Bonds Books

I like it but it takes only one hour to finish it.
IN combination with the blu ray movie, it should be better.

A wonderful compliment to the DVD. I loved the movie and was not disappointed by the extremely candid photography taken on the set of Casino Royale. Greg Williams captured the film set beautifully. My only request would have been to include more photos of the entire cast. Otherwise, this is a true example of professional photography at its' best.

I liked the book,but it's a little thin on imagery. I would have loved more photo's of the characters and scene's. A stronger narrative of the movie. And the ladies,what a missed opprotunity!

This is a COOL BOOK! Mainly just pictures - no distracting graphics, text, etc... except for some candid thoughts here and there. Eva Green being funny, smoking at the piano between takes... And you see how Daniel Craig really put himself into the physical side of the film: nursing a black eye with an ice pack, busting through a wall of sheetrock (it's really him), wearing bandaids on a swollen hand (cover picture).

The color and black/white photos are large, close-up and feel almost vintage/period. A favorite already is one of Bond resting between takes through the window of his stunt car... all black/white/silver looking. Very cool.

As others have also commented, I was unsure of this new Bond until I saw the film - now it's my favorite. This book is definitely worth more than the Amazon price - I added it on a whim to my order of the soundtrack - and am glad I did.

I've always been a Sean Connery Bond man. Some guys are Roger Moore guys...etc..
I even thought Pierce Brosnan was the best since Connery. So when the announcement of Daniel Craig as Bond surfaced I was not too thrilled. But as soon as I saw the movie I was sold! If not actually better than Connery (I'm still debating), he's right on par with a new take.
"Bond on Set" is a great picture essay all about the making of "Casino Royale". It puts you there like a little visit to the set. If you like Bond and if you like the reboot of "Casino Royale", pick it up!

I purchased this book after reading an introductory article on bonds in the recent American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) article.

I was impressed with the basics of bonds presented in that article and felt this book might be worthy of reading.

My goal was to obtain a beginners view of the bond market and I'd say this book fulfilled that goal quite nicely.

I found the book easy to read and the information to be readily understandable. That's always a concern with a new subject.

I only gave the book four stars because I have no others from which to evaluate it. I guess I'm always hoping for the five star book!

In summary, this book provided the basic understanding of bonds I was looking for and presened it in a usable fashion. For that I give it an A+.

Overall, this is seems to be an excellent simple first primer on bonds. I have no formal background in investing or finance. With all due respect, I disagree with 'Texas Critic's' analysis of the complexity of bond trading and bond portfolios. Additionally, I think despite getting to the "meat of the matter", much of the value or meaning of book and investment style may have been lost on 'Texas Critic'. I believe portfolio appreciation is not the goal of bond portfolios. It seems that the authors have gone to great length to point that out. Certainly you may see portfolio appreciation, but at the end of the day downside risk mitigation with sustained income seems to be the underlying theme.

The material is dry, succinct and throughly approachable. Moreover, I have found bond traders (through various financial institutions and independent traders) who will buy/sell analyze bonds for you with relatively small portfolio maintenance charges (much less than seen in the leveraged bond funds or most mutual funds). I can not debate the viability of a 100% bond portfolio or any other investments. The ideas presented at worst will force you to think about alternative(s) to current mainstream "dogma" on asset diversification. Particularly useful may be the shift from asset appreciation strategies to liability coverage strategies. I highly recommend this book (and the one by annette thau) if you're interested in learning more about credit markets/bonds. I would emphasize that this is likely a book for beginners who want basics about bonds. I sincerely hope this review is useful.

There are no new ideas in this book. It is being hyped to death on the Bloomberg website, billed as some alternative investment strategy. But although it does a decent job of superfically covering the various types of basic bond investments, its only surprising feature is that the authors ignore the effects of inflation. They do not even discuss real rates of return (adjusted for inflation), and many of their recommendations will not even keep up with inflation. That is not only a major oversight; it is a disservice to readers who look to this book for good advice. It's OK advice about various bond investments, but it is woefully inadequate advice for overall investment strategy. I like bonds (within a broader portfolio), but I feel I simply wasted my time in reading this book.

My husband gave me this book for Christmas.When he gave it to me, he told me it was the best gift he would ever give me. Thank you, Ms. Richelson, for writing it. He was right.

You see, my husband is sixty-two, and he is retiring when he is sixty-five--a decision he made when he was ten, I think. I retired when I was 49. Three years ago he took all our money out of the stock market and put it into an all bond ladder of treasuries, agencies, and corporates S & P rated A or higher. The ladder includes both our 401ks and IRAs. I wanted to believe that he was smarter than everyone else, but as the author points out the common wisdom tells you to stay in the stock market pretty much forever. Even though I trust my husband and know he is brilliant, this book has given me the assurance and confirmation that his all bond strategy is sound. There is a great deal of security in that. The book will also be my reference guide if I ever have to manage our bond ladder by myself.

No, it's not easy to read. Yes, I am having to re-read parts and ask questions, but it wasn't easy for us to make and save all that money for years either. Our money needs to last as long as we do, and I need to understand it. We plan to leave our children a substantial amount of money, too.

I have friends who can't believe I am reading this book. They are clueless and rely on their financial advisors. That is really a lot riskier to me than reading this book and understanding it.

Read the book. Stretch your mind. Find financial peace.

As an introduction to different types of bonds, this book is very good. But this book purports to be more than just an introduction to bonds. Unfortunately, it doesn't deliver on its key premise: that your portfolio should only have bonds. They say that after taxes and transaction costs, your return from stocks will only be 6 to 7% annually. This argument has three glaring problems: First, many people have the bulk of their investments in their tax-advantaged retirement accounts. Second, there are taxes (except on low-yielding munies) and transaction costs (unless you buy exclusively from treasurydirect, which this book does not really recommend on account of its push for diversification) on bonds too. And finally and most importantly, you cannot even expect 6 to 7% returns from bonds, especially after taxes! Additionally, their characterization of zero-coupon bonds as "growth" vehicles, as opposed to boring old income vehicles, is almost insulting to one's intelligence.

The bottom line is that all the information in this book is available for free. But maybe you like to have it in one place, or you want to read it on the airplane, or you want to build an impressive library. But these investment books have relatively short durations of usefulness; tax laws change over time, and the different classes of bonds will have new rules. In any case, there are no interesting insights in this book. Even the recommended portfolio breakdowns are exactly what you would see if you were to google "bond portfolio." If this book convinced even one financial professional or economist that they should invest only in bonds, then I would be highly suspicious of their credentials.

I really love this book. It has been a great help. My little boy and I can't wait to use it.

As a parent and a teacher, I found this book well-written and fairly easy to use.
My daughter has already lost 7 pounds in one month through portion control, good choices and regular exercise (5 days a week).

There's a lot of good information here. As a teacher of twenty-five years, and as a parent, I've dealt with more than my share of overweight kids, and read everything that comes along on the subject. And although this book is one of the better ones out there, I've been recommending the CD talk "The Fat Kid's Diet: Stop Childhood Obesity In Your Home," available here at Amazon, to the parents who come to me with their concerns. It's brief, sensible, and right to the point.

I read this book to help my daughter who is slightly overweight. I didn't even keep it in my library. If your child has an obesity problem, or if you just have no idea what healthy eating is this book will help you, but to be honest there were many times while reading it that I just had to say "duh!" I was looking for some insight beyond simple common sense. My family doesn't eat fast food three times a week and spend hours watching TV every day. If you have a child that seems to be active and eats a well balanced diet, but still is overweight I would not recommend you looking to this book for an answer.

When I received this book I was a little overwhelmed because it is as thick as an average text book. However, it is very straighforward & based on proven scientific facts (no gimmicky diet junk). This book gave me tools to help my child (age 6) to make better choices in order to avoid a future weight problem. I highly recommend it.

I am a big fan of Larry Swedroe's books, and his postings on the Diehards dot Org website (Amazon does not allow links or web site addresses in these reviews).

I used this book to contrast and compare Larry's asset class recommendations to Rick Ferri, and great author of many books.

I was a little surprised that Larry does not like Vanguard's Total Bond fund (VBMFX) because it contains 33% Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS). Larry would recommend other Vanguard short term bond funds which do not include any MBS like the Short Term Bond Index fund (VBISX) and the Intermediate Term Bond Index fund (VBIIX).

I already knew Larry was an advocate of including commodities in the form of PCRIX in your portfolio. Rick Ferri contends that commodities should not be included in your portfolio because they lower your portfolio return.

Larry also disagrees with two other Ferri recommendations, high yield (junk) bonds like Vanguard's High Yield fund (VWEHX) and emerging market bonds like Payden's PYEMX. Larry contends the rewards of junk bonds are not worth the risk and emerging market bonds behave too much like stocks.

Larry's book does a great job of teaching how to use bonds in a passive index approach to investing.

Index Mutual Funds: How to Simplify Your Financial Life and Beat the Pro's
The Richest Man in Babylon
Bogle on Mutual Funds: New Perspectives for the Intelligent Investor
The Millionaire Next Door
The Four Pillars of Investing: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio
A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing, Ninth Edition
The Coffeehouse Investor: How to Build Wealth, Ignore Wall Street, and Get On With Your Life
The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing

This is a must read for anyone who wants to know about bonds and fixed income investing in general.

I wish I had read this earlier but that happens with most of us. I am glad that I ordered this now and have almost finished it reading.

Great first book to learn about bonds and similar financial products... what they should and should not be used for, what to buy for what, and what not to buy, and of course, the soundest advice that you should get a professional to review your individual situation to find the best strategy to preserve capital.

Like all of Larry's books this one is a gem. You will never find an author as skilled in explaining difficult subjects as Larry can. One would think he was simply a skilled language mechanic. Not so Larry is a skill investor too. He has written several book on investing and I have and read them all. For many years I was a bond investor and thought I had mastered the subject, Wrong I learned much from his book and you will too. Larry believes in passive investing tecgniques. Books on the subject are a little too complex for the average investor. I can offer a solution to this problem. I want to recommend for you a book titled How to Make Money in the Stock Market-Buy 2,500 different stocks for $1000 - Pay no Commission This book is a must for those wanting to find out about indexing (passive investing) and why it is the superior method for the small investor (and big one too). This book is an outstanding guide to personal investing. It will be useful to all investors from novices to highly the highly experienced. This book prepares the reader to approach investing from the standpoint of the underlying science. It is the antithesis of a 'get rich quick scheme'.

All aspects of Modern Portfolio Theory and passive (index) investing are explained in a through and easily understood manner. The aspect I like most is that as well as a solid theoretical foundation the book is very practical and shows the reader how to create (and more importantly) and manage over time a successful portfolio. This is a great book- for the beginning investor, it's a great place to start and for the experienced investor there are many valuable suggestions.

It's a shame to think of how much money investors have lost "investing" in the stock market over the years. I wish I had read this little book years ago. The chapter on automatic investing recommends a number of portfolios that follow modern portfolio theory and adjust risk as you age without any effort on the part of the reader at all. Had this book been written years ago and had I followed its directions I would be rich today of that I am certain. Nevertheless I will pursue one of the portfolios recommended and stick to my chosen asset plan.
How to Make Money in the Stock Market-Buy 2,500 Different Stocks-Pay no Commission

Larry Swedroe and Joseph Hempen explain the misunderstood asset class of fixed income most clearly and advise the implementation of bonds into your investment portfolio in accordance with your objectives. Clearly and concisely, the authors tell you the pros and cons of various security types and familiarize you with "bondspeak", the insider language of the bond market. Read and digest this book. Then you'll know what to do with fixed income securities in your investment strategy just like a pro.

Joel

BOTTOM LINE:

Nothing to over-analyze, really. This series of books is all about a zany day with a child and their pet. It takes them full circle from the first event, and sets off a chain of events that leads -sometimes- to the bizarre!

The whole ride is just pure fun, nothing else. That is what I appreciate about this series. All children's books do not have to be 'Fables by Aesop'. Sometimes its just for the sake of fun.

The illustrations are great!

My kindergarten class loves this whole series. They ask me to read it over and over!

Need a book to read to a group of kids- the "if you..." is a perfect choice. Not sure what to give a kid 1-6? Ask the parents if they already own it, if not, sure hit! Be sure to laugh with your child, make reading fun, ask them to guess the next step and pat yourself on the back for being a great influence to them.

I like to read this book at the beginning of the school year.

My daughter (2 years old) loves this book. It's funny, cute and has wonderful pictures. It was so great she even fell asleep with it (a first).

All of Laura Numeroff's books are worth adding to your collection.

I've read this book several times since I received the book, and have enjoyed it each time. The whole book is layed out nicely, and there are no rough edges to the story at all. Its an extremely easy read, but it is deep and interested nonetheless. I am definately a fan of Mr. Patrick, and look forward to reading his other works. Highly recommended

As a woman, and a non-military one as well, I really like how Patrick Davis writes about military life - enough military to keep it on fact, but not so much that you cannot follow the story, knowing little of the words and phrases they use. Far too many authors do this, and for me, it fogs the story. Patrick Davis tells a good tale (we hope) filled with a bit of espionage and a bit of good raw human feelings for those they love and their past loves as well. His descriptions of the Colonel's former wife show intrigue, hate and still the love and admiration of another human being you've shared your life with, allowing the character to feel all of these things with no reciminations. And he keeps you guessing right up to the last sentence of the book. An all around excellent story! I'm now going to look for more from this great author.

This was my first Patrick Davis novel. I was really impressed by his style. This novel was suspenseful and very hard to put down. I am an avid reader (4-6 novels per week) and this one is among my favorites. I look foreward to more of his work.

This book doesn't break new ground. It reads like an old familiar mystery-suspense movie that we've all seen at least once. The good thing is, it would have been one of those movies that had us glued to our chairs. What I'm trying to say here is, this is a good book. I give it 3.5 stars.

The plot spins a nice web of intrigue that pulls the reader in. A lot is going on, but it all ties together nicely in the end. The characters play their roles well, and, for the most part, act in ways you would expect them to. And while I was afraid that the parts of the book dealing with the technical aspects of an airplane crash would bore me to tears, I'm happy to report that I was wrong. The technical details were revealed through dialogue between characters, which made them interesting and palatable. Besides that, the author gave only the details we needed to know, rather than trying to show off any technical knowledge on his part. A good choice. Finally, the story moves along at a pretty fast pace revealing details of the investigation along the way. And just when I thought the book was over, the author threw in a slight twist at the end.

In sum, the book is good and I recommend it.

An accident,a cover up and a AF officer takes the fall. The presidents brother is killed and the heat is on to place the blame. The news media is out to bury the Air Force Colonel who just happens to be innocent. Thats the way the news media reacts when they get a story from high up sources planted in their ear even if its false. A must read on a long flight- Author-The Day Of The Rose-Larry Hobson

Very good book on bonds - easy to understand but packed full of information. Would highly recommend this book for someone looking at investing in bonds

If you search Google for "When to Sell a Bond", the only book that comes up is this one, so I bought it. Unfortunately, it really does not describe this at all, only to sell when "Things Go Bad" or "there has been a good run-up"...so I plan to re-sell this book... otherwise if your looking for basic bond concepts and ideas this book is okay.

You've heard the old mantra: Diversify, Diversify, Diversify -- but have you actually heeded that advice? Until I read this book, I had no real concept of what bonds could do for my portfolio. To me, bonds were boring, stale, stagnant, and, well, really couldn't hold a candle to the potential double digit returns stocks and mutual funds could produce. Why would I even bother?

Marilyn Cohen takes you by the hand and walks you through the often convoluted terms (i.e. rate to maturity, convertible bonds, laddering, callability, etc.) and explains them in easy to understand terms with practical examples. Don't let that deter those of you that are experienced bond traders -- there are things in here for you too.

After reading this, I feel a lot more comfortable adding bonds to my portfolio, as well as talking about them with investment professionals. There's a lot of potential out there in the fixed income field if you know what you're looking for. At this point, I know enough to adequately diversify my portfolio.

I would suggest that any reader wishing to learn about bonds in any detail other than the most simplistic, will be utterly disappointed. It was a waste of money, if I may be so blunt.


Malcolm Yellon.

My name is Bond. Bond Bible. All jokes aside, bonds have been sorely underestimated. So many people forget that bond holders are creditors. So that when a company folds, shareholders lose out, but most often times bond holders get paid out. Ms. Cohen pulls no punches and is solid in her review of the bond world. I even like her inclusion of "Bowie" Bonds, the rock and roll bonds that were founded several years ago.

In all her talk I found her discussion light on leveraged bonds. Bond futures are also a viable means to enter this fixed income investment. I should know I've been doing it for 11 years.

That aside this is a one of kind book that no modern investor can do without.

I've lived in the Rio Grande Valley (Hidalgo County, Texas) for 30 years, most of the time residing about a 20-minute drive to the Mexican border. I had taken three years of Spanish in high school before moving here from Michigan, but like many Northerners, I wasn't bilingual because of a lack of exposure to Spanish and little opportunity to practice it.

When I moved here, I made up my mind I was going to get bilingual. I watched a lot of Mexican TV stations, listened to Spanish language hit songs, watched Spanish language movies. And I interacted with a lot of people who spoke no English at all -- which forced me to speak Spanish.

And in the beginning years, I did most of it with this little gem of a dictionary in my pocket or purse. For a pocket sized dictionary I found it to be quite thorough, and was usually able to find the words I heard and didn't know.

This dictionary is not meant to be the only one for a Spanish language student. But it has a practical, comprehesive vocabulary, and includes a number of other important items about phonics in both languages. Add to that a useful listing of proverbs, expressions and idioms for both languages, and you have a gem of a resource.

I'm bilingual now, and I owe a lot of it to having this fine little book. I highly recommend it.

This is the dictionary we were recommended to buy in College Spanish. I recommend any language learner do a couple of things. First, go read How to Learn Any Language.
Ok, now that you've done that and come back to read this, here's what I recommend for you: get several dictionaries. That way you can check back and forth against the books to see the various translations provided. Then, based on all your target language reading, you can decide which word is the best, most nuanced word to use in your situation.

This dictionary routinely had the most recognized words from my readings and conversations with native speakers. It had the least argument-quotient.
It's clearly laid out and dense with words so any word you need should be in here (remember to check for conjugations, etc.).

This dictionary won't let you down.

This is a great dictionary. I used in in high school for Spanish classes. I still find great reference to it to this day.
Easy to understand, clear and concise. I highly recommend it.

I spent 2 years in Venezuela and my U of Chicago dictionary was like a constant companion. It helped me A LOT.

Sure, it doesn't have everything, but what dictionary does? None of the other S-E E-S dictionaries was comparable.

I recently bought a 4th edition when I discovered my other one was lost. I still don't want to be without "my dictionary."

--George Stancliffe

As an engineer living and working in Ecuador, I'd like to say that this is my favorite dictionary. Not only is it a "Pocket Book" (the publisher's name); hence, easy to carry; but it is complete enough to be useful in the real world. It doesn't have every word you might come across or would like to use, but I find it has the majority of words I need. I have a Colombian S-E/E-S paperback dictionary the same size as this but it doesn't have nearly the number of entries. And a big thick standard used here, Ocean, not only misses a number of words but it's layout is difficult for my North American mind to navigate. As an engineer, I like the fact that this dictionary has many technical terms; and as a logical thinker, I like the way they grouped the irregular verbs into categories. For example, the first group spells out the stem-changing variations for the verb "Pensar" (to think). Thus, when one looks up the verb "Recomendar" (to recommend), the superscript "1" appears after the word, directing the reader to Group 1 of the irregular verbs. The only problem I have with this book is that it's a bit out of date, but I see Amazon lists the 5th edition, due out in August of 2002, as a pre-pub item. I have it selected already!

This one is interesting to read now that we know more about Bonds. It holds up well and is very well written. I loved it!

I am one of the few Barry Bonds fans around, so when I decided to find a book on him, I was disappointed to find that there were surprisingly few. Noticing that "Barry Bonds: Baseball's Superman" was purported to be in-depth, not just another glossy biography and had good reviews on Amazon.com, I decided to make the purchase. Now, after reading it and piecing a few things together, I must say that I am thoroughly let-down. A few observations:

1) The cover and title are cheesy. I know that the book's author may not have had any say in this, but using "Baseball's Superman" as a title makes it sound like a cover story for Sports Illustrated for Kids.

2) The book is not written well. It is very choppy and author Steven Travers has a tendency to ramble off-topic for pages on end.

3) Not that I'm some avatar of morality, but what's the deal with all the sexual references? [...]

4) There are contradictions sprinkled throughout the book. For instance, on page 36, Travers quotes Bonds as saying: "My father and I were never really close when I was growing up." Then, just five pages later, he quotes Bonds as saying: "My father and I have always been very close." Sure, Bonds is the one contradicting himself, but Travers never points this out, just one example of the multiple occasions where I almost laughed out loud at the book's inconsistencies.

5) How many times are we to hear that Travers played pro ball? Big deal, you struck out 15 guys in a minor league game. There are minor-leaguers who have hit 60 homers, thrown perfect games, etc. and they are nobodies. I do not mean this as a slight, just a point that we do not need to hear incessantly about things such as "Stan Javier played with me" or how you sat in Randy Johnson's recliner, or how an interview subject calls you "Trav." The book is about Barry Bonds, not Steven Travers.

[...]

The bottom line is that Travers squandered a golden opportunity. Rolling the dice early in 2001 that Bonds would break the home run record, getting permission to do a book, and then seeing him acutally do it is akin to hitting the lottery for a sports journalist. Unfortunately, the finished product seems hastily thrown together, poorly edited, and foolishly out-of-bounds in many areas. Too often we hear about sexual hijinks that have nothing to do with Bonds, and we also get Travers's opinions on a multitude of subjects that I don't care to know his thoughts on. The fact that I'd never even heard of this book should have been enough of a red flag, but it wasn't, and therefore I got what I deserved. This book isn't terrible, but it also is not good, and therefore I would not recommend it. Fans of Barry Bonds should just wait until a comprehensive biography comes out on him when his playing days are over.

With the multitude of books written regarding the sport of baseball, Steven Travers writes with a unique insight into not only the sport, but the day to day lives of Bonds and his peers. As a former professional baseball player, Travers touches on the subject matter with a unique insight and perspective. Additionally, Travers attended and graduated from USC during the time Bonds played at Arizona State (Pac-10). As such, Travers is not only a writer, but a fan. Travers not only documents Bond's achievement of becoming baseball's all-time single season homerun champion, but he touches on Bond's trials and tribulations with his peers and the media. Ultimately, the reader soon realizes that Travers was able to do what many has tried and failed at; that is, he was able to garner the respect and support of Bonds in the ability to tell his amazing story to the whole world. As a former Pac-10 pitcher at USC who battled Bonds on many occasions, I found Traver's insight very refreshing and commendable. I found the book a very easy read that kept me entertained throughout.
'

I have lived overseas for many years but was an avid Giants fan in the 60's & 70's. Steven Travers' book on Barry Bonds was a welcome gift. I had read various news articles about the "controversial" Bonds and feel that Travers' book puts things right. I especially enjoyed the insights into the life styles of high powered sports figures. The build-up to Bonds' record setting home run season was handled in an excellent manner. This book is a great read for any baseball fan.

This insightful, well-written book is a must-read for the sports fan interested in a personal, inside view of the multi-faceted personality of the immensely talented Barry Bonds.

Bonds has provided few people with the access and insight he provided Steve Travers, the author. History will prove it to be the definitive work on one of baseball's greatest players.

Frank McCormack

Have read first 10 chapters to repeat basics of bond math, so the book is good in its breadth, what it lacks is section with solutions to end chapter excersices! it would be perfect with those solutions!

Explains basics-intermediate knowledge of bond markets. Eveen goes into basic understainding of fixed income trading strategy, if you want to work on a desk, in research,or are taking a fin-markets course, you will find this useful through your entire career.

This is the benchmark book on bonds and fixed income, it is very comprehensive and very reader-friendly. What I like about it is it covers everything. If I did not have this one book I would need 5 or 6 others instead. It covers bonds,pricing, duration, risk management, swaps, futurers, options, yield curve modelling, fund management, charting, and a whole lot more.As one endorsment says on the back: an encylopedia on bonds written like a thriller! Very good buy.

Anyone with an interest in debt capital markets will still be referring to this book many years after purchasing it.

This is an enclopaedic reference work on bonds and money markets, but written like a thriller. Oustanding work, great value and highly recommended to banker or student.