Perry Books

This book makes some good points, but to me, it discounts the affects of historical and present racism within the equation a little too much. One would think that Blacks in America are just inherently morally bankrupt from reading this book, and like my Grandfather always said "If your enemy likes what you are doing or saying, it's something wrong with what you are doing or saying". I'm sure that the racist elements within our society really LOVE what this author is saying and the way he is saying it. Mr. Perry, you are on the verge of becoming a sellout..............

This book is a hard-hitting, unblinking, tough love prescription for fixing the Black community. Steve Perry is a principal in an urban school in Connecticut, so he's no right wing, Ivy League windbag who lives in a mansion yet tries to tell people in the hood how to fix their lives. This man fights in the trenches every day trying to educate young Black people and give them a future. This book is definitely not for the sensitive, thin-skinned or faint of heart. There are plenty of "feel good" books out there like "The Audacity of Hope" for those who would rather keep on their rose-colored glasses, delude themselves into victimhood and point the finger of blame elsewhere. However, for those who are serious about cleaning up our own back yard and putting our people on the path to success, then this book might just be for you.

Mr. Perry expresses what the real problems are in the Black community. He is right when he states that we women are to take blame for the way we make excuses for our sorry sons behavior. I have two sons and I and my husband have tried to teach our sons what being a "real" man is all about. They have chosen to live the "cool life of the streets". We plan to give them both a copy of this book and hope they can finally see the light. A must read for men and women alike. If you have a loved one in prison, send this book to them, perhaps this will help them to finally grow up, and hopefully, "MAN UP!"

A good look at the state of the black community. That needs to be addressed more publicly. This book is hard hitting and funny. I couldn't agree more. Only if we black people would stop acting like this is some little secret among us and come out against the distructive habits that have us in this position, we could start to turn our condition around. Keep telling the truth brother!!!

Man Up has some wonderful points, however some of them are lost at times. The author spends a lot of time whining about problems that are prevalent in black society. Steve Perry does not provide a lot of solutions. The first couple of chapters are on point. The rest of the book reads like a research paper. If you are collecting data for a paper on why at risk students struggle in schools, this would be a good choice.

"A Silent Sorrow" covers all types of pregnancy loss and still birth, as well as new born death. My husband and I experienced early loss at 7 weeks. I found everyone around me, including myself, minimizing the loss. Many comments like "at least you know you can get pregnant", "at least it was early", etc., were not helpful. The worst was the fact that no one thought I should be anything more than disappointed and we should just "try again". When we were unsuccessful at "trying again" I went further into depression. After 3 years of ineffective coping (not to mention my marriage was in terrible shape and we'd separated) I found a therapist who works with women with miscarriage, loss, and infertility grief. It was the best thing I ever did for myself. This therapist is the one who suggested this book. She said it is one of the best for early loss. I felt a huge release immediately after reading the part about early loss. The authors validated all the feelings I had shoved so far down and ran away from. I realized I had a right to grieve and moron the loss of my child. Yes, the baby was only with me a few weeks, but it was the a lifetime of hopes and dreams for the children of my future that instantly made that child so close to my heart. I am happy to say with the guidance of this book, the book Unsung Lullabies, After the Affair, Getting the Love You Want, my grief therapist, a great couples therapist, and an excellent RE...my husband and I are back together and expecting a child. Best of luck to those that in need of this book. My heart goes out to you!

This book was a fantastic source of support and guidance for my husband and me. The author uses lots of interview research to come to her conclusions and uses current medical sources. The chapters are topical and provide you with additional resources if you wish to read further or refer you back to a particular chapter review. We both finished this book and were so impressed with the resources in the appendices. I FULLY recommend this book, even if it's been years since your pregnancy loss.

This book, while providing some basic information, fell woefully short of truly describing and explaining grief. It minimizes the experience of having a baby who is born still, and for that I regret having picked it up.

After the stillbirth of our daughter this Christmas, I read quite a few books about this kind of loss. For me, this was the best book of the lot. It alone of all the books that I dealt with covered a loss after a crisis pregnancy (and talked about its affect on both your job and health). I found it matter of fact on difficult subjects (which I liked) and I particularly liked that it did not tell me what to feel. Many of the other books which focused more on the emotional side had the effect of feeling as though they were crowding me. This is obviously a matter of taste and personality.

In addition to the expected chapters, the book also has an excellent section on Special Circumstances which discusses things like pregnancy loss and infertility. There are a number of helpful appendices and a list of relevant resources together with a categorized bibliography.

I wish that nobody needed a book like this one. But if you do find yourself in this club that nobody wants to join, this is a good book to help you find your way.

This book was _very_ important to me after my miscarriage, because it was a kind book that provided comfort but also didn't dumb itself down in order to address the very real and complex stages of grief. Kohn and Moffitt also give an excellent portrait of what people on many sides of the loss experience--mothers, fathers, family members, friends--as they all respond differently to pregnancy loss. I particularly appreciated the chapter on Early Pregnancy Loss, given that the authors discuss how this can be an especially "silent sorrow" and one that has its own special challenges of bereavement. Highly recommended

Has anyone else noticed that he didn't address this? The double standard lives on, IMHO. One star deducted for this.

Otherwise, it's a beautiful story of love that triumphed over enormous adversity, and yes, they are still married. A movie is in the works and the Carpenters now have two children: Danny, born around the time the book was released, and Lee Ann, born in 2003.

Even if you leave the religious aspect out of it, they stayed together for one reason: They wanted to.

A newlywed myself, I bought this as an "airplane book" after seeing the Carpenter's story on "Today" and "Dateline." Not only is the story inspiring, it's also very easy to read. (I'm not the fastest reader in the world, but finished this book in 3 short sittings over a weekend!--it never made it to the plane)

In a day when the "D" word is an "easy out" this is a great example of how two people put their faith in God and each other to keep a promise.

This is a beautiful story of love and commitment. In a world where so many couples get divorced for the sake of convenience, it's nice to read about a couple who stood by their vows (and each other) in the face of tragedy. Some of the chapters with Krickitt's journal entries get a bit long, but over all I loved it!

I purchased this book for my wife after seeing the Carpenter's story on NBC's "Dateline". It is a touching story of how one man will go to regain his wife back.

I have yet to read the book, but I can assume my wife loved based on the fact that she finished the book in one day.

The Vow is one of the most amazing TRUE love stories that I have ever read. In our disposable society today, it is so refreshing to read about true love, faith, and commitment.

Kim Carpenter's wife, Krickitt, was not expected to survive massive head injuries sustained from a head on collision with a truck. Miraculously and against all odds, she did survive. Her faith in God, along with the unrelenting adoration and help of her husband and family (and of course all of the doctors!) helped pull Krickitt back into a functioning world. Unfortunately, Krickitt lost all memory of her brief marriage, engagement and courtship with her husband. Kim held on steadfast to his marriage vows and never, never gave up, despite the unsurmounting odds of their marriage ever surviving such tragedies.

It is so humbling to read of their devout faith in God, which pulled them both through some incredible life challenges, if not providing miracles in their lives, time and time again. Kim's heartfelt love for Krickitt comes through strongly and I do so admire his integrity, his devotion and the love he has for his wife. This story is a huge testament to the power and bond of love and marriage. I do believe that many men in his position would have walked out and not stood by Krickitt's side.

The Carpenters renewed their wedding vows for a second time, as Kim had to woo Krickitt all over again, as she had no memory of her husband at all. Their lives will no longer be what it was before the accident and Krickett is not the same person she was before, as is Kim. Both have grown and both have a deeper commitment and love for one another.

Living a nightmare in every conceivable way, the Carpenter's faith in God gave them the strength and will to persevere. God often gives us challenges in life and we do not understand why, and only later do the "lessons" or the meaning of all become clear to us. The messages imparted in this heart-felt story will hopefully ignite the love shared in all marriages and to help to heal those marriages in trouble and cement even further those solid marriages.

This story will have you crying and cheering as well as have you questioning what is "really" important in our lives and how faith in God can pull us through even the darkest nightmares. Love and undying faith is what it is all about!

Kim Carpenter you are one heck of a guy - the world needs more guys like you! Thank you both for a wonderful book - I recommend everyone read this book, especially couples that are engaged.

I have read most of the "greatest" baseball books and this is one of the best. This is obviously the writer's lifetime work, and he weaves Walter Johnson's life with his very personal belongings to create a masterpiece.

If you want to get a feel for what baseball was like at the turn of the century, then this will answer your questions. This is one of the only hardbacks that I will keep forever.

The fact that Walter Johnson was the grandfather of the author does not disqualify this book as a legitimate biography. Since he didn't grow up around the "Big Train" Henry Thomas had to rely on meticulous research and perhaps his family connection gave him easier access to first-person accounts.

Walter Johnson had a freakish right arm. With an easy-going sidearm delivery he threw fastballs with such great velocity that Ty Cobb reported he flinched the first time he stepped into the batter's box and Johnson's pitched "hissed with danger" as it blew by. The book is peppered with other anecdotes of players reporting that Johnson was so fast other players could hardly see, much less hit the ball. He probably wasn't faster than Nolan Ryan or Randy Johnson in their prime, but he was so much faster than his contemporaries his pitches seemed like bullets.

Yet he was perhaps even more of a gentleman. He was modest,kind,loyal and honest. When Johnson's Washington team finally got into a pennant race in Walter's eighteenth season, there was so much support for him from OPPOSING crowds the cheers for him were repeatedly louder than for the home team, even at stadiums such as Boston's Fenway Park and Babe Ruth's Yankee Stadium.

Johnson's lifetime statistics are amazing. Only Cy Young has more wins than his 417, and if not for his record number of one-run losses, including a record number of 1-0 losses (he also owns the record for 1-0 wins), he would have more wins.

He was among the first five players inducted into baseball's Hall of Fame, won two MVP awards, and set the all-time record for batting average by a pitcher with .433 in 1925. He won 20 games 12 times, including a record ten in a row, and over 30 games twice. He had 110 career shutouts - no other pitcher has 100. In 1913 he won 36 games, lost 7, and gave up only 44 runs in 48 games. You need a microscope to see his career ERA of 2.13.

He was also a devoted family man, married to a congressman's daughter until death did part them, with four children. He was so popular that in public appearances with his younger, more handsome available teammates, single young women swooned, even though it was well-known that he was married.

Few American sports heroes have embodied the combination of ability, accomplishment and virtue that were all seen in Walter Johnson. This books stands up well next to the most well-known in the genre. I'd much rather see a film version of this than to have seen "Babe" or "Cobb." This is on the short list of "best baseball books."

This book was written by Walter Johnson's grandson, for the sole purpose of refuting Bill James' stated opinion--absolutely standard among baseball history experts--that Lefty Grove is the greatest pitcher of all time. While James has since reluctantly changed his mind, very few of the rest of us have. Johnson "pitched" when a pitcher only had to bear down on about 15 or 20 pitches per game; Grove pitched when any pitch could be hit out of the park, and lobbing in all of your pitches was suicidal. Grove won 9 ERA titles, all of them while pitching in hitters' parks, including 4 as a southpaw in Fenway Park after his 35th birthday; Johnson won 5 in a pitcher's paradise.

So the book's biased premise is not only flawed, but untenable. Poor writing, presented in support of a nepotistic agenda, makes for a poor read. Sorry, Grandsonny, but Grove was better, and both Pedro and Roger Clemens may prove to have been better yet, when they are done.

Jim Fahey

This is one of the all-time best reads! A fascinating real-life story about one of baseball's greatest pitchers, the author does a wonderful job of bringing history to life. The times and career of Walter Johnson are meticulously researched and presented, but not at the expense of the story. The drama builds to the 1924 World Series and keeps the reader on the edge of their seat. It's great to read a biography that brings an era into focus as well as this one.

I will just one particular reason why I like this book. It will seem trivial to some readers, and I will not be surprised if this review gets negative recommendations because of it. After all, the author did not deliberately intend for this "selling point" to occur, but it did. What is it? Well, Henry Thomas is a stickler for names. He insists on calling teams and places what they were called at the time instead of what we refer to them today. The Washington ballpark is not referred to as Griffith Stadium until the early 20's. References are made to the Cleveland Naps and the New York Highlanders. where am I going with this? In the third chapter, Thomas explains how the owners of the Washington American League team decide to officially change the name of team from "Senators" to "Nationals" for good luck. The name did not catch on with fans, who still preferred to call them "Senators", although "Nats" (short for both seNATorS and NATionalS) was a common nickname. Still, Thomas consistently refers to Johnson's team as the "Nationals" since that was the franchise's official name until 1956.

This book was written in 1995. Although there were fans who dreamed major league baseball would eventually return to Washington, D.C., it still seemed like impossible for many people. But eventually, the Montr?al Expos WERE moved to Washington, and Thomas' choice of words proved prophetic. Commissioner Bud Selig wanted to rename the team the "Washington Senators" after the team he remembered in his youth. D.C. Mayor Tony Williams was adamantally opposed to "Senators" since D.C. had no voting representation in Congress---he wanted the team named "Washington Grays" after the champion Negro League team that used to play at Griffith Stadium. "Washington Nationals" was chosen as a compromise.

The result is that if you are sitting in the stands at RFK Stadium watching a Nats game (perhaps the home opener, as I was doing today) and you turn to read Thomas' biography of Walter Johnson and his "Nationals", you realize that the current team is part of a long tradition of Washington baseball, and it is a proud tradition. The proudest part of the history of Washington baseball was the career of Walter Johnson. This book reminds finds why.

Previously, I posted a review of another book on the same subject, Anthony Hatch's "The Tinder Box." While that book was not without merit, I am more favorably inclined to Nat Brandt's account of the Iroquois Theater Fire of December 30, 1903.

What is different about this retelling of the tragedy? Brandt personalizes the story somewhat more than did Hatch. There are many more first person statements from survivors in this book (gleaned from newspaper reports). Approximately, six hundred died in the fire. Many were asphyxiated or trampled to death in the panic. The Iroquois had been advertised as being fireproof.

Similarly, Brandt seems to have done a more effective job of providing the social context for the disaster and develops certain topics that were not addressed in "Tinder Box." For example, Brandt explains the circumstances related to the placement of the Iroquois Memorial Monument in Montrose Cemetery (the unclaimed corpse of an unidentified victim is interred beneath the monument) and the efforts of some civic minded Chicagoans to respond to the disaster by dedicating a hospital to the memory of the victims. In the immediate aftermath of the fire, Chicago did not celebrate New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. The start of 1904 was observed as a period of municipal mourning.

The key difference between the two books seems to be that Hatch emphasized the efforts of the fire department whereas Brandt concentrates upon the theater patrons and the bystanders who were witnesses to the tragedy. Both books cover the basics, but you may prefer this one more.

The greatest scandal associated with the fire was how no legal responsibility attached to the city inspectors or the theater owners who neglected public safety and violated the building code ordinances so flagrantly as to make the fire almost an inevitability: none of the theater staff had been trained in emergency evacuation procedures; no fire drill been conducted; the theater was not equipped with fire extinguishers or a sprinkler system; exits were not marked and the doors did not open outwards; the ventilation shafts on the roof, which might have directed fatal gases and smoke up and out of the auditorium were nailed shut. Almost every legal action against the theater owners was stymied. One construction firm settled legal claims against it for a paltry $750.00 per victim.

I liked this book a bit better than "Tinder Box". Chicago Death Trap has 31 pages of photos, printed on the page, not photo plates. I felt this book gave a better description of the confusing seating arrangements and terms that were used in 1903. For example, in the illustration the term Gallery refers to two areas in the lobby, which don't see the stage at all and as far as I understand were not burnt, however in the story the term Gallery is used in reference to areas of the Balcony, which were above and straight ahead of the stage and which were burnt. I found the pace of this book to be exciting and the story interesting. I found it quite amazing that people stood on the burning stage and yet lived, and that others just sat in their seats and took no action. I can imagine how terrifying it must have been to try to escape from the balconies, especially after the power went out, given that there are many up and down staircases, dead ends and locked doors. As I look at the illustrations of the confusing multitude sets of staircases, I can imagine how this must have led to needless death. Even though this story is of a 1903 event, I find myself, in 2006, looking around more carefully at fire exits after having read The Chicago Death Trap.

The Oriental Theatre sits on the exact site of the Iroquois; you can see a show there, you can walk or drive through the small street (Couch Place, which is really an alleyway--and true to Chicago tradition, believed to be haunted) where patrons tried to escape the Iroquois fire--a little known tragedy of Chicago history that happened in 1903, eight years before the Triangle Shirtwaist fire in NYC. Brandt gives a full picture of Chicago at the turn of the 20th century: famous people and ordinary people; businessmen and showmen; generosity of spirit and miserliness. A reader can feel him or herself at the scene, watching Eddie Foy risk his life pleading for calm as the fire sparked backstage began to singe him, yet not knowing that smoke had already overwhelmed most of the victims. A page-turner that will make you scout your exits the next time you see a show or film--and make you understand the impact of this tragedy on building codes everywhere.

In Chicago Death Trap, Nat Brandt presents a very human account of the fire that killed over 600 people in Chicago's newly-built Iroquois Theatre December 30, 1903. It remains the worst fire in United State's history (p. 86). Brandt's fast-moving 147-page account covers the rush to build the theatre for the holiday seasons, the play Mr. Bluebeard and its players that was showing that tragic afternoon as well as a brief look at the theatrical syndicate system, the horror that was unleashed during the December 30 matinee, the rescue efforts, the aftermath, the fate of the Iroquois building, and a brief chapter on memorials to the tragedy. Brandt, for the most part, is very thorough in his account, particularly the technical workings and structural makeup of the theatre and its equipment including a detailed description of how the light that caused the fire worked (p. 30). He also puts the event in context with other fires in Chicago's history, a fictitious story in a 1875 Chicago Tribune about a theatre fire, and concern the Mayor of Chicago had regarding fire safety in theatres just a month before (pp. 8-9, 101).

A lot of names are mentioned in this book, but not just those of famous people like the owners and architect of the theatre and Eddie Foy, the comedian who tried to calm the crowd during the early stages of the fire. Brandt also describes the many ordinary people who would be victims of the lack of safeguards in the new theatre. As is mentioned early in the book, the shopping district where the Iroquois resided was seen as a safe haven for women and children and, during the matinee presentation, most of the audience comprised of women and children (over 400 of the 600 deaths were female). Sometimes it is difficult to keep track of all of the names, but the point being made of how horrible the tragedy was (bodies stacked ten feet high in front of locked exit doors) is clear no matter the names. Thirteen pages of photos of fire victims taken from a 1904 book seemed a bit superfluous and only interesting to those related to a victim. The first section of photos and illustrations showing the theatre's design and how it looked just following the disaster are more useful.

Although this book presents a very human account of the event, the most interesting aspect of the story, to me, were the scores of fire safety violations found at the Iroquois. "Sacrificing safety for beauty," exit doors were camouflaged by heavy drapes, buckets of water were not set near the stage, temporary exit signs were not up while the permanent signs were still being made, doors had confusing European style bolts that not even the staff knew how to work, and so on. The sky vents which would have caused the noxious fumes to lift out of the theatre were still bound and thus not operational. Witness saw the bindings to these vents being pulled after the fire (p. 117). Brandt should have explained the importance of the asbestos curtain better as "asbestos" is such an ugly word today. Asbestos was used for its fire proof properties and, only a few decades ago, projection booths in movie houses had an asbestos covering so that, if the highly flammable type film that was used at the time caught fire, only the projection booth would burn.

The Iroquois story proves very maddening as, though fire regulations changed in Chicago and throughout the nation because of the event, none of the people involved in the building of the play house and in its being cleared to open were punished. Aside from the initial shock, people like co-owners William Davis and Harry Powers and architect Benjamin Marshall were satisfied with the theatre's structure (it still stood) and, in the beginning, even blamed the victim's state of panic as the cause of so many lost lives (p. 97). Marshall went on to have a successful career and the Iroquois was not even mentioned in his obituary. What is even more disappointing is that so many memorials to the tragedy have been lost. Luckily, Brandt's book as well as several others are available so readers can learn about what happened on the current site of the Ford Center for the Performing Arts Oriental Theatre.

Remember the victims of this tragedy the next time you're in a public building and see an outward-opening exit door marked by a lighted sign. It took a tragedy of this scope to make these fire codes require these simple but incredibly important safety measures. I have a copy of the 1924 National Electrical Code, and several of its provisions can be directly attributed to the Iroquois fire.

This book is largely a more-coherent retelling of the information that was published shortly after the tragedy in a now extremely-rare book titled Chicago's Awful Theatre Horror. A great deal of inaccurate/incomplete information about this incident has been published; for example one book I own states that people found fire escapes to be uncompleted once they finally made it through the exit doors. A photograph of the alley behind the theater shows all fire escapes complete all the way to the ground. Fire from open doors farther down is actually what made some fire escapes unusable.

The infuriating thing about this story is that those responsible for the tragedy went completely unpunished. The theater's architect in particular was especially unrepentant.

Contrasting with their reprehensible actions were those of bystanders, police officers, firemen, newspaper reporters, neighbors, doctors, nurses, and medical students who all responded the moment they heard of the disaster. Many of them must have suffered longterm psychological effects of their experiences, but such conditions weren't even recognized, let alone treated in the early 1900's.

This book by mystery writer (and convicted murderer) Anne Perry was a huge disappointment to me. It's reasonably well written, and it helds one's attention for most of the time, but the end is horrible, it is unbelievable that a family would take a decision like that. The plot has Judah Dreghorn, a judge in a picturesque town in England's lake region, die mysteriously during one night while strolling in the countryside. His siblings (who all live around the world) receive the news while returning to the town for a Christmas family reunion. The family see one Ashton Gower as the main suspect, since he lost the property and was sent to jail by Judge Dreghorn on account of forging documents related to the estate. The property was eventually bought on the cheap by Judge Dreghorn. Now Gower is out of jail, and he is out for revenge. I knew (SPOILERS AHEAD, DON'T GO AHEAD IF YOU DID NOT READ THE BOOK) that Gower was innocent from the let go, but the denouement in the book is really terrible. A family accostumed to the high life would not give back the property as the Dreghorns do.

A CHRISTMAS VISITOR is a perfect book to take with you when you must wait during the holidays. Henry Rathborne, the father of Oliver Rathborne from the Monk series gets the chance to follow in Monk's footsteps.
Murder and family honor are at stake in the Lake County, but the twists of the story will surprise you.
A light reading for the holidays, when time is limited.
Nash Black, author of TRAVELERS and SINS OF THE FATHERS.

In this second of her Christmas parables, Anne Perry chooses to focus on Henry Rathbone, a minor character in her Thomas and Charlotte Pitt series. The book is short and easy to read. The mystery itself is somewhat confusing-- the issue regarding the date of property deeds took my slow little mind a while to catch on, but by the end I understood everything. If you are looking for a happy ending, you won't find it with this book, but the ending is a surprise and is a good morality tale. I have a feeling that in real life, it wouldn't quite end as simply as Ms. Perry would have it, but then, it is fiction.

Well, I will admit that I was a bit skeptical about Anne Perry's (former name: Juliet Hulme). I was turned off by the fact that this woman was convicted of murder as a teenager and felt it might taint my opinion of her writing. But, I went into the novel with an open mind and found that Ms. Perry is a talented writer and I look forward to reading more of her work. I recommend her books.

A Christmas Visitor is the second Christmas tale by Anne Perry. The first book, A Christmas Journey, was a nice book about redemption and forgiveness, yet had little to do with the Christmas season. In A Christmas Visitor, however, Ms. Perry's storytelling skills and the Christmas season take center stage. The story involves the suspicious death of Judge Judah Dreghorn and a house and property that he bought years before after a claimant for the property was sent to prison, by Judge Dreghorn, for forgery. Family friend Henry Rathbone travels to the Dreghorn home as does the surviving brothers and sister-in-law of Judah. The story is very interesting and the mystery is a nice puzzle. Ultimately, family and the spirit of the season are the most important elements of this very good four (4) star book.

The author has done a very good job on two fronts. One, he has dissected a complex area of corporate finance and made it readable to someone with a decent grasp of business. Considering the complexity of CAPM, and how far it stretched conventional wisdom, that alone would be good for 4 stars. However, Fischer Black was an extraordinary person, moving between academia and the practice of devising new financial instruments for Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs with an aplomb few could match.

If you enjoyed this book, then I heartily recommend Peter Bernstein's Capital Ideas as well.

Fischer Black's life and somewhat rebellious style of thinking are taken under the lens in Fischer Black and The Revolutionary Idea of Finance. Clearly written for those interested in economics and finance, the author illuminates the personalities, relationships and debates that drove Fischer Black toward his famous contribution to options theory. It interestingly highlights the important role Fischer Black's understanding of Jack Treynor's Capital Asset Pricing Model played in shaping his views of the investment universe and in developing the Black-Scholes Option Pricing Model.

Why not 5/5? While the author only indirectly points to Fischer Black's controversial insights and revolutionary attitude as a potential cause, we are left to speculate about the reason why he was not awarded the Nobel Prize. It would have made the story line more interesting to see this unfortunate outcome addressed.

Fischer Black was not only a revolutionary thinker, he was an eccentrically original human being. Professor Mehrling's biography is a clear, concise account of the development of modern finance, and also a richly detailed portait of a complex man.

This is a study of the recent history of finance economics, disguised as a biography. Not that there's anything wrong with that....

The revolutionary idea that Perry Mehrling has chiefly in mind in the title of this book is the capital asset pricing model (CAPM). Mr. Mehrling argues in a nutshell that for Fischer Black, the options formula that would make him famous and that would win two collaborators a Nobel Prize in economics in 1997 was but one application of this model.

A key theme of the book is that at least two "revolutions" have contended for mastery in the worlds of finance and economics, and that for a time in the 1960s the two revolutions, CAPM on the one hand and the efficient-markets hypothesis (EMH) on the other, appeared to be but two arrows in the same quiver. Only over time did it become clear that a choice might be required. Black opted for sticking with CAPM and reasoning from there, and Mehrlig approves of this choice, contending that Black was ahead of his time and that economics today is still struggling to catch up with some of the other inferences he drew from CAPM, in business cycle theory in particular.

Revolutions spring from unlikely sources.

Fischer Black was an unlikely revolutionary. He thought like no one else. While teaching, his colleagues attacked problems with formulas and models. Fischer Black did not. He opted to explore them from as many different angles as he could conceive. Once solved, he generated a formula. Solving problems this way, Black found he avoided formula-dictated thinking ruts.

His teaching style was bizarre. He got bored teaching regurgitated knowledge. In his view regular lectures were a waste of time. He developed an engaging teaching style by asking 50 open-ended questions. Combined with his insistence that students learn the language of finance, this interaction gave air to brilliant minds. Black cherry-picked great ideas. His students loved the vibrant seminars.

Fischer Black became famous for what he cared less about: the Black-Scholes option model. Options were just a passing interest. He cared more about Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) developed by Jack Traynor. He sought to apply it to economics.

He failed to leave a legacy in traditional economics. Fischer Black had degrees in physics and mathematics but no formal training in economics. In academia, he became recognized as forward-thinking in finance, but out of his depth in economics.

Robert Rubin, then the managing partner of Goldman Sachs, said it best when he sold his partners on the idea of hiring the academic Black.

"We will learn from Fischer," he is quoted by the author as saying, "and he will learn from us."

Fischer was egoless. He took rebuttals in stride. Open to change, he was an unapologetic believer in free markets. His unorthodox style sparked a revolution in the business of finance. His innovative thinking drove finance to the forefront of the science of economics.

Perry Mehrling has written a brilliant biography about a brilliant man.

The book is a masterpiece. However, it is extremely hard to read since it is in need of a re-translation.

I read this book over and over again for nearly ten years before I understood it fully. As I got older, its truth became more and more obvious. Now it stands as a testament against the present order of things, and how truly abnormal our modern world is. This book is the Holy Grail of books dealing with Tradition. I highly recommend it to those that are more than just "curious" about finding truth in a world that is quickly dissolving.

The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times is a masterpiece by the enlightened perennial intellectual René Guénon, and is considered by many of those who can comprehend it to be his magnum opus. That having been said, beware of reading this for the wrong reasons, or with the wrong grounding.

I cannot stress the latter point any further than it has been, but I must say this: If you have never read René Guénon before, do not read this book! To those without proper grounding in Guénon's other works, such as 'East and West' or 'The Crisis of the Modern World', this book will seem full of strange enigmas and asides, and things that may not, on the surface, appear to be related to the topic at hand. However, for those who have read and properly comprehended one or both of those, particularly 'Crisis', what is said here will make far more sense, a great many enigmas will be cleared up, and many things that may have seemed to be off-topic and/or useless information will be put in their proper place in the reader's mind.

I can say little that hasn't been said by other reviewers (or that Guénon didn't say himself!), so instead I would like to devote a few moments to do what they didn't, and clear up any doubts that may've been put in your mind by the two reviewers who didn't recommend 'The Reign of Quantity'.

To answer the one-star review, one person's inability to comprehend something does not make it a waste of your time and money if you can, and no, Guénon's references to the Indian and other revealed traditions are not at all out of place; he points to one unified Truth through all of them (and if you wonder how, when there are so many apparent contradictions between them, keep reading; they're not as contradictory as you might think), and understanding them all in this light is the key to everything Guénon teaches (one might leave it at 'the key to everything'), for he relates everything, as it should be related, back to the one universal Truth that guides all things. In fact, to have omitted the references he made to those revealed traditions would have been irresponsible: The real confusion would come by separating those revealed traditions which point to the Truth from the very Truth by which he makes his arguments; they are all interconnected, and must all be understood.

And as for the three-star review, René Guénon is not relentlessly negative. As other reviewers have stated, he is purely intellectual and not the least bit sentimental, and he is also describing the crisis and downfall of the modern world; the end of a Manvantara. The former may not sit well with many modern readers, since sentimentalism is so prevalent, but as another reviewer stated, "sentimentalism is nothing more than a transpose of a catatonic and truculent rationalism in which the Western man has been drowning since the tide of senility began in 14th century under the guise of 'Renaissance'", and to do the latter, that is, describe the downfall of the modern world, one can do little not to sound 'negative', although he actually does that very well: He describes it in a purely intellectual light, which may come out sounding 'negative' to some, but in the end stresses that the end of the cycle and the very 'malefic' influences he speaks of are nonetheless part of the universal Order.

As for his 'tortured prose', yes, his style of writing is rather unorthodox and can be difficult to get one's head around, but as a reviewer of 'Crisis' put it: "Guenon is probably one of the few authors who uses semicolons and colons more frequently than periods in his ultra-dense prose. His train of thought is difficult to follow but once concentrated upon closely it is apparent how insightful Guenon is explaining his subject." I would add first that part, but by no means all, of it has something to do with the translation. Even with that said, I must say that it is actually, while unorthodox, a wonderful style of writing that has influenced my own greatly. While there are many asides and the basic 'gist' may be made harder to grasp, his preference for stating things in full over 'cutting corners' to reduce wordiness help to explain his point with crystal clarity; to put it another way, he does not sacrifice content or meaning to simplicity (remember his words when he says that he's not trying to make his work accessible to the majority of readers, but to the Elect, and he compromises nothing in that regard; also, to those who've read 'Reign', recall his comments about simplification and modernity).

Also, his 'meaningless' asides are not so at all, unless you lack, as I've said before, a proper understanding of Guénon (read 'Crisis' first!). They serve to give a greater, fuller understanding of the subject, as opposed to the narrow, metaphysically-deprived critique that it would be without them. They also 'connect the dots', if you will, between his various works (in fact, many of them can be seen as a preparation for reading his other works, so if you don't plan to do that, yes, I suppose those of them are literally meaningless for you), and at any rate they enlighten those of us who care to understand his work beyond the topic at hand; they are, to those who understand him, actually a vast treasure-trove of information. His asides are by no means reduced in worth simply because one person cannot understand the author's reason for putting them there, and I hope that new readers of his don't take that comment about them to heart during their reading experience.

And with that, I end this review with an iteration of my dismay that I couldn't give this work 10+/5 stars for the author's brilliant insight and critique of the modern age that has stood fast against the quickly-changing tide of the modern world. René Guénon is quite possibly the most enlightened man to have lived since at least the dawn of the 'modern age' (by his reckoning; c. 1400), alongside other great thinkers such as A. K. Coomaraswamy, and his works shall until the end of our present Manvantara be a bonanza of wonderful information and metaphysics that have their base in the revealed traditional doctrines which, as Guénon spent his life doing, all point to the one universal Truth.

Because it is the most incomprehensible book I have ever tried to read.

I was originally triggered by the title, hoping this book would offer me insights from French philosophy relevant to Weberian issues around rationalization etc. It may be the case that someone in human history is able to establish whether this is the case or not.

For me this book has proven to be completely inaccessible twice now. It contains essays of app. 5 pages each, that usually are unclear, contain irrelevant and distracting references to unrelated issues (e.g. Indian mythology) and proceeds with pointless texts. A complete waste of time and money!

I must admit, it's taken me several tries to work my way through this. Guenon's use of quotes and semicolons to extend the length of phrases ranks here at an all time high. Many sentences here stretch for half a page.

That said, I'm convinced that may be the fault of the translator, as not all of Guenon's works are quite so bad in that regard.

Regardless, I won't dwell much in this short review on the topics of the book itself, for one reason alone: either you are already familiar with Guenon and his definition of Tradition, in which case you don't need my introduction to his ideas and thought streams, or else you are new to Guenon and to the Traditional.

If you fall into the former category, by all means charge ahead into this work and digest it. It will pay off. Quite a few of the chapters - Time Changed Into Space, The Fissures in the Great Wall, and Psychic Residues, to count several - are downright illuminating and thought proviking, provided you've had the proper grounding in Guenonian thought necessary to assimilate the contents of this book.

If you fall into the later category, do not start here. I cannot stress this enough. Between the enormous phrase structure and the complexity of the ideas here presented, you will be turned off. Start instead with the easier-to-digest 'Crisis of the Modern World' or perhaps 'East and West', and then come back to absorb 'Reign.' Your efforts will pay off in your ability to actually comprehend this book.

This book isn't about getting rich quick. If you're looking for a book to make you get rich quickly then this isn't the book for you! The book is more about exploring and identifying what type of personality and behavior you have, as the title explains itself. This simply reflects how you spend your money in real life. It also shows you how financially compatible you are with your partner and how to deal with money. As you married folks know, money is a big factor in marriages and can make or break a marriage! The book doesn't have simple solutions for fixing money problems, or some kind of plan. It's more of an informative book and leaves it up to you to figure things out.

Great Book! Wish I could have had these insights earlier. It's a must read for everyone seeking financial independence.

I am getting ready to get married, and my fiance and I both took the test and read the book. This is a great concept that will be invaluable as we begin our lives together!

A must read now for anyone who wants to discover how to unlease their financial psyche and improve their quality of life.

While reading this book, my wife and I each took the tests. After reviewing our "financial personalities", we had to wonder what different financial decisions we might have made earlier in our lives, as we are now in our mid-50's. Read it now and make those decisions or better yet, buy it for your children!

This is a five star book as are most of Ms. Perry's (except the WWI novels. I've never been able to get into them. My comment is prosaic at best but I couldn't let the anacronism pass. Tallulah Bankhead was the most famous of all the Tallulahs. In fact it is probably pretty certain there wasn't another Tallulah before her. Her father was the Powerhouse U.S. Senator from Alabama when his little girl was born and he named her Tallulah, a Native American name for a principal river in Alabama. So there is no way that Ms. Perry's character could have been named Tallulah. (It's still a five star read, tho.)

In the earlier books in this highly successful series about Detective Inspector Thomas Pitt in Victorian London, the author often got carried away with her fascination with the period and slighted the solutions to the mysteries she set up, in favor of sociological commentary. This is the sixteenth outing for Pitt and his wife and sister-in-law, and Perry seems to have finally reached a balance between period and mystery plot. It's 1890, Pitt has recently been promoted to Superintendent of the Bow Street station, and London society keeps ticking right along. In the poverty of Whitechapel, however, the torture-murder of a young prostitute gets Pitt's attention because a gentleman's club pin has been discovered beneath the body which implicates Finley Fitzjames, moneyed ne'er-do-well and son of a ruthless capitalist with lots of enemies. The investigation proceeds slowly, with Pitt sifting evidence, and finally comes to a conclusion with the conviction of the girl's pimp, who is then hanged. It all seems to be neatly wrapped up -- until the murder of a second prostitute, identical to the first. Did Pitt hang the wrong man? As always, Pitt's wife, Charlotte, and Charlotte's sister, Emily, poke their noses in, asking questions where Pitt cannot -- and, in fact, going too far by manufacturing misleading evidence. There's a certain amount of stylized melodrama, as in Jago Jones's dedicated ministering to the poor and Tallulah Fitzjames's ministering to him, but it's not too overdone.

I haven't read this book yet, but I really, really, enjoy Anne Perry and look forward to reading this book.

In 1890, two years after London roiled in the wake of the unsolved murders of Whitechapel prostitutes by a sexual misfit who called himself Jack the Ripper, the brutal slaying--in this case via strangulation---of yet another woman of the East End streets has society in a cold uproar. Shortly after beginning his investigation into this act of murder, Inspector Thomas Pitt finds clear evidence which links the killing to a young aristocrat named Finlay FitzJames. While the crime scene evidence is clear, Pitt is at a loss as to motive in the violent murder, heartily denied by the haughty and disdainful FitzJames, and while some among his superiors argue for an immediate arrest, Pitt's instincts tell him there is more to the matter than there seems. The plot soon mushrooms to dimensions unguessed-at in the early pages of this capable tale, and before she is finished here, Anne Perry delivers a story of long-fomenting hatred, bold revenge, diabolical plotting, and cold-blooded murder, all set in a convincingly recreated Victorian megapolis at the height of Britain's global empire.

Thomas Pitt is called upon to investigate the murder of a prostitute in the same part of London where the Jack the Ripper murders had occurred, in this page-turner. Pitt's services are required due to the political sensitivity of investigating the son of a prominent family. Although I had anticipated much of the conclusion, the final unfolding of events was nonetheless riveting.

In order to understand the primary characters, it is helpful to read some of the earlier works in the series first. That caveat aside, this is an enjoyable read.