Bonds Books

This was a gift for my niece and she loved it! Great imagination and a wonderful book.

The children unearth (literally) a Psammead (sand fairy) and it has to grant them wishes. However the wishes don't turn out quite the way the children wanted. I don't want to spoil it for you but you are sure to enjoy it.

A bunch of kids in England move from the big smoke to the country. After they get there, they discover a bizarre grumpy weird looking supernatural guy.

Due to various rigmarole, this discovery means that said oddity grants them a bunch of wishes. Being kids, they generally wish for kids adventure type stuff.

Five Children and It

While their mother is away, caring for their ailing grandmother, Cyril, Anthea, Robert and Jane find a sand fairy, called a Psamead. He hadn't been uncovered since the days of the dionsours, and had no idea about modern children, and their wishes. The sand fairy, the childern call `It', says he will grant the children's wishes. The already peculiar looking fairy, puffs himself up, before granting wishes. He reluctantly agrees to grant one wish, per day, for one week.

When wishes aren't planned out, they don't tend to go so well. With a wish for gold, a pile of gold appears, so large, it fills the sand pit. Although the children have pockets full of gold, they have to use their own pocket change, to make their purchases.

An off-handed wish for everyone to like their baby brother, who they call the Lamb, results in a near kidnapping of the baby. A wish for a castle comes with guards carrying swords. Other wishes include Indians, who want to scalp the children, and jewels that are really stolen property. Lucky, or not, all wishes disappear at sunset.

Five Children and It will both entertain you, and have you making your own wishes, that you are sure won't be revoked at sunset.

Jill Ammon Vanderwood
children's author:
Through the Rug
Through The Rug: Follow That Dog (Through the Rug)

I think The Five Children and it is a great book. I read it because I have been reading this book for school and at first, it didn't look so good (the book) I liked how the chapters are like little separate stories. My favorite story (chapter) was when the children whished that they were in a besieged castle. I thought it was a great book and I recommend it for everyone that likes fantasy books.

This book is very complete, with rare production pictures and facts, splited by movie chapters, up to Die Another Day. It is essential for fans that wants to know about detail of each production. I recommend it!

This is a good book of the James Bond films up to CASINO ROYALE. That's the problem. CASINO ROYALE is the best James Bond film of all time but they did not update this book for the 21st Bond movie. The 21st Bond movie, that's quite a milestone wouldn't you say. This book is very complimentary about Sean Connery's contribution to series as well as George Lazenby's. It is objective enough for me.

Basically, this is a coffee-table book that is long on great photos, long on great text, and short on boredom. If you're a Bond fan, you're gonna want to pick this one up.

The text follows the Bond franchise from its inception all the way through the 20th official movie, "Die Another Day." Plenty of background on Ian Fleming is given, and at various points the authors touch on "other" Bond media such as the comic strips and the video games, but the main course here is obviously the film series.

One thing this book does not do: it does not simply rehash the same info that is presented in the behind-the-scenes documentaries on the 007 DVDs. Those were also written by John Cork, and it would have been easy as pie for him to simply tell the same stories over again. A few of them DO get retold, of course, but only a few. Mainly, this is stuff you may well not have heard before.

The book is extremely strong on the subject of placing the films in their proper historical context. For example, over the course of the years 1962-1967, the spy movie as a genre was at a great level of popularity, and Cork goes into thorough yet succinct detail in discussing how this cultural trend was both a product of the Bond films AND one of the reasons for the inevitable slide of the series from all-pervasive popularity to "mere" exceptional popularity.

Cork and Scivally also keep solid track on what was going on in the world (in terms of politics, warfare, and other such factors of interest regarding a spy film) at the time of each successive film. The authors' narrative on this subject is so strong that it makes me feel as if I understand some of the films a bit better. This falls down somewhat toward the end f the book, at least for me. I was not entirely persuaded by Cork/Scivally's analysis of certain world events during the era of the Brosnan films; considering the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal in light of the plot of "Tomorrow Never Dies," for instance, just didn't work as well for me as similar assertions about other of the films.

That, however, is a very mild complaint. This is a GREAT book, not just for Bond fans, but for any serious fan of pop culture.

This is the story from the creation to the present day and is a not only a fascinating film history in itself, but an perceptive study of how what should have been just another action film became the longest running engagement in cinema history. Definitely to be savored, preferably with a vodka martini, shaken-not stirred.

Unfortunately, this is the ultimate, but not the definitive. Not with the ongoing series, as a matter of fact, Bond 21 has just been announced, and it has a name and a director already, despite the fact that producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson don't have a man for the job at hand!
But never mind, this is the kind of book that never gets out of date, it is brilliantly written, not only full of exciting pictures from the series and from behind the scenes, as well, but also, and foremost, it is filled with all the details a hardcore Bond fan would ever dream of.
A true LABOR OF LOVE. The authors are well renowned historians, responsible for the DVD's documentaries, and the outcome are amazing. A very comprehensive book, depicting political, social and economics facts that were intertwined with the films.

One of its most memorable deeds, and remarkable strength is the fact that it comprised not only the official films, but also, the two spin-offs of the series, considered, by many, as "bastards", namely, CASINO ROYALE (1967) and NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN. It also includes some breefing on the american TV broadcasting BBC production as of 1954, CASINO ROYALE, starred by Barry Nelson.

Don't miss out on this one, it is sure a well addition to any Bond lover as well as movie buffs all around.

I read this book nearly 7 years ago when I was thirteen, and at the time I knew nothing about the history behind the book. It dazzled me then, to the point that I thought I dreamed the book and never read it. I remember very little specifics but I remember I loved it and wish I understood it more. If I can relocate the copy I borrowed I'll probably reread it now that I'll understand what's going on a little better.

I bought it for my daughter...but read it myself. She's only two years old right now, but I wanted to read it to know what she would be reading in the future!

The book has a very slow pace throughout. This means that it is great reading right before bedtime, it doesn't rile you up or demand that you stay up late turning pages to find out what happens next. It is relaxing and yet, it kept my interest throughout the story.

The story is about the Morgan family. The mother passed away and the father accepts a contract with a University in Wales. He moves the youngest two children, Peter and Becky, to Wales with him and leaves the oldest daughter, Jen, in America.

The book starts with Jen visiting Wales and her family for Christmas vacation. As the story continues you get many glimpses of Wales. The author spent several years there before writing this book and she makes a great effort to describe Wales and its people in a loving way.

The story starts with Jen but then switches back and forth between Jen and Peter. Peter is struggling with both the loss of his mother and the move to a new country where he has no friends. During his struggles, he spends lots of time wandering around outside by himself. During one of these solitary walks, he finds Taliesin's Harp Key. The Harp Key begins to show Peter glimpses of Taliesin's life.

As time passes, Peter begins to grow more accepting of Wales and friendlier to his family. Jen and then others begin to see scenes from Taliesin's life, while in Peter's presence. Jen reacts with fear, but Becky, the youngest trusts Peter and shows interest in the adventure.

In the meantime, Jen asks to stay in Wales with the family and takes lessons from the local women on how to cook and keep a household running. David, the father opens up to Jen and she realizes that reaching adulthood does not automatically confer wisdom.

Overall this book is a touching family story. The glimpses of Wales and Taliesin make this book special.

This book is about a girl named Jen who goes to Wales to visit her family (dad, sister, and brother) for Christmas vacation. However, her sister and brother are miserable living without Jen so she decides to stay with them for a year. Peter, the brother, finds a mysterious and magical key on the beach of Wales and is enchanted by it, for it 'sings songs' to him and shows him Taliesin, a bard from the ancient Welsh myths. However this key gets known to the outer world and Peter has to decide whether he wants to keep it or do something else with it. I will not tell you what he did with the Key, or else that will spoil it. But in the next few sentences I will tell you what I thought about the book. This book was very good. It had a solid beginning, middle, and end like all books should have. I liked how Ms. Bond combined realistic fiction, fantasy, and historical fiction to make this book. It felt like I was really with Jen, on the train going to Wales, or with Becky (the sister), walking up the emerald green hills. However, what I didn't like about this book was that it was kind of slow in action. Sometimes I became really bored when I was reading this book! I didn't understand why Peter did what he did to the Key at the end - it was very confusing! However, this book was good, and I recommend it to anyone.

A Newbery Honor book from the late 70s, I picked it up at a library sale because of that Newbery silver seal on the front. It's a book that develops slowly, and is worth the patience to sustain reading it. The Morgan family is facing two enormous changes, the loss of the mother in an auto accident, and the adjustment to Wales after the grieving father moves them there from Amherst. The unhurried development paves the way for very well-constructed characters, even the ones outside the focal Morgan family. The Morgans are clear, three dimensional characters living in a novel setting, the coast of Wales, the descriptions of which also benefit from the author's patient, clear depictions. The fantasy aspect involves the discovery of a harp key by the middle child of the Morgans, the son Peter. The key has a profound effect, providing Peter with access to events in Welsh history. He doesn't time travel, but Bond cleverly gives him access in a kind of time flow, where, not only can he see the past, but there are times when it exchanges itself with the present enough to be evident to others, too. As much fun as all this time and legend interaction is, the real heart of the book involves the adapting to the two big changes, how the family begins in Wales in full-fledged grieving which takes different forms in different family members, and slowly blends the growing out of it and the growing into this new place in warm, believable, caring ways.

You don't have to be in the "young adult" range to enjoy this book. I read it aloud to my 3 children and they all enjoyed it, and read it now that they're parents. I have just settled down to re-read it for the umpteenth time.

It's not only convincing fantasy of the time-travel genre, but also a realistic and utterly absorbing story about a family of three children from New England struggling with the loss of their mother in Wales. The father, being a university professor and of a scholarly bent, deals with his grief by following up on a planned sabbatical there, and tends to retreat into his work, leaving his children lost and struggling. The fantasy element hinges on the discovery of a battered object found on the shore by the most miserable of the three, and as he gradually gets drawn into its story he also begins to find a new interest in life.

It's a measure of the quality of Bond's writing that one can easily imagine the story taking a tragic turn, yet the fantasy thread as it gradually unfolds is never silly or intrusive. I can't recommend this too strongly, for any age.

Finished Ian Fleming's "Thunderball" during my lunch break earlier today. Got the above Centenary Edition hardback with the painted cover. This novel is one of Fleming's most action-packed with Bond going after Emilio Largo who was planning to blow up Miami with an atomic weapon. It is also the first part of the "Blofeld Trilogy" featuring SPECTRE. Bond doesn't really run into Blofeld in this novel but his defeat of Largo is a prelude to their epic struggles in later stories such as "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" and "You Only Live Twice". Bond again teamed up with the American Felix Leiter and romanced the lovely Domino, who was cruelly tortured by Largo towards the end of the book. The main draw of the book is definitely the underwater fights. Fleming was obsessed with diving at this point and the prose descriptions of the underwater wonders are among the most breathtaking in the English language. There were two movie adaptations of "Thunderball" both starring Sean Connery (the second one was "Never Say Never Again"). Of the two movie adaptations, the earlier one is far more accurate and is still a joy to watch after all these years. The latter one is a total piece of crap - imagine Bond and Largo playing video games, Domino doing aerobics, etc.

The subject of this book (steal two atomic bombs and hold the world hostage) would be considered cliche these days, but only because this was the first book to use that formula.

Fleming wrote a pretty good one here, but it seemed to end in a hurry. You really don't get to know what happened with the SPECTRE operatives in full detail. The character of Domino was only seen briefly, and you don't get to see her tortured by Largo (thank God, though) but she's described well enough to be a "real" person. The beginning was a little slow. On the whole I'm really glad these novels aren't too long, they're exactly the length they need to be.

And those two points are the only complaints I have...it was otherwise a great book, certainly a classic James Bond, with enough excitement and detail to make it real. And I like the sexy covers on the new editions :)

With Thunderball, Ian Fleming's James Bond books take a new direction. Gone is the Cold War threat of SMERSH; now Bond must contend with villains motivated not by ideology but instead simple greed. In particular, Thunderball begins what I think of as the SPECTRE or Blofeld trilogy (along with On Her Majesty's Secret Service and You Only Live Twice), in which Bond battles his greatest opponent, the cunning Ernst Stavro Blofeld (who is also the inspiration for Dr. Evil in the Austin Powers movies).

Actually, Blofeld may be the ringleader of the Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion (no glossing over the evil of this group!) or SPECTRE, but it is actually his number two man who is the main villain. Emilio Largo is the head of operations for a global extortion plan: either pay 100,000,000 British pounds or SPECTRE will use two stolen nuclear bombs in a week.

Bond has initially gotten tangled up with SPECTRE in an inadvertent manner. During an idle period between missions, Bond has partied too hard and now requires time at a health spa; while recovering there (and briefly becoming something of a health nut), he crosses paths with Count Lippe. Their quarrel will inconvenience Lippe, a minor SPECTRE operative, and in turn cause a temporary setback for Blofeld, Largo and company.

Once out of the spa, Bond is briefed on the extortion plot and is sent to Nassau in the Bahamas to see if there are any leads there. He meets up with old CIA friend Felix Leiter and soon has reason to suspect Largo, who is maintaining a cover as a treasure hunter. In today's era, when there it is common to arrest possible terrorists and worry about due process later, Bond and Leiter's concerns about legality and probable cause seem almost quaint, but they do delay any action against Largo.

In a way, this is the first "cinematic" Bond novel. The copyright page indicates that this was not even fully Fleming's book; instead it was based on a screen treatment by Fleming, K. McClory and J. Whittingham. This shared copyright has definitely had its effects on the Bond movies, allowing an "unofficial" remake of Thunderball, Never Say Never Again. It has also stood in the way of a "resurrection" of Blofeld as a Bond villain, whose apparent death at the beginning of For Your Eyes Only was rather ignominious for the bad guy most closely associated with Bond.

Back to the book, Thunderball is a good enough read, but this is not Fleming at his peak (which is really From Russia With Love, Dr. No and Goldfinger). Perhaps his hope that this novel would be made into a movie made this tale a little shallower (although none of the books are really deep). Bond fans, however, should be reasonably pleased with this effort.

M has received Bond's medical report. Basically it says two packs a day smoking ain't good. He sends him to a health farm to get himself back together. He comes across a man from a Macao tong, who is also working for Blofeld, head of SPECTRE. A confrontation between the two is violent, and Bond is helped out by a nurse. He gets some of his own back.

Bond ends up in the Bahamas, and working with Leiter again, now back in the CIA. Emilio Largo is working there with his bombshell woman, Domino, and he is Blofeld's top man.

SPECTRE had hired Domino's brother to nick a couple of warheads, having access as a military officer to at transport flight. Then they offed him.

When Bond tells Domino this information, he turns her and uses her to his advantage. The book ends with a confrontation between Bond and babe vs Largo, and an American submarine vs Largo's crew.

Published in 1961, THUNDERBALL hit the bookshelves a year before Sean Connery debuted in the first film, DR. NO.

The Bond novels have always been very fluid and visual but THUNDERBALL reads as the most cinematic of the stories up to this point. That's for a very good reason: the project began as a screenplay between Ian Fleming and a producer, Kevin McClory, along with a screenwriter, Jack Whittingham. After finishing the short story collection of FOR YOUR EYES ONLY and suffering some health problems that would increase until his death, Fleming wasn't sure what to do with James Bond, especially after trying to kill him off in FROM RUSSIA, WITH LOVE several books before.

The THUNDERBALL film project appeared to be stuck in development hell, so Fleming took the script and wrote a novel from it. Which promptly put him in court with McClory for the next several years. Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, the producing team who eventually did put 007 on the silver screen, had wanted to make THUNDERBALL their first film but as the court case continued, they moved ahead with DR. NO. The case was eventually settled but probably not to many of the participant's liking since Fleming had to share the rights to THUNDERBALL and another producer outside of Broccoli & Saltzman could legally use the character (which led to the "renegade Bond film" of 1983, NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN).

The novel is fun to read because it has so many elements of what made the Sixties Bond films so much fun. A plot that involves saving the free world. The master villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld is introduced. The setting is incredibly exotic and beautiful. Domino is one of the more livelier Bond girls of the novels.

It's nice to have Felix Leiter along but...his condition after being fed to sharks in LIVE AND LET DIE stretches an already-strained believability to almost Austin Powers levels. I could accept him working for Pinkertons in DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER but to get back into the CIA for THUNDERBALL...a bit much.

From reading Fleming's biography, I thought it was interesting that he would create SPECTRE about this time, the terrorist organization introduced here. In reality, he was bored with making the Russians his baddies all the time and--I thought this was funny--Fleming believed that the Cold War would be over before he could finish writing FROM RUSSIA, WITH LOVE!

This piece is arguably the most thorough examination of corporate driven globalization to date. In this highly critical work every aspect of free trade and neo-liberal policy is examined. Mr. Chang is sure to give you the neo-lib reasoning to their policies and breaks them down with the facts.

He starts and ends the book with hypothetical situations. In both instances he presents an purposely exaggerated, but still quite plausible, depiction of what free trade could look like in the future. IMO the best chapter is number two. In this chapter he examines the United State's and British rise to prominence. You quickly realize it was not through a "level playing field" or a "Golden Straight Jacket " as advocated by Thomas Friedman, but through 40% tariffs and mass state intervention.

Specializing in development econ. Chang spends most of the book looking at how the IMF, WTO, and WB have implemented neo-lib policies and consequentially devastated economies in the global south. His argument and evidence are damning! The statistics provide alone are enough to make the book worth reading. The issues of inflation, corruption, child labor, Intellectual property rights and, democracy are all analyzed at length.

The most important thing to take from this work is that free trade is partially acceptable when nations have fully developed and their "infant industries" are ready to step onto the global scene. However, this can take many years where protectionism and other statist policies are required. There is no alternative for developing nations. Nations that stick with their low productivity "natural advantages" stay on the same economic level. Only when countries defy the market and seek new tech. do they climb the latter to prosperity that the Western World is maliciously kicking down.

I'm studying to be a professor in International Relations and I assure my future students this will be a required text!

Naomi Klein's masterful work Shock Doctrine documents in exhaustive detail what is wrong with the free trade theory and practice that is being enforced around the globe. This work, though much smaller and simpler in scale, essentially confirms what Klein says, that the IMF and WTO and World Bank are not the helpers of the developing world, but their enslavers. Klein, however, personalizes her accusations, blaming the Chicago Boys (ie disciples of Milton Friedman's Chicago School of economics) and presents it as almost a grand conspiracy. Chang sees less bad intent and more misunderstanding behind the disastrously wrong prescription being given to the world for how to prosper.

The writing style is clear and simple, and no one should have much trouble following Chang's line of reasoning. He makes good use of a few simple metaphors to prove his point. His image of his son, and his need for sheltering and support until he can get an education and grow up to be a productive member of society is memorable--the point being that urging under-developed countries to compete on a level playing field with mature manufacturing countries is just as silly as sending his 8 year old off to work would be. The comparison is telling because just as the non-productive years of a child's life is what enables him to become well-educated, so too there are children whose future is foreclosed by their need to work from childhood. Developing countries are in just that position.

The main weakness that I see in this book is a certain thinness in the factual support. Very large conclusions are often apparently supported by a handful of examples. His native Korea was as poor as Mozambique just a generation ago, and look what it's done. Therefore, don't rule out Mozambique as a future world power. But are there other similar examples? European travelers thought Japanese were lazy 100 years ago. Ok, but the evidence is one or two small anecdotes. Was that really the general view? Was it really a widespread belief that Germans were inefficient and corrupt?

Also, most who oppose things like NAFTA in this country do so because it is hurting our own economy. Is there really much concern in the US for the consequences for the poor countries? One can only assume that free trade must be beneficial for *someone* and if it isn't the poor countries, it would probably be...us. So the idea that we're doing this for our own benefit may not sit well with American protectionists.

But an enlightening read, and very accessible.

this book along with naomi klein's the shock doctrine, michael albert's parecon and robin hahnel's economic justice and democracy are the best modern criticisms of free market capitalism. though chang seems to favor some form of market socialism blended with regulated capitalism, and i dont fully agree, the argument against free market capitalism is compelling and sound.

The author rightfully points out that (firms in) underdeveloped countries can not compete successfully with the big international companies. Dropping their defenses (allowing free trade) usually ruins them. All this is proved very well in the book and is also competently discussed in most other reviews. But this is not the end of the story.
What happens to the population in the developed countries under such free trade? The big companies have the incentive (better profits!) to move factories abroad or just to sell them. Well-paid jobs are lost. Entire industries are moving away. Therefore, the workers in the developed countries also suffer and as a result, the majority of the population suffers too. The only winners for the moment are the big internationals. In the long run they are doomed too.
Take America and China. The big American multinationals (think Wal-Mart) made a deal with China and gradually most American manufacturing moved to Asia. The big multinationals profited, China profited too (it got the plants and the know-how). Who lost? American industry workers lost their jobs. The talking heads explained that everyone benefited. Not true! Cheep goods? What about quality goods and good salaries? When you loose your job and go to work for Wal-Mart, a cheep shirt is no relief. The special skills of the workers are lost and these skills represent valuable investments. You can not benefit without a manufacturing industry. When you have no industry you have no engineering, later - no science. The bad Samaritans are bad also for their own countries

Critics of free trade tend to fall into two camps, irrational and rational. The irrational camp includes hard core socialists and developed world nationalists such as Lou Dobbs, who have an almost religious belief in certain statist policies as some sort of recipe for broad based prosperity absent much evidence and they simply ignore any evidence that policies such as protectionism may do more harm than good. Ha-Joon Chang falls into the second group. His book is generally quite well written and he regularly acknowledges the trade offs involved in his discussions.

Anyone looking for evidence to raise trade barriers or further regulate markets in the developed world won't find it in this book. Chang is quite critical of "neoliberalism" but he generally seems to suggest low trade barriers on trade and foreign investment are wise in the developed world, or at least he doesn't think they are wrong. His argument is whether such policies are wise in the developing world and he goes on to argue for state-driven development strategies for developing nations.

Some of his arguments are interesting and even persuasive. Chapter 9 ("Lazy Japanese and thieving Germans") provides one of the best rebuttals I have seen of the argument that suggests some cultures are destined to fail. He doesn't say culture doesn't matter; merely that it isn't fixed over time.

Chapter 8 ("Zaire vs. Indonesia") has an interesting discussion of corruption. He suggests corruption is not necessarily incompatible with economic growth and modern China is certainly an example of the argument's validity. Nevertheless, he concludes corruption is worth fighting because it erodes confidence in governing institutions.

Other parts of the book are less compelling. One of his central messages is that proponents of free trade are ignorant of (or at least unwilling to acknowledge) the history of protectionism among now developed world economies. That may be true of the free traders he encounters casually but anyone who is even remotely familiar with the economic and political history of the US and UK would know they employed protectionism in the past.

I can't completely reject the argument that developing nations should engage in some protection of domestic producers, but his discussion of the topic tends to omit two problems. He rarely discusses the downsides of protectionism, such as the fact that if tariffs are used, it raises the prices of consumer goods to citizens, rich and poor alike, of those countries. Second, he admits that industries should not be protected in perpetuity but seems to assume such protections will be phased out at an "appropriate" time. Protected industries and their advocates generally don't want to give up the special privileges they enjoy and are often quite successful at delaying or even preventing the day of reckoning. Developed world agricultural subsidies are a perfect example. It is much easier to prevent a special privilege from being enacted in the first place then to end it once it is in place and has developed a constituency to defend it. At some point the costs of a protection that has outlived its usefulness outweighs whatever initial benefits it might have brought.

His discussion of state-owned industry in Chapter 5 also omits certain complications. He ignores the political difficulty in rationalizing a money-losing state owned enterprise. Unions can make demands of a private firm but ultimately they don't have an interest in seeing it go bankrupt. However, there is less of a restraint on union demands in the public sector because the treasury can be seen as a bottomless till. On page 113 he also makes an argument for state ownership of natural monopolies, such as electricity or land line telephones, ignoring the poor performance of many instances when these industries are in state hands.

Chang likes to cite countries that rejected the free market approach, but he is often selective in his examples. Some Asian countries, such as South Korea, China and Japan do appear to have successfully managed state-driven development. However, there are still plenty of others that are less appealing. Many of the far left love to cite Venezuela but much of Venezuela's success is from the oil bonanza, not necessarily wise economic policy. After a decade of increasing state control, nearly half the Venezuelan work force remains employed in the informal economy, devoid of labor protections enjoyed by those in less statist economies; even though Venezuela is flush with oil revenues.

Chang makes some mistakes or dubious statements in a few cases. He associates the Chrysler bailout with the Reagan Administration, when it was actually enacted under President Jimmy Carter. He also makes a reference to the "September 11 bombing of the Word Trade Center" which makes him sound like some nut job conspiracy theorist, although I did a Google search and didn't find any references that associate him the 9/11 conspiracy theories, it was a curious statement just the same.

I gave the book three stars because it is generally well written and acknowledges real world trade offs. I don't find all or even most of his policy prescriptions persuasive but he does make some of the better arguments for state driven development in the underdeveloped nations. Anyone interested is some credible counter arguments should check out Freedom From Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy or In Defense of Globalization: With a New Afterword

This is quite simply one of the best sports biographies I have ever read. It is written in a very readable and interesting manner. Very highly recommended.

Once, 2 years before he quit playing, Bonds made the statement that all the strain of making 16 million a year for playing a game was just too much. I imagine Barry did have difficulty following in the paths of earlier family members who also played the sport. Bonds never diunderstood, like a few that play today, is that you cannot treat people like insignificants and expect them to like you. A book written by Gary Sheffield documents almost everything the author writes about Bonds. Barry is the kind of player, according to Perleman, that when something good happens--like hitting a home run- the world is just barely tolerable. Now, if a call strike occurs on Bonds, this only cements the belief. Bonds insists he did not take steroids, but the entire world (well almost) knows he did. In his contempt, Barry insisted that everything be his way or no way at all. There are just so many books written about this guy, but give credit. Forging this terrible attitude that Bonds must have, in part at least, was his baseball coach at Arizona State. He permitted Barry to be treated better than anyone, hence, the "I am perfect" mold began to form. Bonds did have a "few" bad moments in his career, as Perleman notes in his story of the World Series of the Angels and Giants in 2002 when Bonds literally falls on his face trying to field an outfield hit and ensuing error cost his team the game. What I beleive most will get out of this book is that Bonds had contempt for everyone from Babe Ruth to the worst rookie in pro ball. Bonds would have you believe he did not care about anything while playing the game or driving his car. He seems to possess disdain for a sport for racism ( but which paid him so much) as he when he referernced that a "black man" could not "get away" with the special previlegdes that Roger Clemens had with the Astros. But like all that he was I believe most of this was put on. What Barry Bonds was good at was tremendous eye hand coordination and the ability to pick what the opposing pitching was going to throw. In balls going 90-95mph or knowing a curve is coming beforehand trumps everything for a hitter. In one story, Perleman mentions how he teaches HOF manager Dusty Baker how well he 'reads a pitcher, predicting 6 consecutive pitches while Baker watches in amazement. Reading this book might remind you of a few guys who came before Barry: Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby just to name two. Tremendous talent with terrible attitudes. This book is much more than about baseball. Highly recommended because Perleman does such an excellent job of following a career which indeed must have been very difficult. guyairey

Excellent book. Very entertaining. If you are a baseball fan this is a must have as it talks of Bonds throughout his baseball career. There are many quotes from his teammates on the Pirates and the Giants as well as items from his college days.

The book talks about his marriages and his relationship with his dad.

I finished this book in a week when it usually takes me a month or so to finish a book. I could not put it down.

I thought this would be a good book for a teen to read, however, there was much too much foul language.

The author certainly did his homework by interviewing over 500 people who have had some interaction with Bonds over his life in order to write this book. What was grat about this book was that it wasn't written by Bonds or from the perspective of the author it was more other peoples true experiences about Bonds spun into a book. This was a fresh look at this guy and not written to drag him down or to glorify him, you are left to make your own opinion. I liked it.

Well I liked this one better than Casino Royale. I felt there was a better storyline. Still not much detail about what or how Bond thinks. I want to get into his head and see what makes him think or feel what he does. I can't stand Leiter and am hopeful that he won't be back. Who knows maybe he will. I felt the girl, Soltaire, wasn't fully developed. Although I'm getting the idea that Mr. Fleming doesn't care for female charactes but realizes that they are a "necessary evil." I'm going to read Moonraker then I'm not so sure about continuing the Bond series.

I don't know about you guys but I bought this one exclusively for the cover. This broad makes all the coarse black hair on my back stand up and do a jig. Are you kidding me? When me and my old lady are in bed at night reading, she's the only one reading, trust me. I'm looking over this here broad. The fine curves, the jack and the queen and all the subliminals make this a hot-to-trot number that I can't put down. When the old lady asks me what the book's about, I show her the cover. Let her cuss. I'm thinking about maybe reading the back cover or something, I don't know, I guess I still ain't figured out the front cover. When I do, maybe I'll write a review about it.

While the first James Bond novel , 1953's "Casino Royale", introduced the character of 007, it was left to this, the second Bond novel published in 1954, to establish what constituted a James Bond Adventure.

"Casino Royale" kept Bond penned up in a single locale playing cards, not physically hurting anyone. "Live And Let Die" gives us a more peripatetic and lethal hero, journeying from London to Harlem to Florida and finally Jamaica leaving a trail of death behind. He's still a one-woman man, but this time it's a different woman: Solitaire, psychic consort of SMERSH's African-American ally Mr. Big.

The result is a terrific read. If not the hard-edged, rather refined psychodrama that was "Casino Royale", "Live And Let Die" is the first Bond novel that makes you want to read another Bond novel. A lot of people rate it higher than "Casino Royale". I don't, but understand the enthusiasm.

It's one thing to watch Bond kill a lot of people in a ruthless and effective manner. But even his breakfasts get your attention the way Fleming writes them, Bond noshing on paw-paw and guava jelly as he stares out across the "green flanks" of the hilly Jamaican coastlands to Mr. Big's island haven, in preparation for his final assault. Or staring blankly as an adversary gets chomped on by a shark, hearing "one terrible snuffling grunt as if a great pig was getting its mouth full."

This is Fleming the detail maven, the master of setting vivid scenes and then sending you off on what is called by his aficionados "the Fleming sweep". The best in this book carries you with Bond as he snorkles under a moonlit bay, evading octopus and barracuda as Fleming puts you so tight against his narrative you feel yourself wanting for air.

"Live And Let Die" suffers from a storyline that doesn't actually need Bond. Mr. Big's big scheme, involving recovered pirate treasure, hardly appears illegal, let alone warranting a British spy's help in upsetting it. The fact Big belongs to SMERSH, the Soviet assassin force that did Bond wrong in "Casino Royale", is a strained tangent, as is the presence of Solitaire, a pale substitute for "Royale's" haunting Vesper Lynd.

For the record, I don't think Fleming shows himself a racist with his handling of the novel's black characters; in the ways he writes of jazz, Harlem, and Jamaica's predominately black culture, he was refreshingly open-minded about things other middle-aged Brits of the period would have scoffed at or ignored.

What I enjoy most in this novel are things like the Jamaica section (Fleming's home, and it shows) and the welcome return of Felix Leiter, affecting company as the story centers on his friendship with Bond. We even get the debut of Bond's sense of humor, as when Mr. Big tells a strapped-down-and-bloodied Bond he will die at six o'clock, give or take a few minutes.

"Let's give those minutes," replies Bond. "I enjoy my life."

You will, too, reading this introduction to 007 on the go.

The Bond books are always fun and easy to read. They appeal to the adventure, gadget, and sex side to all men. It also often amazes me that women are interested in watching the movies, but I have yet to find a woman reader of the Fleming books. This book deals with Voodoo but is greatly aged when talking about gang activity and black culture. So, don't be surprised by a few nasty words here and there.

One of the distinctive characteristics of the James Bond movies has always been the opening credit sequence. Over the years, a number of big name artists have done songs for the openings, some of which have been memorable (such as Goldfinger or The Spy Who Loved Me) and others that are completely forgotten (can anyone but a true Bond aficionado remember the opening song in On Her Majesty's Secret Service?). If there is a truly immortal Bond tune, however - one that still gets plenty of playing time even three decades after the movie - it is Paul McCartney's Live and Let Die. The song may be well-remembered, but what of the book that inspired it? It may be one that many wish was best forgotten.

I say this not because it is a bad book; it is actually decent enough, but it has a view of race that is, to put it kindly, rather antiquated. The story sends Bond to New York to assist in stopping the crime boss and SMERSH operative, Mr. Big. Mr. Big is a large black man who - through his appearing as the voodoo figure Baron Samedi - appears to hold sway over most of the blacks on the East Coast and the Caribbean.

Bond teams up with his CIA friend Felix Leiter and the battle with Mr. Big is on, going from New York to Florida to Jamaica. Mr. Big's plot involves the smuggling of old gold coins from a pirate treasure as part of a plot to fund crime and Communism. Since it is a Bond story, there is a beautiful woman too, in this case, the fortune-telling Solitaire who Mr. Big intends to marry whether she likes it or not. Bond has other ideas.

I don't know if I'd go as far as to call this book racist, as Fleming doesn't seem to look upon blacks with contempt or believe they only merit a second-class place in society. He nonetheless resorts to stereotypes and treats the race as almost a monolithic unit. Of course, this is a fifty year old novel written before the Civil Rights movement really kicked into gear, and Fleming is a product of his time and place. What may have been relatively common writing at the time is now dated and may be unpleasant to many readers.

Still, in its context, this is a decent enough novel, rating a low four stars. The Bond of the first novel, Casino Royale, wasn't involved in much actual action, but here the bullets are flying and bombs are exploding. Already in the second novel, Bond is becoming more of the superheroic spy, although he is still human enough. If you are a fan on the Bond novels, then this is worth reading, but for a casual thriller fan, this might be one to skip.

A little background on myself. I have read over 200 books on investing. When I started investing back in 1979, I went 100% stocks. Back in 1979, the financial press was full of stories about retired people with bonds that were decimated by the high inflation of the late 1970's. Bonds were probably the worst investment back in that high inflationary environment. I stayed 100% stocks for 20 years, and then switched to 10% bonds in 1999. In late 2007, I switched to a 60:40 portfolio. I evaluated my need to take risk against my willingness to take risk...and settled on the time honored 60:40 portfolio of pension funds.

The authors of this book try to make the case for a 0:100 or all bond portfolio. They assert the 10% return of stocks is really 6-7% because of taxes, expenses, and bad timing.

Taxes reduce stock returns because of excessive trading by active mutual fund managers.

Expenses reduce stocks returns because of transaction costs and annual fees. Their assertion is 2% on large cap, 4% on small cap and foreign stock funds, and 10% on micro-cap and emerging markets.

Bad timing reduces the return of stocks because investors chase the winners and they buy high and sell low. The Dalbar studies have shown for years that most investors do not really get the market return of stocks. The authors cite the fact that the S&P 500 returned 12.8% from 1983-2003..while the average investor only got 6.3%. The author cites a Dalbar study where the market returned 12% and investors really got 4%.

The authors claim that a 100% bond portfolio solves all the issues that lower the return of stocks. They assert bonds are low cost if you buy them at their initial offering. They assert low fees if you hold the bonds to maturity. There is also no risk of bad timing if you hold the bonds until maturity. They also assert a laddered bond portfolio protects against rising interest rates (which I assume they also mean rising inflation). Tax free municipal bonds can also reduce taxes.

The authors also assert that future returns will not be 10% because this historic return is based upon higher dividend payout than we have today. Dividend yields used to be 5%, but in recent years have been about 1.8%. A recent Business Week article said about 40% of the total return of stocks from 1926-2008 was from dividends.

The authors asset that the longer you hold stocks, the higher the risk. Asset bubbles take a while to build, but eventually a Bear market arrives and wipes out the gains. But Bear markets are a part of investing.......we have had about 13 of them since WWII....or 1 Bear market ever 5 years on average.

I really thought the authors made a lame argument when they said that retirees can run out of money in retirement if they withdraw 10% per year and they have a Bear market early in retirement. The authors must not be aware of Bengen and the Trinity studies. Bengen demonstrated back in 1994 that 4% is about the maximum safe withdrawal rate in retirement......not 10%.

In my opinion, the authors could have made the case that from 2000 until 2008....investors should have tilted their portfolios more towards bonds than stocks. Because of the build-up of prices (PE ratio) in the 80s and 90s, history tells us future returns will be lower. The 1980's and 1990's were the glory years of stock returns.....with the S&P 500 with dividends reinvested returning compound growth rates of 18%.

After 2000, John Bogle and William Bernstein both predicted single digit returns about 6-7% nominal for stocks. Bernstein argued that if stocks return 6-7%, then investors should tilt more towards bonds because the extra risk of stocks is not going to compensate you with higher returns. John Bogle has been consistently advocating that investors should hold their age in bonds (age 70 equals 70% bonds). Neither Bernstein nor Bogle ever advocated 100% bonds.

With the S&P 500 now at 873, the dividend yield is up to 2.86%. The PE ratio is down from 23.6 in Nov 2007 to 16.5 in Nov 2008 (trailing PE). Stocks are now relatively cheap and I predict both Bernstein and Bogle will raise their predicted future returns of stocks.

In my mind, the authors failed to address the biggest issue with bonds......their failure to deal with inflation. A laddered bond portfolio doesn't really deal with an unexpected increase in inflation. Only a small fraction of the portfolio comes due each year and can be reinvested at a higher interest rate. The balance of the portfolio loses value with unexpected inflation.

Both Bengen's 1994 seminal study and the Trinity study showed that retirees can withdraw a maximum of an inflation adjusted 4% from their portfolio each year using 50% to 60% stock portfolios. I have run Monte Carlo simulations and have duplicated their results. What you find when you run Monte Carlo is that low stock portfolios (or high bond portfolios) don't deal with inflation.....and high stock portfolios are too volatile and you risk the chance of outliving your money. There is a sweet spot in the middle (maybe 40:60 to 70:30) which does the best.

As a fan of index funds, I could argue that using low cost index stock funds and staying the course should outperform an all bond portfolio. Vanguard has rock bottom expense ratios on the order of 0.18% on their S&P 500 fund. Taxes are extremely low on stock index funds because there is relatively low turnover compared to actively managed funds. A 60:40 portfolio comprised of 40% total US stock market, 20% total foreign stock market, 20% total US bond fund, and 20% TIPS is a very robust portfolio.

The author's recommendation of a 100% bond portfolio only makes sense if you are an investor who chases the winners and you achieve low stock returns per the Dalbar study. I guess in this situation you might be as well off using an all bond portfolio.

I would suggest you learn more about index fund investing by reading some of the books below. I'm sticking with my 60:40 portfolio. I don't think a 100% bond portfolio is the way to go because I know how to stay the course through the Bear markets that occur about every 5 years........and I don't think a 100% bond portfolio deals well with inflation.


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

I read 300 pages before being told to buy plain vanilla bonds. The book is a yawner that makes a boring subject even more sleep inducing.

In Hildy and Stan Richelson's opening chapter they break old financial premises and myths we had come to accept without question in "Bonds, The Unbeaten Path to Secure Investment Growth". They refute the dogma that we had to diversify and that the best returns are in the stock market, and they do it clearly and brilliantly.

Bonds were as remote to me as Sanskrit. Yet after reading their book, the veils were lifted. I caught their vision. They simplified the bond market. The book is inspiring and motivating. I learned bond calculations and was directed to many informative and revealing websites, all of which were essential to round out my bond comprehension. There is consciousness and a generosity of spirit in their writing.

Through their clear thinking they challenged me to relook at previous beliefs, and surprisingly turned around my whole way of seeing. It's quite masterful. There is no smoke and mirrors here, but real fact turned into a new vision.

They offer well thought out, safe and secure, investment solutions. In this extreme buyer beware climate I feel they are on my side, the side of the individual investor.

Thank you Hildy and Stan for your wisdom.

J. J. Tanner, Arizona

This is the best book on investing anywhere. For the past two years I have searched long and hard for a book that would give practical advice to a conservative investor--that is, one who does not want to lose money but rather wants to earn a predictable return on investments. Having read dozens of books on investing, including many of the most highly touted, I have concluded that Bonds: The Unbeaten Path to Secure Investment Growth is the best thing out there. Most of my savings and investments are in an employer plan, and thus are in funds of one sort or another, leaving little opportunity to invest directly in the type of bonds that the Richelsons discuss here. However, what has been invaluable to me is (1) their philosophy of investing and, having digested that, (2) their recommendations for the type of funds in which to invest, recommendations that can be found on page 315. That one page of recommendations, when supplemented by the Richelson's carefully laid out philosopy, is worth many times the price of the book. Since studying and applying the Richelsons' approach, I have had a year of strong returns and a year of sleeping well. To the critics of the book, I would respectfully recommend that you re-read it and then answer the question, over the past year have I had positive returns on my investments and have I slept well? If the answer is "no" to either of those questions, read this book again.

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.

Next year I'm going to model my girl's birthday party after this book--it's so cute and such a great theme. Harper Collins even put a free birthday planning kit with activities on the web--you can google the book and it will come up with it. So, buying the book and using the activities the publisher has put on the web is a really inexpensive and fun way to plan a party! But the best part is that my girls really love this book!

My class adores this book as well as the others in this series. It offers great opportunities for the kids to come up with things the pig will want if you give them something else. The kids can't put these books down. A real crowd pleaser.

This comedy book is a wonderful childrens book full of fun and laughter.
"If You Give a Pig a Party" is about a pig who asks for a party, gets mixed up in other fun, and in the end, asks for another party. This colorful book is full of silliness and irony. Highly recomended.
Grades 1 and up.

What I like the most about these books is the illustration. The stories are fun too!

This book is creative, colorful and easy to follow. I've been reading this with my daughter since age 2, she's almost four and it's still a fast favorite. The storyline follows Pig on her adventure to have a party; along the way you meet her friends snake, mouse, moose, cat and dog (did I forget anyone?). We have fun spotting the friends and picking out which hat we'll 'wear' to the party. I aways pick the same hat, so my daughter says, "Don't be a party pooper, mommy --- Try something new"! Wonderful times.

From the back cover:

When they found out about his cheating heart, they wanted to get even. But how even?

Fate has just thrown a curveball at the women in Raymond Carmichael's life--all three of them. When they meet at his hospital bed, they discover they're all married to the same man. And when Raymond suddenly dies, the police suspect that one of these spunky ladies has committed murder...

The socialte--Blonde, post-menopausal, and mad as hell, Beatrix always suspected Raymond married her for her daddy's money...twenty-one years ago.

The doctor--a smart, small-town family physician, thirty-five-year-old Natalie had ironically insisted on only one thing from her husband of seven years...absolute honesty.

The stripper--twenty-one and an exotic dancer, Ruby would have chalked up her brief marriage to a learning experience...if she hadn't been pregnant.

Now they're three women left with a man's betrayal--and worse, each other. But one thing they each insist--they didn't kill Raymond. What can they do? Something outrageous and probably impossible: stick together to catch a murderer...

And my review:

You wouldn't think the story of three women duped into marrying the same man would be funny, but this book is mostly fluffy, not serious. And while I enjoy a good comedy as much as the next person, I felt that the main premise was a serious enough issue that it didn't really make sense for it to be a comedy.

Also, this book is labelled a romance. It shouldn't be. Out of 374, less than 50 of them are dedicated to romance. If a book is labelled a romance, its main focus should be romance. But the love story didn't start until more than halfway through the book, and it was so rushed that you'd miss it if you blink. Pretty much the heroine (there was only one romance in this story) and the hero talk a few times, kiss, and *bam*, they're in love. It felt very tacked on. I think this story would have been more enjoyable if the author had just cut that part out, and instead focused on the three women and their various responses to their betrayal by the man they all loved.

I like Natalie, and I was able to warm up to Beatrix, but I could not stand Ruby. And it wasn't the fact that she's a stripper; it was the fact that she was a total twit! For example, Ruby's all eager to show Natalie the nursery that Raymond and Ruby decorated together, and thinks that Natalie will be thrilled to see it. Yeah, women are always dying to see the life their husband built with another woman. Sheesh, Ruby, get a clue! I felt that the author just wrote Ruby as a stereotype, and didn't bother to actually flesh out a likeable character.

All in all, this was an okay read. The question of who murdered Raymond was enough to keep me turning the pages. But if you're looking for a romance, you'll have to look elsewhere.

Raymond Carmichael gets into a car accident and while on the way to the hospital has a heart attack. At the hospital Beatrix, Natalie and Ruby meet each other-they are all married to Raymond.

Raymond dies after having another heart attack and while the three try to keep out of each others way, but at the funeral they learn that Raymonds death was not an accident, he was murdered.

At different times all three are suspected of killing him, but they know that none of them did. They then decide to work together to find out what really happened the night that Raymond died and catch the real killer. Along the way they relize that they all have more in common than they relized.

All in all, a very entertaining read

I am not a morning person... but I have to give this book a lot of credit. I actually laughed out loud while reading this book at 6 in the morning. I never do that! It is a fun read! If you want a lot of depth, not going to happen... but I love the humor! So yes, I am going to continue to read her books. Thanks Ms. Bond for the entertainment!

This book is about 3 very different women who find out they all share the same husband. They find themselves thrown together trying to figure out who killed their husband and they find out some things about themselves in the process. Stephanie Bond's style is very similar to Janet Evanovich. This similarity is further brought out in the audio version performed by C.J. Critt who does many of the Evanovich audios (One of my favorite readers, BTW). This is not a very deep book, the characters are fairly one dimensional, but still it's a pretty decent read.

This was a very good story. Some men actually have the nerve to
have 3 wives. I thought the way they all found out was just too
much.

Keep up the good writing.