Business Money Books

bought this book for my little bro, clear enough for a 10yr old to understand, informative enough to get the message through. Great book. I'd recommed rich dad poor dad for adults, as well as rich kid, smart kid (good for teens as well; the earlier the better)

My son asked right off the bat, why the pages aren't numbered and why is it falling apart. Same old Rich Dad messages.....I thought it was worth sharing with him. Pick it up at the library.

I ordered this book with a skeptical outlook. The other financial instruction books I purchased for my teen lasted all of ten minutes. This book arrived, she opened it, started reading, and didn't put it down until finished. She was so excited, she called me at work to tell me she had learned about assets, liabilities, expenses, and income. She said the concepts were so simple, she didn't understand why they aren't teaching this in school. Now, she's pointing out investments to me! Rich Dad actually got the attention and respect of a teenager. I'm very impressed.

Although in cartoons, as is happening to me, in my journey to financial freedom I need my wife to support me (sometimes there will be things most people won't get if they haven't read Kiyosaki before), and specially if your wife doesn't read this kind of literature, buy this book...for her! In less than an hour you'll understand the main message from Kiyosaki.

This is a children's comic book that presents kids with the information that goes way beyond "Save your pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves." There are also subtle lessons on values and ethics, too. It shows--pictorially, using two different styles--how a youngster can put the concepts they represent immediately to work. The book goes well beyond the "save your pennies" philosophy I was raised on. The book introduces terms that some kids never hear until they take their first economics class. I liked the presentation style that looks vaguely like a Tim Allen movie--artistic washes, subtle tones. Kids will love the brightly colored segments. More importantly--for the parents at least--they are sure to absorb some sound ideas about ensuring their own futures. The purpose of the book is clear: the sooner you learn to manage your money, the more you'll have to enjoy.

This book is very informative. It gives a lot of useful tips as to how to manage your finances and how to actually deal with your debts. I would recommend this book to anyone who is trying to figure out ways to managing their debts.

I have known Liz Weston for years as a journalist and have always found her to be very thorough and no-nonsense. This book is no exception. It's well researched with unbaised and sensible strategies for dealing with debt. I had the opportunity to interview Liz on my internet radio show EverydayWealthRadio recently about the book and she clearly has great advice on this topic. She addresses things like 401k loan, pros and cons of different types of debt, and the common questions I hear from consumers,

This book is full of great information on high to prioritize your financial life in terms of debt reduction, retirement saving and other saving. But the advice assumes the reader has a fair amount of discipline (i.e., ability to budget and constrain extraneous spending). The book goes into great detail on how to balance debt reduction with maintaining financial flexibility, maintaining good FICO scores, etc. But far too many people who are deeply in debt (and seeking help from books like this) have a spending habit that needs more drastic surgery than this book gives. So, I would say this book gives outstanding advice, but only for a subset of the public who have the right discipline. For many folks, the more drastic "surgery" advocated by cheerleaders like Dave Ramsey will be more effective.

I bought three debt books the last time I was at Amazon. They were all good, but this was the most comprehensive in easy to read format and sentences that it made things easy to develop a plan from this book. I already passed it on to two other people.

This book changed my life. It only took five years. I now have $0 bills and a nice nest egg. Just follow the advice in the book to the letter. I give this book to everyone I care about.

Her style is annoying and smarmy, but that's the least of it. Claiming it came to her "out of the blue," Mary Hunt stole her newsletter idea (and story ideas and some illustrations) from Amy Dacyzyn's Tightwad Gazette (Dacyzyn has records that Hunt subscribed to her newsletter from Dec 91 - 93; Dacyzyn corresponded with Hunt regarding obvious "copying" of ideas and illustrations but Hunt did not reply or attribute the source).* First called "Cheapskate Monthly" and now "Debt-Free Living," the preview issue on Hunt's website likewise presents unattributed ideas as Hunt's own (Heloise's vinegar hints, for instance). She advises you to buy a house at half the price that you can afford, make double payments so that you can pay off the mortgage in "about five years," and then sell that home and buy the house of your dreams. This is a program outlined in Ted Carroll's LIVE DEBT FREE (published 1991), which she cites (amazingly!) in "Complete Cheapskate" but claims as her own idea on her website. "Owning your home free and clear," she says, "...is what Harold and I are working on now." (Cough, cough! She's had plenty of time to put her plan into action, plenty of dollars to do it, and she's "still working on" it?!?) Meanwhile she has churned out an armload of books and regurgitated her ideas for every TV camera she can find. She doesn't have to practice what she preaches because she hauls in the dollars of the faithful through coaching seminars, books, and her newsletter (a $29.95 value, she claims, but if you check it out, you'll see it is a compendium of links to other sources, outdated quotations, and self-promotion).
I'm afraid that with the current economy, a lot of people will be tricked into shelling out for this kind of warmed-over hash. Check it out at the library, if you must, but don't buy it. I've found Ron Blue's Master Your Money to be a more practical, Christian and truthful resource. Amy Dacyzyn's work is the original (which is why she is so widely copied). Flylady.net has budgeting and checkbook hygiene advice; googling will provide more information than you can ever process. Why doesn't Mary just admit that the way she got out of debt and broke free from money worries was not by being a cheapskate, but by being a plagiarist?

*Sept. 1996, Issue 76, The Tightwad Gazette

This is a great primer for those getting started on a path to living debt-free, living on one income, or just trying to be fiscally responsible. Hunt talks about attitudes about money that can be helpful to take on, strategies for thinking about and reducing your debt, and lists a number of weighty cheapskate tips that I found very helpful.

The only odd thing about this book is that it mentions God a number of times and suggests titheing and other activities and attitudes that have to do with God, yet it does not mention God or Christianity anywhere on the front or back cover - I don't know why. I am not a Christian and so I just skipped over these parts, but I would have liked to know that I was reading a book based on Christian beliefs before I bought it, since it wasn't just the odd mention.

Other than that surprise, this is a book I'd recommend to those new to frugality.

Being the ultimate cheapskate I went to the library to look at this book to see if I would want to buy it. I am so glad I didn't buy it first. Everything in this book you can look up in the net for free. There are no suggestions that I haven't seen before.
If you are brand new to the frugal experience, save your money and do web surfing instead. You are already paying for that.

Loved this book. So many practical ideas for getting out of debt. Especially her rapid debt repayment plan. I appreciated Mary Hunt's inspirational story for motivation. It's a very useful book!

This is a good book but very esoteric. "What is History?" by E.H. Carr is an easier selection for the causal reader or someone beginning to study historiography.

My daughter, a freshman at Indiana University, e-mailed me a list of the books she needed. This was on it... I ordered it, paid for it, and had it shipped directly to her. It arrived sooner than expected, and before she needed it for class.

Great Job.

Julie K.

Highly Recommended.
This book is one of the best books ever written on the Nature and Aims of History. This along with his "Principles of History" should give most readers all they need to know about the how and why of history.
The book is extremely easy to read; harder to understand. Some criticisms of the book are not up to the mark, as for example complaints that Collingwood used Greek and Latin phrases in the book, and not everyone understands them. Most of the Greek and Latin are very easy to understand, any good comprehensive foreign phrase dictionary will readily yield them. In fact everyone at the Oxford of Collingwood's day, and nearly everyone who considered themselves a philosopher at that time, could read Latin, and most of them Greek. Don't complain because Kant wrote in German (and Latin and Greek), and that Collingwood writes British English (and Latin and Greek). His style is beautiful, the thoughts expressed profound.
One does not get Collingwood's complete philosophy in this book, and indeed, parts of it cannot be understood without reading his other works. I think particularly of his famous doctrine of "re-enactment" of past thought, which is best understood in the light of the chapters on language presented in his "Principles of Art" (Oxford, 1938). Much invalid criticism has been written by those who have assumed this meant some kind of mental telepathy or intuition.
This book, and everything Collingwood has written, will amply repay the thinking reader. He may, in fact, soon find himself armed with new philosophical ideas with which to think about the world.

R. G. Collingwood's The Idea of History would be more correctly classified as a work of philosophy than a work of history, as the primary goal of the work is to present Collingwood's philosophical conception of the nature of history. In terms of methodology, Collingwood's book can be divided into two main sections.
Parts I-IV are more historical as Collingwood traces the development of the practice of history. It begins with its Greco-Roman roots, examines the influence of Christianity, and moves on toward the development of modern scientific history, and finally finishes by examining the concept of history up to the then-present day. Throughout this first portion Collingwood does not directly present his philosophy, leaving it to the reader to infer it from his critiques of other historians. Part V is where Collingwood finally lays out his entire philosophy of history, fully elaborating what he only partially revealed in parts I-IV.

This is a very fine edition of Collingwood's magnum opus The Idea of History. It also includes two earlier papers on the philosophy of history, etc. Any student or scholar who studies the discipline of history will need this book, and should read it closely. Van Der Dussen's introductory essay is also very good. Highly recommended.

I was curious to experience the source of Rhonda Byrne's inspiration which ultimately led to the creation of The Secret. The reader must keep in mind that though well intended; some of his advice is outdated and not applicable to modern day lives i.e. skipping breakfast as not necessary for our bodies when science has proven the opposite to be true. Skip the chapters which do not apply and enjoy the rest of the book, it is most inspiring!

I read the science of getting rich long before I ever found this book. I was interested in finding the other books by the author. The insights provided inside are excellent and worth the read. As Mr. Wattles states you must study them and make them a part of you to get the most out of them. My issue is not with the information, rather it is with the presentation of the book. I was in Barnes & Noble and found their hard cover version of the book: it had a better presentation of the work, nicer print and nicer looking for $4 less, even if you got the free shipping!

Arrived sooner than expected; great condition.
Def would purchase from seller again
Great job!

I've heard so many contemporary books that ape the concepts put forward here, but if you want one of the original "self-help" books, this is it. Mr. Wattles info does sound a bit dated, but this predates "The Secret" or any other books of that genre, and I like it. Not only does this book cover three major subjects, but it does it in a simple, effective way. Get this, get enlightened; it's not a "secret" at all:)

This is an amazing book by Wallace Wattles, and was the very book which inspired Rhonda Byrne's journey which culminated in her staging the brilliant project phenomenon "The Secret". I highly recommend Wallace Wattles's compendium of three-books-in-one like this one I'm reviewing. It is ageless, and was written 97 years ago, and as relevant information today as it was then. It is ONLY for those who are really serious about changing their financial destiny.
The Secret of Rhonda Byrne or The Law of Attraction in the BibleThe Secret [UNABRIDGED CD] (Audiobook)

I bought this looking for a sequel to Lewis's highly entertaining LIAR'S POKER. What a disappointment.

Unlike the on-target and amusing later effort, drawn from Lewis's own experience, this little book of essays slides into editorial pontification and personal agenda point-of-view. One year as a junior player in the industry certainly does not make one an expert on all things, and that lack of perspective makes "The Money Culture" read more like a personal agenda driven act of hubris.

That, and so many of the vignettes are so badly dated that they have to be footnoted that "This piece was originally written in 199x" to keep them from looking like they were written with the benefit of hindsight but without the enlightenment history can provide. I thought at least the 2-3 page length of the essays would make this a good carry-along read, to pick up whenever I had a minute or two. Even that slid, to where by the end of the book they turned into much longer articles/chapters.

I had hoped for a prequel to the highly successful Liar's Poker, but was disappointed enough to now believe that Liar's Poker was probably a lucky fluke.

A very entertaining book, and it gives you a really great look behind the curtains of Wall St.

Michael Lewis wrote one of the great popular books about Wall Street, Liar's Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street. It is a classic of what life was like on Wall Street during the time when mortgage backed securities, something we're hearing a lot about currently, was just getting off the ground. He also wrote the bestseller Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, which is a great baseball book. This collection of pieces written right before and after Liar's Poker is all right, but it is not his best work.

I have a high tolerance for bad writing if I am interested in the subject manner, but even I had trouble getting through some of the early pieces in here. Perhaps Lewis had to get all this poor sophomoric writing out of his system before he could write decent books. If the pieces collected in Money Culture are what it takes to get to Moneyball, then so be it.

Still, from a reader's standpoint, don't bother with this one, read Liar's Poker and Moneyball instead.

Lewis has done an excellent job in this book .The conclusions are as relevant today(2008) as they were when the book was written in 1991.Only the cast of characters has changed.Lewis demonstrates that " ...success was money,and money was made with debt,tax games,,paper shuffling,and arrogance.The people listened.And an insidious side effect of the chrome-plated Reagan boom may yet to be fully realized :the average American has been left with a whole new notion of how to succeed ".(1991,p.135).Lewis's prediction has been verified consistently over the last 17 years .Americans now seek to live based on generating profits without production.The average American has been transformed into a housing/stock market speculator who thought that one could live on the equity that he/she could effortlessly cash out of the supposedly ever rising value of their homes and stocks.Homes were transformed into a financial asset or piggy bank that would fund the good life forever .Lewis essentially breaks up the book into a series of chapters that concentrates on discussing the individuals who helped create the speculator view of life.Lewis covers Ivan Boesky,Michael Milken,Henry Kravis,Leona Helmsley,Lousis Rukeyser,T Boone Pickens,etc.Lewis could have titled the book as " The Wall Street Crowd ".

There is one substantial flaw in the book.Lewis apparently accepts the badly flawed claims of Burton Malkiel.Supposedly," Malkiel first demonstrated the statistical truth of what he called "the narrow form " of random walk ... "(1991,p152;see also p.154 where Lewis states that he sees no reason not to accept Malkiel's claim).Malkiel's hypothesis is that price changes over time in stock markets can be correctly modeled as being normally distributed.Unfortunately,there is not a single piece of evidence supporting this claim.Benoit Mandelbrot has demonstrated continuously,since the late 1950's,that the time series data fits the Cauchy or Power Law Distibutions.The data does not come close to being either normally distributed or " approximately " normally distributed.You will not see a single goodness of fit test referenced in any edition of Malkiel's book.The Normal distribution can't explain the boom-bust nature of financial capitalism.The Cauchy or Power Law distributions explain the facts perfectly.

This is really a collection of essays Lewis wrote for magazines and newspapers, many of them before he wrote "Liar's Poker". As such they are a mixed bag both in content and writing style. Perhaps the most entertaining are his accounts of the coming of American-style finance and ambition to Europe, and I also enjoyed the essays on Japan. However other essays are best simply because they are short.

If you are a Lewis fan and want a little light reading, fine...read this book. If you haven't read his other books, go read those first.

I had no idea this book would be so informative. Very good read, changed my perspective.

This book is great and quick overview of how money became the physical currency of modern times. Starting with trade of goods, and then to shells and cocoa beans, and then to minted coins and finally to the form of paper money across various countries. While the complaints about specific historical event being wrong maybe true, the social aspects are the importants points of the book. With America, in the early times of the nation, the decision to use a decimal system ultimately impacted how numbers were used for other subjects outside of currency. This changed science and business. This book is very good and filled with interesting tidbits of trivia around the history of money.

This is the sort of book you get when an author writes on a subject with which he has only a passing familiarity, and lacks the confidence that the subject matter is inherently interesting enough to hold the reader's attention. The result is a book that is ultimately unsatisfying.

One symptom of the problems described above is that large portions are devoted to subjects other than money. For example, the author uses the first three pages after the introduction to describe Aztec ritual sacrifice in literally gory detail before proceeding on to the use of cocao beans as commodity money. I think that's meant to be what they used to call in show business a "grabber," but for the reader expecting to learn about money, it's a distraction. Another problem is that the author's grasp of modern economics is shaky at best, and especially in the latter part of the book, he'll make a point and then repeat himself, much as an undergraduate trying to extend the length of a term paper that's run a few pages short.

And yet, there's also some interesting and oddly convincing tidbits of information here. The author states that L. Frank Baum's 1900 book "The Wizard of Oz" is really a parable about the need for a bimetallic dollar based on both gold and silver. But even as it strikes you that this is an interesting bit of trivia, you realize that it's only a bit of trivia and has little larger significance.

If you're looking for a economic history of money, you should look elsewhere. If you're interested in the cultural and sociological impact of money, this may be more to your liking, though I think it still falls short.

I guess I only finished it becuase I always finish a book I start reading (especially if I paid for it).
It was so hard to read, the style is tiring, resembling a ranting inner dialogue more than a book on an economic category, even iof it is from a cultural and anthropological perspective!
At the end of the day I can say I know what Aztecs used for money (and how they tortured children to death as children's tears were considered some sort of "rain magic". damn, I REALLY DIDN'T WANT TO KNOW THAT!!!) and that coins were invented by Lydians (and a number of simiral pieces of information) but I also have a HEADACHE and am feeling frustrated and nauseated and extremely unhappy.
I don't think that is how you are supposed to feel after reading a book on history of money! I don't feel informed or enlightened at all.
Having read other people's reviews I guess accuracy of information presented (unless it refers to social or cultural aspects of money) might also be problematic?!

As many other reviewers noted, his history is shaky. Not only that, his anthropological knowledge and understanding of social fabric of many of the societies he reviewed are also weak. It seems that Mr. Weatherford wrote his book without always checking his sources, as if 'out of his head'. My personal favorite flop was his continuous insistence that Lydia was a country located by IONIAN sea. Has he checked his map? Ionian sea is on the other side of Greece and, naturally, modern Turkey in the region where Lydia was located has access to Aegean and Mediterranean seas. I am a little upset with writers who undertake to write sprawling historical analyses without having a solid historical base. He would have gotten a C- in my class. Still his style is entertaining and once you get used to inaccuracies and are willing to overlook them, then it could be an enjoyable read.

Re-reading this great book. Learning of the music industry's founding fathers helps to better understand and analyse the industry's current downturn.

OK, here's the deal... Are you thinking of getting into the music business? Trying to get your band signed? Becoming a songwriter? This book will discourage you beyond description, so read at you own risk. However it will allow you to go into the business of music with your eyes wide open. A good history lesson of the deal makers that launched rock and roll, R & B, pop, disco, etc. All happening before the digital age. Do you have a kid that wants to be the next American Idol? Want to discourage them? Get them this book!

I read it a while ago and have used the knowledge to my benefit. Though I haven't made a fortune writing music, I have managed to keep my songs mine and make vacation money.

Mr. Dannen has written a book that could have been written by any one of two dozen people. However, the others would have incriminated themselves, or wound up in a Nevada corn field with a bullet in their heads!!

Naming names and identifying specific dates, Mr. Dannen tells the majority of the truth about how things really work behind the scenes to make a song a "HIT". From the early days of "legal payoffs" to the "payola" scandals of the late 50s and early 60s, to the line item "marketing" expenses that major labels right off every day to cover the payments made to the corporate radio stations.

This book helps identify why great music never makes it to "Top 40" or CHR (Contemporary Hit Radio). Why great artists are left in the dark while "Casper Milktoast" acts seem to get played 12 times during drive time!!!

If you want to read a fact-filled book about how the music business and hit radio have created such an insestuous relationship, then buy this book. It is full of thrills, fear, anger, humor, big names and bigger deals. You'll love it.

In "Hit Men," Fedric Dannen offers a comprehensive look at the payola scandal that plagued major record labels and Top-40 radio stations during the 1980s. Dannen explains that a recession initially drove the major labels to hire independent promoters to gain a competitive advantage over smaller labels. The major label executives knew that these promoters were bribing radio stations to play singles, but continued to use them anyway. As payola grew, the major labels were forced to compete amongst each another for the services of these promoters, who kept sapping away greater portions of the industry's lifeblood. The book explains in detail why collective action against payola was extremely difficult to organize. In the end, federal law enforcement largely failed to punish the wrongdoers, allowing payola to continue long after the end of the 1980s.

In the late 1970s, the popularity of "Saturday Night Fever" led the major record labels to glut the market with disco. Many label executives believed they could impose limits on the number of records that retailers could return for refunds. Failure to impose limits hit the major labels hard, leading them to adopt questionable measures to keep their own artists on the airwaves. They hired independent promoters who eventually would charge as much as $100,000 to turn a single song into a hit. These promoters organized themselves into a loosely knit cartel, dividing the nation up into territories in order to monopolize individual radio stations. Dannen explains that their real power came from their ability to prevent songs that they weren't paid to promote from becoming hits. He gives several examples of songs that should've blown up on the radio, but didn't.

The program managers at the Top-40 radio stations were complicit in this scam. They were well aware that other stations took their cue from Top-40 playlists, and that people generally purchased albums containing songs they've heard on the radio. Top-40 stations typically received more than 200 new singles per week and wanted to play songs that they knew ahead of time were going to become hits. They began accepting cash, drugs, and other forms of bribery in exchange for playing songs pitched by independent promoters. Before long, songs by artists on smaller labels disappeared from the airwaves. The situation quickly spiraled out of control, with some independent promoters like Joe Isgro making more than $10 million per year.

Dannen explains that Warner Brothers was the first major label to take a principled stand against payola. Warner had waited for other labels to launch a boycott first, and was concerned about being undercut by competitors. CBS joined the boycott a year later. However, in one of the story's most disheartening developments, artists whose songs began to disappear from the radio raised a ruckus, effectively killing the boycott. Congressional investigators who sought information from label executives ran into a brick wall when independent promoters' mafia connections threatened to shakedown anyone who talked. An attempt by the RIAA to launch an investigation was quashed due to concerns about its inability to keep information out of the mafia's hands. Instead, it took excellent reporting by NBC Nightly News to get to the bottom of the story in order to shed light on the problem's sheer magnitude.

In the end, a string of procedural errors by federal prosecutors let many of the leading perpetrators off the hook. When the record executives finally endeavored to stamp out payola at the end of the decade, the artists again complained and began hiring independent promoters on their own. As payola continues to exist, Dannen questions whether forcing artists to pay for independent promotion instead of killing payola had been the music industry's goal all along.

In reading this book, one is struck by the dichotomy faced by major record label executives who complained about the problem, but declined to organize themselves for fear of short term economic losses. Readers will find their rhetoric to be similar to congressional leaders who complain about pork barrel spending. They repeatedly admonish such wasteful spending, but decline to do anything about it for fear of being voted out of office by angry constituents who want their share of the pie. Another example is OPEC, the international oil cartel in which member nations routinely undercut one another in order to line their own wallets at the expense of the group as a whole. Seeing how horrible the payola situation really was, it is small wonder that so many wonderful songs, like, for example, "Sheena is Punk Rocker" by the Ramones, never got their due on the radio.

My only quibble with "Hit Men" is that, at times, the book lacks focus. Dannen spends too much time on the personalities, philosophies, and leadership styles of the major players at the labels including Walter Yetnikoff, Clive Davis, Dick Asher, David Geffen, and others. The book would have been stronger if it had focused entirely on the problems caused by payola and suggested potential solutions instead. All in all, though, it is a fascinating account of what happened and sheds a great deal of light on why so many important artists never got their due in the public eye. Music fans everywhere owe Dannen an enormous thanks for ensuring that this story saw the light of day.

This book shook the music world when it was first released, which was when I first read it. I just recently picked it up and read it again, and it was still an equally mind-blowing experience.
What was with those guys? Why did they feel the need to rip off every artist to the maximum possible extent? Couldn't they still have been just as powerful, just as legendary, and very nearly as wealthy, if they'd paid the artists the few pennies per record or airplay that would have been their rightful compensation for creating the music that rocked the world and brought billions of international dollars into American coffers?
Whatever happened to Dennis Waitley and his "win-win" scenarios? You don't hear much about him any more. Perhaps his concepts were too anathematic to the American mindset. Whatever happened to the concepts of "noblesse oblige," and "from those who have received much, much is expected"? Whatever happened to "a rising tide lifts all boats"? Whatever happened to the Magna Carta, the Renaissance, the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and all the other movements that raised the world to the dizzying heights it once achieved?
I guess they've been replaced by that all-American concept, "whoever dies with the most toys wins."
As we watch the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and rising fuel prices cause the American dream to recede into the sunset while our beloved representative republic slips back toward medieval fuedalism; as we watch American corporations, once looted from without by corporate raiders, now being looted from within by greedy and/or incompetent executives with golden parachutes while their stockholders, employees and retirees have their lives decimated, we can at least hope that what we do here will stand forever as an example to the rest of the world of how NOT to live.
Osama bin Laden, in his famous "letter to America," called us the worst civilization the world has ever seen, wallowing in decadence and depravity and calling it the height of individual freedom. Could he have been right?
This book gives the reader a valuable opportunity to take a close-up look at one of the foundation pillars of our economy and our culture, and witness the process by which America is rotting from within.