Westerns Books

Professor Stancill, an icon at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business, shows a unique approach to entrepreneurial / mid-market finance. If you are looking for a traditional discussion of financial concepts get one of the the many fine textbooks on the market. But if you are are ready to "get down and dirty", especially if you intend to acquire a small business in an LBO scenario, apply the lessons learned from this book. Stancill applies street-smarts to structuring a deal, and he offers a hands-on, step-by-step approach that is easy to follow even by non-financial types.

I was lucky enough to be able to have Jim Stancill as one of my MBA professors at USC -- this book is a great book if you want to learn how to REALLY start a company. Specially for academics and non-business people, this is NOT your corporate finance book. This is how small companies start up and how to run a small company and even how to buy a company.

Marketing and branding all too often are looked down upon --- especially when it comes to issues of faith. In BRANDING FAITH, Phil Cooke explores the dos and don'ts of communicating your message in the modern age. As a television producer and media consultant, he has worked with a long list of clients and has been given a front row ticket to what connects with this generation and what does not.

Cooke recognizes that we're living in a media-driven culture. The ways that people get their information and evaluate it has changed dramatically in the last 20 years. Unfortunately, the church and many non-profits have failed to keep up with the rapidly changing landscape of communication and ideas. The result is that many great causes are not only losing their voice, they're getting lost in the shuffle.

Cooke writes, "The key to effective branding is that a successful brand isn't what you say it is; it's what they say it is. For instance, it doesn't matter if the local food bank is the best in the nation if word leaks out that it's giving away tainted produce. It wouldn't matter if you're a brilliant pastor if your congregation thinks you're a hack. And it certainly won't matter that a humanitarian organization is global if nobody's ever heard of it."

These kinds of challenging ideas penetrate the book, causing readers to reflect not only on the organization they want to promote but also the very words, design and ideas used to promote it. One of the best chapters, "Telling Your Story," looks at the taglines of individual advertising campaigns and the importance of understanding who you are so that you can effectively tell your story. Cooke is quick to remind readers that visibility is just as important as ability. After all, if no one knows you exist, it doesn't matter how excellent you are. The beauty of the chapter is that Cooke encourages you to find your "honest voice in the middle of the media madness." He wants you to discover you're real you and make that the basis of your branding and marketing.

Despite all of its strengths, the book does have a few weaknesses. Cooke has a tendency to repeat his information multiple times. At some points, the manuscript feels like it's drawn straight from one of his presentations and didn't make the full translation from spoken word to written word. While some of the conclusions drawn from his anecdotal evidence seem like a stretch, the vast majority offer colorful illustrations that display the issue well. A slight annoyance is that Cooke is all too quick to remind you that he is a speaker and a consultant, and that he has a busy schedule. But maybe that's the nature of marketing, and if so, it's well-displayed.

BRANDING FAITH is a must-read for anyone who works for a church or non-profit; there is much to be gained, discussed and thought about. The truth is that far too many books of this nature are available for non-profit and faith-based agencies. As a result, this title is a much-needed resource and I'm glad Phil Cooke tackled the subject.

--- Reviewed by Margaret Oines

This book is a must buy for any church who is serious about wanting to grow. Phil is a great writer with an amazing amount of info to share.

Ok, I've been in the marketing and branding biz for secular companies for nearly a decade before I began serving faith-based organizations. This is hands down the most foundational book on branding written exclusively for ministries. Phil was able to address one of the most critical areas of Christianity in our mass media culture and communicate how branding is key to a ministries success and its failures. If you are ministry leader, Pastor or media director-- don't bother with other books on branding-- you'll get the education you need to build from this book. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and it has helped me communicate to our ministry clients. Thanks, Phil.

I have worked with churches and nonprofits for my entire career and this author knows whereof he speaks. The resulting book is a valuable resource both for those who are marketing / communications professionals and for those who need to get brought up to speed very quickly. This book comes out of the authors real-life, hands-on experience with some of the largest and most successful ministries in the world. He is a guru, and this book is worth every penny.

Why Branding Faith? Simply put, because everyone has a story and most of us want to share it but we just cannot assume that everyone wants to hear it. In our culture today there are a myriad of people that have caught onto the fact that if you want to be noticed then you have to be able to position yourself relationally with those around you in order to effectively tell them your story. Sadly, most of us in the faith arena have wrongly assumed that since we have the "ultimate story" that everyone will want to hear it but we have failed to position ourselves in order to tell them. In this book, Phil Cooke does a good job of explaining not only how our culture has changed but how to effectively communicate our story to that culture. Buy it, read it, and position your story to be heard.

This was a well researched book. So I take it for pretty close to the truth. It gave a full and detailed impression of Jesse..Makes you really like him and find him quite interesting and intelligent. Gave an impression of how things were after the Civil War for most folks and the vast "kin" these people had. I thought it was also insturctive to find out what ever happened to Robert Ford. Yet, I felt that part of the book was a bit to long, even though new to me. In fact never even wondered what became of R. Ford. You will fully enjoy the funeral parts for Jesse.

I heard of the book through the film adaptation, and was amazed of the story that Hansen brought to readers. He does a fantastic job bring the old days of the American Wild West . Hansen shows the live of Jesse and his nature and the jealousy of Robert Ford. Hansen makes Ford appear timid at first but has him evolve into a dangerous mastermind.

This book is great for western readers and those who enloy novels that have been turned into feature films.

PARTY ON, DUDES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Look, I don't know how much of the "novel" THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD is true; I don't know how much of the dialogue and interaction and actions of the characters actually took place, or were embellished by a very gifted Ron Hansen.

But does it matter? The account of the final days of infamous outlaw Jesse James (and the subsequent final days of his killer) is "historical fiction", in any case (the definitive oxymoron, if you ask me). What does matter is this tightly written tale is as fun a read as I've come across in years. Hansen has vividly captured the flavor and pysche--and grit--of post-Civil War Americana. His prose recreates the flare and panache of the 19th Century dime novel; his book is heavily (and delightfully) populated by descriptive passages such as this:

'Zerelda gazed at Bob and mushed vegetables with zig-zag motions of her gums, her lips protruding like the clasp of a purse. She looked to Jesse and said, "I don't know what it is about him, but that boy can aggravate me more by just sitting still than most boys can by pitching rocks." '

Depicting the final train robbery of the notorious James Gang, followed by the band's break-up (and some of its members exited stage left involuntarily), THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD is a fascinating look inside the head of Jesse Woodson James--a calculating, diabolical killer, yet devoted and cherished family man. As a bonus, we get to climb around inside the head of Robert Newton Ford, an undistinguished nobody who yearned for attention. Surrounded by a cast of very colorful characters--most of whom die prematurely--this is a fabulous novel, an absorbing, entertaining read. Any truth, as they say, is somewhere in between.
--D. Mikels, Author, The Reckoning

Some readers might find some parts slow going, but this classic work remains an excellent introduction into how and why our understanding of the heavens (and ourselves) changed so radically following the work of Copernicus. Those interested in reading Kuhn's seminal and more famous "The Stucture of Scientific Revolutions" will enjoy reading "Copernicus" to see how his thinking grew from this earlier work.

I asked my son when he was 4 years old why the Sun moved across the sky over the day. He answered me "because the earth turns". This seems like an obvious answer even for a 4 year old, but 400 years ago his response would be meet with ridicule and even worse would be considered heresy. Thomas S. Kuhn is able to beautifully and logically describe from a scientific perspective the ideas and discoveries through the ages that lead to the enormous conceptual leap from a geocentric to heliocentric world. This alone makes this book a great read. But what I valued more from the book is Kuhn's revealing of the impact of the "Copernican Revolution" outside the scientific world. It's influence on religion, society and the entire scientific process is still felt today. The idea of a heliocentric universe was not only a great scientific theory, it was really a turning point in the human race and how we see ourselves in the universe. I would also recommend "The book nobody read" and "Galileo's Daughter" as more modern follow ups to "The Copernican Revolution".

Kuhn's The Copernican Revolution was written as a text for an undergraduate course in the intellectual history of science. As such, its approach is focused and temporally expansive. The drawback of such an approach is the deficit of analysis in key areas. The analysis of the Church's role in science during the late middle ages and Renaissance was rather one-dimensional, but this obviously is not Kuhn's focus. Instead, he would like the reader to realize that any set of data can be modeled to an infinite number of paradigms (in anticipation of Structure of Scientific Revolutions). The heliocentric argument solved some qualitative problems but was largely Ptolemaic in articulation. Its aesthetic and geometric harmonies were extracted by astronomers who could could apply a mathematical rigor to it, in a post-Ptolemaic tradition (Kepler and Newton).

Kuhn challenges the reader's imagination to decipher the heavenly phenomena in the same way Ptolemy might have, without being hampered by the technical minutia of astronomy. He writes so lucidly as to pick the reader up and drop him or her under the ancient sky, and to follow a long, through time. Paramount to Kuhn is the practical importance of astronomical data and the logic of its categorization.

Perhaps the most persuasive analysis that Kuhn endeavors is that of the progression of the Renaissance neo-Platonics: Brahe, Galilei, Kepler, Descartes, and the mutation of the Copernican system into Newtonian synthesis. In one sense, his analysis is very non-Kuhnian as it can't point to a singular moment, and involves more of a patchwork of adopting new features (that is until Newton).

A concise introduction to the evolution of astronomical thought from antiquity to newton and a compelling classic.

This is a great overview of the development of the Copernican system. The main text is very clear and readable and the "technical appendix" has good expositions of key mathematical arguments. Nevertheless, I think Kuhn's interpretation of "the Copernican revolution" has some shortcomings. Kuhn wishes the Copernican revolution to conform to his idea (as presented in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions) of a revolution brought on by a crisis: "[Copernicus'] famous preface still provides one of the classic descriptions of a crisis state" and "Ptolemaic astronomy had failed to solve its problems; the time had come to give a competitor a chance." But Kuhn does not support this position very well. For instance he writes: "When Copernicus listed the aspects of contemporary astronomy that had led him to consider his radical theory, he began, 'For, first, the mathematicians are so unsure of the movements of the Sun and the Moon that they cannot even explain or observe the constant length of the seasonal year.'" Here Kuhn is using a rather underhand trick. He is implying, of course, that this calendar issue was Copernicus' primary motivation, but fails to address two crucial counterarguments. First, Copernicus' preface is addressed to the Pope and he is clearly interested in emphasising that "my labors contribute somewhat even to the Commonwealth of the Church, of which your Holiness is now Prince," mentioning specifically how the calendar issue was a concern for Leo X, etc. Second, when Copernicus says "first...", he does not mean "first" as in "most important," for he continues with a "second" and then reaches "the chief point of all." This chief point of all is the fact that the Copernican model has a beautiful implication: the planetary distances. A geocentric model cannot give such information because we could scale the orbit of Saturn, say, to make it twice as big and it would still look exactly the same seen from earth. But in a heliocentric model the distances are determined because if we scaled the orbit of Saturn then it would look the same seen from the sun but different seen from earth. So with the earth in the center we cannot determine planetary distances because we are the center of scaling, but with the sun in the center we would notice scaling and thus the planetary distances are locked, or, as Copernicus puts it, "this correlation binds together so closely the order and the magnitudes of all the planets and of their spheres or orbital circles and the heavens themselves that nothing can be shifted around in any part of them without disrupting the remaining parts and the universe as a whole." Thus he can claim triumphantly that earlier astronomers "have not been able to discover or to infer the chief point of all, i.e., the form of the world and the certain commensurability of its parts. But they are in exactly the same fix as someone taking from different places hands, feet, head, and the other limbs---shaped very beautifully but not with reference to one body and without correspondence to one another---so that such parts made up a monster rather than a man." (I'm using the translation from Goldoni's excellent article in the Mathematical Intelligencer.) Kuhn admits that the Copernicus' determination of the planetary distances is "crucially important" but dismisses it as the main reason for the acceptance of the theory: "'Harmony' seems a strange basis on which to argue for the earth's motion... Copernicus' arguments are not pragmatic. They appeal, if at all, not to the utilitarian sense of the practising astronomer but to his aesthetic sense and to that alone. ... New harmonies did not increase accuracy or simplicity. Therefore they could and did appeal primarily to that limited and perhaps irrational subgroup of mathematical astronomers whose Neoplatonic ear for mathematical harmonies could not be obstructed by page after page of complex mathematics leading finally to numerical predictions scarcely better than those they had before." The correct reading---beauty before truth---is staring Kuhn in the face but he refuses to recognise it, opting instead to dismiss Copernicus as "strange" and Kepler as "irrational."

"The Copernican Revolution" tells the epochal story of how the earth-centered cosmology of Ptolemy was replaced by the sun-centered cosmology of Copernicus and Kepler. The book is a classic. Kuhn understood how ideas influence each other and hang together in a system. He could write with equal erudition about observational astronomy, medieval theology, astrology, and Aristotelian physics.

"The Copernican Revolution" is a trove of historical and intellectual insights. Perhaps the main lesson is that scientific progress is not a simple matter of theory being adapted to observation. Multiple theories can account for the same observations, theories have complex non-observational bases of support, and extra-theoretical assumptions provided by "common sense" (such as the immobility of the earth) can be highly contingent products of a culture. Scientific progress is never guaranteed. Erroneous theories -- such as the theory placing the earth at the center of the universe -- can hold sway for centuries and generate a vast body of supporting evidence, only to fall out of sync with new observations and a new climate of opinion -- at which point they can hang on tenaciously, or collapse "suddenly" over the course of a generation or two. It all comes down to history.

Kuhn's great contribution to thought was to situate the history of science within the history of ideas -- he treated scientific theories as the products of cultures, institutions, and sheer accidents, not as deliverances of pure logic. "The Copernican Revolution" is fantastic and should be ready by anyone who enjoyed and learned from "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions." It's become fashionable to bash Kuhn lately but his books have a secure place in the canon of history and philosophy of science. Six stars!

I'm surprised ar some of the two or three stars for this awesome ending to such an amazing fictional family series. I've had this book for years now and I know that I can always go back and read this and not be disappointed.

I think she spaced out the dual romances very well and I think it helped that each couple is on their own journey in a way. I love a story with a cute child or baby in it and I just think that Caleb is a delight to read about and imagine. I have to say I am more interested in Cole's part of the story than Ryan but that's mainly because I knew him from the other novels in this series.

I think that the murder mystery was very well done and well described and I think most readers will be surprised by some of the twists and turns in the mystery.

My only quibble with the series is how little Mama Rose got to say in all of the novels not just this one.

I think Julie Garwood is one of the best writers in the field of historical romances and if you want a sexy, funny, romance with history and a little of her more murder mystery inclined stories then I think you should give this novel and the other novels in this series a shot, you won't be disappointed.

I have enjoyed many of Julie Garwood's novels, including "For the Roses", the beginning of the Clayborne series. While I have to admit that I skipped "One Red, One White Rose", etc. about the other brothers; this one interested me because it was about Cole. He was my favorite brother in the original book. Unfortunately, "Come the Spring" is very drawn-out and predictable. The title doesn't even apply to anything, except a quick statement made in the last chapter (an after-thought?) Maybe it was just the narration by Richard Ferrone that turned me off, but I found my mind wandering. It was clear to me who the female villain was from early on. While Cole and Daniel were compelling in their parts as lawmen, the romance part of the book is disappointing. After all the passion in "For the Roses", this book was just lukewarm in that category. Maybe it was because there were too many characters. Oh well, Julie is still one of my favorite authors, but this one is not up to par with her others.

I really enjoyed the character of Cole from the first books. I am glad I have my own copy of Come the Spring in hardcover. It is just so enjoyable. I am pleased. The only reason I do not give it a five is there are a couple of predictable moments, but they are enjoyable.

Usually Julie Garwood makes you laugh and warms your heart. She delved into the arena of thriller as early as "Castles" and came along nicely with it in the opening of "Come the Spring". Sadly, she seemed to forget how to write her humorous and charming relationships along the way.

Trying to do a dual romance in this novel was a mistake. Time was taken away from both relationships such that one loses interest in either one. That leads a lacking dramatic finale because you just don't care.

The writing appeared exceptionally juvenile in places where humor was intended.

It was a nice try and I applaud an author wanting to grow her talent, but this Clayborne series never should have left the editor's desk. "Come the spring" was half-baked at best.

Let me tell you up front, if you are looking for more of the Claybourne's in this book, you will not get it. The focus of "COMES THE SPRING" is capturing the Blackwater Gang. We start off with the bank robbery scene, and the identity of the witness is a mystery. Julie does a very good job in hiding who the witness is, until it is revealed.

We finally get the story of Cole Claybourne, the most "rough" of the Claybourne brothers. Cole is made into a U.S. Marshal by Marshal Daniel Ryan, who supposedly stole his compass from Mama Rose. Little is known about the compass that causes Cole to search for Ryan, and this plot does not follow in the book.

I thought Jessica and Grace were very good heroines. Jessica was really the perfect match for Cole, loving and in need of his care. The baby, Caleb, was also very adorable throughout the book. Grace was the exact opposite of Daniel Ryan's first wife, which proved to be a challenge to the Marshall to figure her out. While I enjoyed the chemistry with Grace and Daniel, I was a little disappointed that Cole did not have a story all to his own. I thought his character deserved more.

Overall "COMES THE SPRING" is a good end to the series. I would recommend it to anyone who has followed the Claybournes since "FOR THE ROSES." Mama Rose's speech at the end did not bother me, as it did some reviewers, because we really don't hear a lot from her, but we know she has been behind the meddling. Definitely read this book, it's worth the time.

boring book but easy to understand, by the way I like the seller that I picked

Written by our professor this is a good book. Easy to read and technical enough for some complicated work.

I am a computer scientist with some interest in personal finance, and I was looking for a book that can provide both practical descriptions of modern investment instruments as well some theoretical insight into how the instruments are valued and operated. For me, investment is an interesting and highly useful branch of applied mathematics.

I spotted this book on my wife's book shelf (she bought the book for her MBA class), and found it exactly what I want. The book covers major categories of investment options, including stocks, bonds, options, futures, money market instruments, and mutual funds. The book begins by describing these instruments in general, and then dive into details on each instrument. The majority of the book is devoted to stock analysis but it also covers the most important concepts for other instruments.

If you are looking for a simple investment cook book, I would recommend Eric Tyson's "Investing for Dummies", which does not go into detailed mathematical models. However, if you are someone interested in deeper math theory, then this could be a good book for you. For example, I highly enjoy the chapters on modern portfolio theory and fundamental analysis, as well the equations for calculating bond durations and volatility. On the practical side, I am also delighted that the book taught me something complimentary to what I have learned from other sources and personal investment experience.

This is certainly not a perfect book. One major problem I found is that the authors sometimes do not give enough explanation of the math equations, or explanations are given in verbose English which can be tersely stated in a few equations. For example, in discussing the volatility of time diversification, the authors tried to explain that even though the variance of average annualized return tends to reduce with longer investment horizon, the variance of actual dollar return actually increases. In my first reading of this portion, I was confused by this apparent paradox (in plain English), but later I realized that this can be explained by a simple exponential equation; if the final return is R(t, r) = exp(t times r), where t is the number of years in investment and r is the annualized return, then decreasing variance in r while increasing t would actually increase the variance of R(t, r).

Let me stop here before I started to get too nerdy with my review. But overall, I highly recommend this book. I know it is a little bit pricy, but hey, I read it for free anyway.

This comprehensive text is arranged in a modern way with study guides and review questions at the end of each chapter to make sure that you are understanding the concepts. It offers the option of Homework Xpress!, an online method of completing the end-of-the chapter exercises via the internet. Unfamiliar terms are bolded and definitions are highlighted. Each section of the chapter has a box that describes the material that you should have learned from reading the earlier section.