getting questions from folks wanting to know how much they save when they shut off the item in question. The book has a handy chart, as appendix C, which does a good job answering that question.

More importantly, it provides focus for action by letting you identify the big energy users in your home. I get too many questions from people worried about the cost of running a computer when they should be focused on their heating, cooling and kitchen energy use.

The book is targeted at folks who own a house, but renters should read it too. If you pay the energy bill at your home this book will pay back the cover price many times over.

Consider starting with "Insulate and Weatherize: Expert Advice from Start to Finish" by Bruce Harley instead which is a more practical "Go Do It" book with lots of photographs.

Good read, I got a lot out of this book. The author really knows his stuff.

This is the best book I've read on the subject of improving household energy efficiency. Many of the books I've read in the past go through the basic things that homeowners can do to improve efficience, but this book explains the hows AND the whys.

The book surprised me when I first started reading it. I expected another "easy reader" on the subject. I was pleasantly surprised to find detailed explanations on why things should be done, situations where a particular improvement may not be the best, and how to approach the many different systems in a house - air heating and cooling, envelope, insulation, water heating, ventilation, etc. It was also refreshing to find different ways of examining the same system - for example, amount of fuel used for different heating systems, amount of heat generated for a particular type of fuel, and all the relationships between them.

As you start reading, you will find a lot of sidebars and short stories to highlight the discussion in the chapter. One thing I found slightly annoying is the number of Math Boxes that interrupt the flow of the book early on. These are sidebars that present sample calculations for the various topics, e.g. efficiency, fuel used for different heating systems, etc. I'd prefer the Math Boxes to be contained in an appendix with references in the main body of the book, but that's just me. Other readers may not find this annoying, and it's certainly not enough for me to reduce my rating of the book.

I highly recommend this book if you are serious about exploring ways to improve your house's efficiency. It's not an "easy reader", but it's well worth the time to read through it.

After reading Let's Get Financial Savvy! I now have started to fund my work retirement account, started a balanced budget, written and working a plan for getting out of debt. This book gives you such clear step-by-step instructions for getting your financial life in order. After reading Lois' book no one should be in the dark about money and it's potential.

I have ordered and have read quite a wide variety of personal finance books and investment books over the last 6-8 months. I am pleased to say that Let's get Financial Savvy is not just a neat title. The book blends the topics of personal finance and investment in an easy to read personal style. Your real life experience makes for inspirational reading too. It covers the fundamentals of both topics very well and is not overly lengthy. Since it was written relatively recently is also very up to date. Well written.

Those new to personal finance concepts, such as young adults newly out of college, (as will many an adult in need of a financial mangement refresher) will find Let's Get Financial Savvy! by Lois Center-Shabazz to be an important and effective guide. The author persevered through a financial crisis and here imparts personal experienced based tips on how to invest, handle money, and protect against risky ventures. From online investments to mortgages, as will many an adult comes packed with charts and calculations.

Let's Get Financial SavvyDr. Lois Center-Shabazz, founder of MsFinancialSavvy.com, was born and raised in San Diego, Ca. After graduating from The University of California at San Diego, then dental school at Loma Linda University, she began her successful career as a dentist while pursuing her interest in investment and financial research. Such a life would seem comfortable and rewarding; for Dr. Center-Shabazz this was merely a prologue.


After 18 years as a dentist she made the decision to sell her practice and move to Virginia with her husband. This new freedom gave her the opportunity to fully develop her investment education program she started in her early years as a practicing dentist; she now devotes her full time to studying and teaching investments and personal finances. In her first phase of her financial education, Dr. Center-Shabazz was angered to find that the "professionals" who had been handling her money were misleading and uninformed. This revelation was the driving force for her to learn all she could and become "financial savvy." This culminated in the founding of www.MsFinancialSavvy.com, the most comprehensive and user-friendly personal finance website in use today. Dr. Center-Shabazz did not leave her quest there. With the release of her new book, Let''s Get Financial Savvy, Dr. Center-Shabazz offers a groundbreaking new way for everyone to take control of their money, and understand the complex world of finance. Drawing from her experience with debt, and the uphill battle to expunge that debt Dr. Center-Shabazz has quickly become the valedictorian in the new school of the financially independent.Since founding MsFinancialSavvy.com, Dr. Center-Shabazz has been featured on numerous talk shows and spotlighted in newspapers and magazines across the country. The content of her book is so fascinating, it has garnered her the 2002 Pinnacle Book Achievement Award for Self-Help, given by The North American Book Dealers Exchange. Today, she continues to spread her message speaking to the "financial enlightened" and to help people from all walks of life to become financially savvy.

Dr. Shabazz, has mastered the art of "money!" She has focused on very important money issues but has explained retirement, ira's, cd and mutual funds in a way that a beginning investor can begin to invest and an experienced investor can take tips from her to make their portfolio larger. This was an excellent and informative book.