Book Description
The bestselling Revenge of the Sisterhood series concludes -Yoko Akia has been hungering for revenge all her life, and now, finally, it is time. Yoko's mother was just fifteen when a rich American deceived her into a life of degradation in a twisted prostitution ring. She died aged seventeen after bearing her baby girl. Now a great movie star, he is long overdue some justice. Yoko, with the aid of her beloved friends, must punish her father.
Customer Reviews:
exciting thriller .......2007-10-08
The Sisterhood selects Michael "Mick" Lyons as their next target. In Japan over three decades ago, Michael purchased the mother of member Yoko Akia from her parents promising a good life for their offspring in America. Instead he used her as part of his prostitution ring; selling her as an exotic hooker until she became pregnant with his child. The irresponsible hedonistic movie mogul dumped her expecting her to die. That child Yoko survived and as an adult seeks vengeance for her mom.
The Sisters begin their diabolical plot of vengeance by exposing for the world especially his circle the sleazy dealings of Lyons and some of his cronies. As they carry out their scheme, the Sisters know they must be vigilant as the police seem to be closing in on them.
The latest Sisterhood SWEET REVENGE PAYBACK to bring LETHAL JUSTICE to those who have gotten away with crimes against women is an exciting thriller with this time being Yoko's VENDETTA. The story line is action-packed as the fearsome feminists plot to destroy Michael and his VIP male cohorts. The plot, as is the norm in this fun series, seems implausible, but no one will care as everyone will root for Yoko to destroy her biological father.
Harriet Klausner
Always and adventure.......2007-06-27
Loved the finale of this series. Fern Michaels never disappoints. Looking forward to a follow-up series.
awesome series.......2007-06-26
Fern Michales writes a great story. The Sisterhood series is one that I read while in Hawaii, yes all seven of them.
Free Fall.......2007-06-08
Free Fall is the last book of The Revenge of The Sisterhood.
I have enjoyed everyone of them and I'm sorry this one is the
last one.
Once you start reading you cant put the book down until you get to the end.
Free Fall.......2007-06-08
I was very disappointed in this book. Felt like I was reading Nancy Drew. Would never buy this author again.
Amazon.com
On September 23, 1998, the boardroom of the New York Fed was a tense place. Around the table sat the heads of every major Wall Street bank, the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, and representatives from numerous European banks, each of whom had been summoned to discuss a highly unusual prospect: rescuing what had, until then, been the envy of them all, the extraordinarily successful bond-trading firm of Long-Term Capital Management. Roger Lowenstein's When Genius Failed is the gripping story of the Fed's unprecedented move, the incredible heights reached by LTCM, and the firm's eventual dramatic demise.
Lowenstein, a financial journalist and author of Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist, examines the personalities, academic experts, and professional relationships at LTCM and uncovers the layers of numbers behind its roller-coaster ride with the precision of a skilled surgeon. The fund's enigmatic founder, John Meriwether, spent almost 20 years at Salomon Brothers, where he formed its renowned Arbitrage Group by hiring academia's top financial economists. Though Meriwether left Salomon under a cloud of the SEC's wrath, he leapt into his next venture with ease and enticed most of his former Salomon hires--and eventually even David Mullins, the former vice chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve--to join him in starting a hedge fund that would beat all hedge funds.
LTCM began trading in 1994, after completing a road show that, despite the Ph.D.-touting partners' lack of social skills and their disdainful condescension of potential investors who couldn't rise to their intellectual level, netted a whopping $1.25 billion. The fund would seek to earn a tiny spread on thousands of trades, "as if it were vacuuming nickels that others couldn't see," in the words of one of its Nobel laureate partners, Myron Scholes. And nickels it found. In its first two years, LTCM earned $1.6 billion, profits that exceeded 40 percent even after the partners' hefty cuts. By the spring of 1996, it was holding $140 billion in assets. But the end was soon in sight, and Lowenstein's detailed account of each successively worse month of 1998, culminating in a disastrous August and the partners' subsequent panicked moves, is riveting.
The arbitrageur's world is a complicated one, and it might have served Lowenstein well to slow down and explain in greater detail the complex terms of the more exotic species of investment flora that cram the book's pages. However, much of the intrigue of the Long-Term story lies in its dizzying pace (not to mention the dizzying amounts of money won and lost in the fund's short lifespan). Lowenstein's smooth, conversational but equally urgent tone carries it along well. The book is a compelling read for those who've always wondered what lay behind the Fed's controversial involvement with the LTCM hedge-fund debacle. --S. Ketchum
Book Description
John Meriwether, a famously successful Wall Street trader, spent the 1980s as a partner at Salomon Brothers, establishing the best--and the brainiest--bond arbitrage group in the world. A mysterious and shy midwesterner, he knitted together a group of Ph.D.-certified arbitrageurs who rewarded him with filial devotion and fabulous profits. Then, in 1991, in the wake of a scandal involving one of his traders, Meriwether abruptly resigned. For two years, his fiercely loyal team--convinced that the chief had been unfairly victimized--plotted their boss's return. Then, in 1993, Meriwether made a historic offer. He gathered together his former disciples and a handful of supereconomists from academia and proposed that they become partners in a new hedge fund different from any Wall Street had ever seen. And so Long-Term Capital Management was born.
In a decade that had seen the longest and most rewarding bull market in history, hedge funds were the ne plus ultra of investments: discreet, private clubs limited to those rich enough to pony up millions. They promised that the investors' money would be placed in a variety of trades simultaneously--a "hedging" strategy designed to minimize the possibility of loss. At Long-Term, Meriwether & Co. truly believed that their finely tuned computer models had tamed the genie of risk, and would allow them to bet on the future with near mathematical certainty. And thanks to their cast--which included a pair of future Nobel Prize winners--investors believed them.
From the moment Long-Term opened their offices in posh Greenwich, Connecticut, miles from the pandemonium of Wall Street, it was clear that this would be a hedge fund apart from all others. Though they viewed the big Wall Street investment banks with disdain, so great was Long-Term's aura that these very banks lined up to provide the firm with financing, and on the very sweetest of terms. So self-certain were Long-Term's traders that they borrowed with little concern about the leverage. At first, Long-Term's models stayed on script, and this new gold standard in hedge funds boasted such incredible returns that private investors and even central banks clamored to invest more money. It seemed the geniuses in Greenwich couldn't lose.
Four years later, when a default in Russia set off a global storm that Long-Term's models hadn't anticipated, its supposedly safe portfolios imploded. In five weeks, the professors went from mega-rich geniuses to discredited failures. With the firm about to go under, its staggering $100 billion balance sheet threatened to drag down markets around the world. At the eleventh hour, fearing that the financial system of the world was in peril, the Federal Reserve Bank hastily summoned Wall Street's leading banks to underwrite a bailout.
Roger Lowenstein, the bestselling author of Buffett, captures Long-Term's roller-coaster ride in gripping detail. Drawing on confidential internal memos and interviews with dozens of key players, Lowenstein crafts a story that reads like a first-rate thriller from beginning to end. He explains not just how the fund made and lost its money, but what it was about the personalities of Long-Term's partners, the arrogance of their mathematical certainties, and the late-nineties culture of Wall Street that made it all possible.
When Genius Failed is the cautionary financial tale of our time, the gripping saga of what happened when an elite group of investors believed they could actually deconstruct risk and use virtually limitless leverage to create limitless wealth. In Roger Lowenstein's hands, it is a brilliant tale peppered with fast money, vivid characters, and high drama.
Download Description
John Meriwether, a famously successful Wall Street trader, spent the 1980s as a partner at Salomon Brothers, establishing the best--and the brainiest--bond arbitrage group in the world. A mysterious and shy midwesterner, he knitted together a group of Ph.D.-certified arbitrageurs who rewarded him with filial devotion and fabulous profits. Then, in 1991, in the wake of a scandal involving one of his traders, Meriwether abruptly resigned. For two years, his fiercely loyal team--convinced that the chief had been unfairly victimized--plotted their boss's return. Then, in 1993, Meriwether made a historic offer. He gathered together his former disciples and a handful of supereconomists from academia and proposed that they become partners in a new hedge fund different from any Wall Street had ever seen. And so Long-Term Capital Management was born.
Customer Reviews:
Illuminating and Fascinating Business Classic.......2007-10-07
Roger Lowenstein's 'When Genius Failed' has been justly acclaimed as a business classic. In the wake of the 2007 credit crunch, Lowenstein's riveting study of the 1998 collapse of Long Term Capital Management (LTCM) retains its relevance and has much to teach market observers.
Ironically, LTCM had much going for it. The firm was founded by savvy Salomon Brothers veterans, and its luminaries included Nobel Prize winner Myron Scholes, the creator of the acclaimed Black-Scholes options pricing model. LTCM was also established on the premise of hedging risk and thereby minimizing financial loss.
The unraveling of LTCM, lucidly and compelling depicted by Lowenstein, has many parallels with the subprime mortgage meltdown of 2007:
--An unwavering faith in financial engineering, coupled with the erroneous belief that financial structures will protect against substantial losses.
--The insatiable search for higher yields in crowded markets, which ultimately drives even savvy managers to investments with unfortunate risk profiles.
--The use of significant amounts of borrowed capital to boost returns. Sadly, the use of leverage forces the rapid liquidation of positions to repay lenders during declining market conditions, excarbating market slides and the withdrawal of credit.
--Hubris. Hedge fund managers and successful traders tend to get overconfident after a run of good luck, leading them to take riskier positions with borrowed capital.
Together, these factors led to the downfall of LTCM and to the 2007 subprime meltdown.
Kudos to Roger Lowenstein for demystifying the arcana of derivatives trading and the Black-Scholes model-- if you want an account that describes these subjects lucidly, this is your book. As well, Lowenstein offers a riveting depiction of the 1998 market slide that sent LTCM reeling toward insolvency, and the rescue events coordinated by the Federal Reserve and undertaken by an international capital consortium.
Bottom line: a five star financial read that maintains its relevance.
Incredible story.......2007-10-06
Two things make this a great book: a riveting story (losing hundreds of millions a day is mind-boggling) and excellent writing. Roger Lowenstein, first of all, is a master of using analogies explain complex things, like financial derivaties and how the big investment banks operate. Long Term Capital Management was a gang of complex gamblers (including a couple of Nobel Prize winners to boot) that employed equations and theories from the academic world of finance to build an enormously successful hedge fund that sucked in the big banks of Wall Street. Lowenstein details the rise of LTCM (it seems it had to have taken place with an interesting mixture of Luck, Smarts, and Arrogance) and their massive and rapid failure with a cadence that makes it difficult to put the book down. When Genius Failed offers a glimpse into the world of big-time finance and the unrepentant and bizarre characters that it attracts (the money these guys rake it in and how they do it will stun you if you aren't familiar with Wall Street). Highly recommended - even a decade after the collapse of LTCM!
great book.......2007-09-20
Great read. Didn't want to put it down and finished it in a few days. Great to read how these smart guys lost all their money by being too greedy. Thumbs up for sure.
A fantastic tale of risk, reward and rue.......2007-09-20
It's a wonderfully written account of a remarkable risk taking adventrue crafted by the best of wall street's arbitrage mavens and acclaimed academic laureates. Author has done a supreb job as a slueth who followed the trail that aparantly divulged very little about its journey into the financial debacle that could've brought the whole financial world down. Throughout the work of the author, one can perceive the vastness of his research into this matter, his depth of knowledge in the world of arbitrage and his exquisite story telling skill.
He portrayed each character with great care that went above and beyond what I expected. Though at times the deatils seemed a bit overwhelming and unnecessary, it was enjoyable nonetheless.
Besides gaining a great deal of knowledge about bond trading, risk arbitrage and about all the parties associated with it, it also gave me a good picture about the human inter-relations that plays into the rise and fall of such wall street ventures. One thing I wanted to see in this book is Greenspan's involvement and opinion on this. But, not sure why his role in the shoring up of LTCM wasn't covered. I earlier read a book on Greenspan where his rebuttal on the criticism of Fed's involvement with the bail out LTCM was deatiled. I expected Lowenstein to cover this as well.
I first came across the story of LTCM from Taleb's "Black Swan", then went to wikipedia to know more about it, and finally got a hold of this book and I'm glad that I did. I love real life stories where turns of events and drama unfold from the work of an invisible hand, not from that of a gifted writer. I would love to see the story of LTCM on big screen one of these days. I caught a glimse of the NOVA's episode "The Trillion Dollar Bet [2000]" which covered LTCM, but I couldn't get a hold of the full content.
It's a must read for anyone who has interest in wall street, business, risk and how they all work. Lowenstein is a great writer in my opinion and I will move on to reading his pervious work on Buffet.
Great insight into market movements.......2007-09-12
The LTCM story is fascinating, and Lowenstein makes clear enough what kind of 'hedging' they were doing. The most valuable details to me were the intertwining of instituions and trades. I thought it illuminated how forced trading and fear can spread. Also captures the mood of the nineties well, I'd like to find detailed history of other market eras.
And from an academic viewpoint, his discussion of 'fat tails' was great.
Customer Reviews:
Falling Out of Love.......2007-08-03
Face it ... when you buy this book on how to fall out of love, chances are you are hurting. This book takes a behaviorist approach to breaking an obsessive connection to a person who you still love but who, for whatever reason, is no longer available to you.
There's an old joke that says that every time a dog salivates, a behaviorist psychologist somewhere has to quick run and ring a bell. But there is this ... the behaviorist approach can have quick positive results in certain situations, and rescuing people from helpless love is one of those situation. Other books on this topic seem to spend all their time endlessly describing the behaviors of people who are compulsive-obsessive about someone. This little book gets right down to cases, giving guidelines for a step by step practical program to help get your mind off that "special person" who occupied it hundreds of times a day.
Beginning with this technique of "thought stopping", the authors continue with a series of steps to take the reader through the process of breaking the old connection and forming a connection with a new partner successfully. Those who love obsessively have experienced the terrible situation where the former lover that you can't forget becomes a "third wheel" on a new romance. This book shows, step by step, how that can be prevented as well.
All in all, a very good practical approach to a vexing problem that many people who love deeply will face at some time in their lives.
Helped me.......2006-09-02
This book helped me a great deal with my own relationship problems. I also reccomend Confusing Love with Obsession by John D. Moore
Hard hitting.......2006-03-30
This is a good book for getting an unproductive or destructive relationship out of your head much more quickly and permanently than time alone will. Be sure you want to before you start. There's even the possibility you could become "just friends" without wanting to repeat past mistakes.
The authors warn you up front, there are some raw psychological approaches used here, where you deliberately change your view of a person. Moving from adoration, to silliness, to outright ugliness if need be, you reverse the "attractive" thought processes that get us so caught up in the first place. If you keep an open mind and just do it you may be surprised at the results. Mr./Ms. unshakeable weren't always up on a golden pedestal and if you know they shouldn't be, this is your chance to quit reinforcing it, break it down, and move on to better things.
Very insightful really hit home.......2005-12-09
I actually found this book in the free donated books section of the library and I needed help with this subject. I was skeptical at first but in reading it, I was amazed at how close the ideas in the book hit home. I started trying them and they are working.
This is an excellent book, it may not help everyone but at the price you can find this for used here, why not give it a try. For me, it was brilliant.
Clinical to say the least.......2005-11-12
I think this book has a heart that is in the right place, but I just couldn't get on board with some of the messages (see review below me!).
I did find a forum online that was very helpful to me and an ebook that helped me to deal with my breakup. I recommend
The BreakUp Workbook as well as their forum to help you deal with a man that has wrecked you!
Book Description
"Magisterial history...one of the most comprehensive histories of modern capitalism yet written."—New York Times Book Review
In 1900 international trade reached unprecedented levels and the world's economies were more open to one another than ever before. Then as now, many people considered globalization to be inevitable and irreversible. Yet the entire edifice collapsed in a few months in 1914.
Globalization is a choice, not a fact. It is a result of policy decisions and the politics that shape them. Jeffry A. Frieden's insightful history explores the golden age of globalization during the early years of the century, its swift collapse in the crises of 1914-45, the divisions of the Cold War world, and the turn again toward global integration at the end of the century. His history is full of character and event, as entertaining as it is enlightening.
Customer Reviews:
HAPHAZARD NARRATIVE; AUTHOR HAS VERY WEAK UNDERSTANDING OF SUBJECT MATTER.......2007-06-21
Of all the many books that have come out in recent years about global capitalism, finance and economics, this is certainly the worst. The author, a professor of government at Harvard, professes to specialize in international monetary history, but is really what his tenure title says he is, a professor of International Peace. He appears to be trying to reinvent his career by tackling the subject of capitalism but thoroughly lacks understanding of the subject matter, as made evident by his book.
1. The author makes the same mistake that virtually all political science professors do when they write about capitalism: he glorifies the gold standard, he glorifies the Rothschilds and glorifies everything that had nothing to do with the emergence of twentieth century capitalism. The author is using his expertise in international relations to analyze a subject that is really never about governments, or grand alliances or fancy bankers. He thus fails to root the story in the advent of technology, or of business procedures or of the individual investor, but focuses instead of John Foster Dulles and Dean Acheson and Lord Halifax.
2. Wherever the subject matter is strong, the book still fails badly. It does so because political economy is better analyzed by Robert Gilpin and others, whose books are mandatory reading and well written and which do not pretend to sell that subject matter as a study of capitalism.
3. The book's sections are surprisingly badly arranged. Sometimes one feels the author may have a method to the madness but I doubt it after having read it. It is certainly not thematic, or designed to trigger thought or chronological.
4. The book refers to a poem only twice in the 500 pages and it is about the King of Ghana! I mean a professor at Harvard should surely know how to maintain balance in his subject matter. Is that the one poem he could find worth including?
5. Stunning is the lack of understanding of the issues. He describes Britain as fully supportive of free trade mid-19th century but fails to consider how colonialism could be a form of free trade. He describes China Turkey and India as the only failures of the early 20th century without making the same connection with colonialism.
6. Worse is his understanding of the gold standard. He never mentions that that relic was responsible for more misery than anything other than world wars. He fails to consider that since the gold standard was weakened in the Forties, there have been NO PANICS RAVAGING SOCIETY. He is a gold bug.
7. He repeats William Bryan's Cross of Gold speech twice in the narrative with no suggestion that he is even aware his haphazard narrative is repeating the same quote. He also fails to mention that William Bryan was not buried in the election of 1896 but actually came to dominate the 20th century, what with unionism, minimum wages, no gold standard, empowerment of the individual investor and every other idea that Bryan first espoused. TR's and FDR's reforms were nothing if not Bryanism.
8. Why would a book mention so much about Rothschild's and their family in the US without mentioning Jacob Schiff, or detailing JP Morgan, or RObert Lehman or Albert Gordon. I mean the author simply has no balance on the subject matter because he knows so little about it.
9. Finally, it is not clear what Jeffrey Frieden is doing at Harvard. Such poorly researched fare is common to COlumbia Business School and its Dean Glenn Hubbard, or to the Hoover Institution or some place like that. Harvard on the other hand puts out more balanced and far more thoughtful pieces.
BAD BOOK THAT MUST BE AVOIDED.
Almost tempted to give it a miss.......2007-04-23
I was almost tempted to give the book a miss after seeing the high ratings that were given by reviewers that seemed to be anti-globalizationists (what an awkward term!)
However, I came across the book at my library and gave it a chance, and I was not disappointed. It is a book that does a creditable job of summing up the ups and downs of the world economy over the past hundred years and more. And it also does a fairly good job of raising some issues and problems with the world economic system, and how the system had evolved to meet those issues and problems. On the whole, I think it's a balanced book, pointing out the critical need for free and integrated markets to raising millions in the world out of poverty, as well as some of the problems facing them.
The only reason why I gave the book a four rather than a five is that it is not an easy read, and it is best read with some thought and analysis on the reader's part. Not necessarily a bad thing, but not something for everyone.
By the way, do ignore those reviews that pretend to tell you what the author was saying in his book. I'm not sure that he's actually saying what they say he is saying.
Read the book for yourself. It's worth the time and effort.
Globalization 2.0.......2006-07-12
Jeffrey Frieden, a Harvard professor specializing in international trade and finance, has written a masterly and comprehensive history of capitalism from 1870 to the present. His history of globalization reminds us that it is not a recent develpment and that its current success is not guaranteed.
The first era of globalization (1870 to 1914) had many of the same characteristics as today's. There was an unprecedented cross-border movement of goods, capital, and labor. (Labor more so in the first era.) During these years huge amounts of capital moved overseas to America, Canada, and Argentina mainly due to the reduced costs of communication and transportation. The technologies driving this globalization were the telegraph and railroads. It was also facilitated by the fact that most currencies were convertible to gold. The investment in the Americas was also followed by a huge immigrant population. In these years, America, Canada, and Argentina had much larger immmigrant populations at the turn of the 20th century than today.
The main thing that distinguishes the present globalization from the first is what happened in between. After the Great Depression and World War II remedies were put into place to mitigate the damaging effects of these economic and social catastrophes. Social benefits such as unions, minimum wage, healthcare and pensions were established as safety nets. In the era between the two globalizations when economies were mostly national the safety nets were part of the social contract between capital and labor.
In 1980, when our current era of globalization begins, capital began to move overseas again in order to find countries with lower labor and social costs. This time, however, labor did not follow. The industrialized countries now have large middle classes with social benefits promised who are not certain about how they are going to be paid. This is causing many in the industrialized world to have second thoughts about our current phase of globalization.
Frieden has a guarded optimism about global capitalism and thinks it is still the best system for distributing wealth. Yet, his last chapter "Global Capitalism Troubled" points to some more clouds on the horizon. There seems to be a growing gap between those who control capital and those who work for a living. People understand that globalization is inevitable but they want a new set of rules to address the growing inequalities.
Frieden is a cheerleader for a more equitable capitalism that can deliver both social benefits and robust economic growth.
Bottom Line: Unfettered Capitalism is Destructive, Need Government.......2006-06-27
I read books in groups, and bought this one along with David Walsh's "Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations" which I recommend above this one is you are only buying one book. I also read and have reviewed "Global Class Wars" as well as all other books I recommend below.
Although I was less interested in the history, which is very well documented and clearly explained, and more in the lessons for the future, I found two clear bottom lines in this book that are supported by its extensive research:
1) Open societies and open democracies generate more money and more opportunity and more innovation than closed or failed societies; and
2) Keynes was right, there is an urgent vital role for government to play in addressing the social networks, including education, transportation, rules of commerce, and so on, that allow capitalism to work.
The author distinguishes between individual, cooperative, and competitive capitalism, and I found validation in this book for my concept of communal capitalism, a capitalism that is guided by government in avoiding the exportation of jobs, the importation of poverty, and the impoverishment of the middle class.
Unlike David Walsh's book, this book has more of a focus on what is moral and pragmatic, and so I recommend William Greider's "The Soul of Capitalism" as well as John Perkins "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man."
I have a very strong feeling from this book and others, that the era of "out of control" capitalism is drawing to an end. We may even see the end of the corporation as a separate legal personality in the next 12 years. The transparency of information that is available when people attach themselves leech-like to a corporation and hold it accountable (see my review of "No Logo") is creating a powerful antidote against the Enrons and Exxons and Wal-Marts of the world who bribe elites and screw over the publics on both ends. I also see Wall Street losing its ability to "explode the client" (see my review of "Liar's Poker"). A great deal of good will be done in the next quarter century, and it will come from a combination of good government and educated engaged citizens working together across all boundaries.
Very Pleasing to Read (Even for a Proletariat like Me).......2006-06-25
I read this book for a graduate-level economics course. It's not an "Econ for Dummys" book, but it really enightens the reader about the history of economics in the 20th Century. It's smart and straight-forward. The author does not interject his personal perspectives, which is nice. He just puts it out there. A definite must-read for those entering the field of economics/history.
Average customer rating:
- Another Three-Star Effort from Crais
- Free Fall
- Interesting and at the time, timely...
- Elvis Cole and Joe Pike take on the LAPD!
- Free... way
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Free Fall
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Indigo Slam: An Elvis Cole Novel
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The Monkey's Raincoat
ASIN: 0553565095
Release Date: 1994-04-01 |
Book Description
Elvis Cole is just a detective who can't say no, especially to a girl in a terrible fix. And Jennifer Sheridan qualifies. Her fiance, Mark Thurman, is a decorated LA cop with an elite plainclothes unit, but Jennifer is sure he's in trouble - the kind of serious trouble that only Cole can get him out of. Five minutes after his new client leaves the office, Cole and his partner, the enigmatic Joe Pike, are hip-deep in a deadly situation as they plummet into a world of South Central gangs, corrupt cops and conspiracies of silence. And before long, every cop in the LAPD is gunning for a pair of armed and dangerous killers - Cole and Pike.
Customer Reviews:
Another Three-Star Effort from Crais.......2005-10-16
It's a shame that a writer as talented as Robert Crais fell into a rut so early in his career. I'm just now reading the entire Elvis Cole series, in order, and as I finished Free Fall, the 4th book, I felt like I was reading the same ending from the previous three books. Crais just can't come up with an ending that doesn't involve our two heroes Elvis Cole and Joe Pike in the middle of some huge shoot-out with dozens of heavily-armed bad guys, miraculously managing not to get killed or even badly hurt.
There are other plot points that carry over from the other novels as well; Elvis always seems like he's going to fall in love with his female client (or the wife of his male client, or the secretary of his male client, etc) but he normally manages to pull back just at the last moment. There is also the standard moment where Elvis is in big trouble, Joe Pike is nowhere to be found and suddenly, poof, Pike shows up to save the day. Another thing that made this book somewhat annoying was the very preachy tone about racial violence and the extremely unrealistic way Crais has his characters discussing it.
All in all, Crais is too good a writer and Elvis Cole is too hilarious a character for these books to suffer from so many little problems, and yet they do. I'm hoping things get better as I move slowly through the series...
Free Fall.......2005-05-13
Robert Crais is one of my favorite authors;I always look forward to reading one of his books. If you have never read one then don't start with this one,it doesn't have the writing quality of his other novels. It almost seemed like it was written by a Crais "wanna-be". I checked the copyright to see if it was his first Elvis Cole book,thought that might explain the lack of pizazz. As Randy Jackson would say,"It just didn't do it for me."
Interesting and at the time, timely..........2005-02-04
Another solid story. It is a bit dated now, but still a good thriller and mystery. Elvis again proves his mettle and morals. Pike continues to impress. Not the best of the books, but you can't help but love Elvis. Crais describes all parts of LA beautifully. I still want to know more of Elvis' backstory and the lack of info is a bit frustrating, but this is only the 4th novel. I'm off the read the 5th.
Elvis Cole and Joe Pike take on the LAPD!.......2005-01-16
Elvis cracks me up! A woman wants him to investigate her boyfriend, who happens to be a member of the LAPD's elite REACT squad. The trails leads to South Central L.A. where Elvis must deftly navigate through gang land. I enjoyed every minute of this book. Crais' pace is right on target and every touch of humor is refreshing. I liked this better than his first book, "The Monkey's Raincoat."
Free... way.......2005-01-04
The story of the book is simply good. You will twitch your lips sometimes, but you can be sure that you will know every freeway and every street in LA and surroundings and that is a loss of time while reading. If you keep out all driving directions you will have a book of 200 pages, definitely not the best book written by RC.
Average customer rating:
- Excellent Product & Prompt Delivery
- A great surprise and a beautiful book
- Creative thought
- Picture Book Review
- A visual and imaginitive journey
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Free Fall
Manufacturer: HarperTrophy
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Bedtime & Dreaming
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Wiesner, David
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ASIN: 068810990X |
Book Description
When he falls asleep with a book in his arms, a young boy dreams an amazing dream-about dragons, about castles, and about an unchartered, faraway land. And you can come along.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Product & Prompt Delivery.......2007-09-15
This item was exactly as described in the item description. It was in the original packaging and is in excellent condition. I am very satisfied and I highly recommend this seller and product to everyone. This is an excellent book by an excellent author!
A great surprise and a beautiful book.......2006-11-20
I found this book in a pretty unexpected way. At work, I as putting together a team of people to take on a new problem. None of the members knew each other well and they all knew me even less.
I had read once about an ice breaker activity where each person is given a page of a picture book that they can't show to anyone. The objective is for each participant to talk one-on-one about the page they have, figure out what the pictures are supposed to convey and what order they go in.
That started me searching the world of wordless picture books. Once I found this book, I knew I had something great.
It doesn't feel like a standard children's story. As others have described, the book begins with a boy falling asleep reading an atlas. As you drift across the pages, you fall into the boy's dreamscape transitioning from one adventurous world after another. As you explore each page, you lose yourself in the gorgeous scenery and are captured by the detail the illustrator poured into in this boy's dream.
Adults will love it. My boy, age 7, enjoyed it. This was definitely different from anything else we've read together. We talked about everything that we saw and what was happening.
This was a very different experience from the straight-forward bedtime story. He read it a few times by himself and it was great that he was able to read something with so much wonderful detail. If you find yourself reciting your bedtime stories to your kids while your mind drifts off to making your grocery list this is a great change.
I've since picked up "Sector 7" and "Tuesday" which are also beautifully illustrated but "Freefall" can't be beat for capturing your imagination and taking you on a wonderful ride.
By the way, the ice breaker worked out pretty well too. What a nice way to turn adults back into kids again for a few hours.
Creative thought.......2005-10-24
Have your children investigate every page carefully- this book encourages self-awareness and promotes the exploration of the subconscious
Picture Book Review.......2001-04-26
Free Fall By: David Wiesner David Wiesner sends the reader on a magical journey through a young boy's dream to a far off land in his creative picture book titled, Free Fall. He does this by using only detailed pictures. Free Fall is an Caldecott honor award winning book for its excellent use of the imagination. Free Fall begins with a young boy fast asleep with a storybook lying open on his chest. The boy begins to dream while the pages of the book start to fly and take life. He becomes a character in the book as the chess pieces begin to talk with him. He then goes through many exciting adventures during the course of the book. He protects the town from a frightening dragon, becomes an oversized boy towering above all, and even becomes so small that he can fly on a single leaf. He flies right next to the swans just above the waters, and then he...wakes to the daylight shining through his window. He sits up, looks at his fish bowl beside his bed, and admires the seagulls at his windowpane with a smile on his face. David Wiesner uses fantasy and adventure to give a child an unlimited imagination in his book, Free Fall. The title page automatically sets the reader up for a fulfilled magical ride. The title page looks like a map made out of the boy's bed sheet to give the reader a sense of where the story will take us. The first page of the book lets the reader know that the boy fell asleep while reading a book. Then the reader turns the page, and night suddenly turns into day from one page to the next. The boy's room starts to disappear into rolling open fields with mountains towering in the background through clouds. The boy becomes as small as a chess piece, and starts to have conversations with the other pieces. On the next page, the chess pieces turn into a beautiful life-size castle, and the people have shrunk to a smaller size. Then, a dragon appears, and the boy is left to protect the people using only a sword and shield. As the reader turns the page, the pages of the young boy's storybook begin to turn also, while characters in his book suddenly jump into his dream. The reader can see the people coming out of the pages. The boy then grows vast, soaring over all. He takes adventures though the mountains, as well as takes flight though the air. He flies along with the swans until the waters subtly turns back into his bed sheets. A foggy haze once again appears, and the boy is awakened by the light of the morning. Wiesner takes the reader, the child, on an adventure though another child's dream. The colors of the pictures are subtle and dull, so that it reflects that of a hazy dream-like state. The picture book is put together very well as the pages slowly drift into the next scene of the boy's thoughts. For example, the boy's bed sheets blend into rolling hills, the hills fade into a chessboard, and the pieces convert into the towers of a castle. The pages of the book turn gradually into steps, and then transform into sides of buildings. The mountains then turn into bread as the boy's bed sheet reappears as a tablecloth. The tablecloth suddenly transforms into rough waters, as the food breaks into pieces forming into fish. As daylight breaks through, the waters turn into the boy's bed sheets once again. The transformation of the bed sheet into so many different items may relate to what a child can imagine a bed sheet to become. The uses of objects, such as the boy's bed sheet, for more then one purpose is a great way to express an exploring, creative mind, such as the young boy's in the book Wiesner's Free Fall, creates an adventure for the child through the great usage of imagination. This allows the child to not only enjoy the book, but also relate to the book. The child learns that bedtime, an often unpopular time, can open up a world of excitement for them.
A visual and imaginitive journey.......2000-12-17
Free Fall is a series of wonderful illustrations of apparently unrelated imaginary worlds seamlessly stitched together by familiar textures. As with other books by David Wiesner, the closer you look the more you will appreciate his work.
Warning: This is not a traditional story. Young children probably will need your help to follow along.
If you appreciate creativity, imagination and quality illustration and want to pass this on to your children this book is a must have.
Book Description
The question of when and how the basic concepts that characterize modern science arose in Western Europe has long been central to the history of science. This book examines the transition from Renaissance engineering and philosophy of nature to classical mechanics oriented on the central concept of velocity. Descartes, Galileo, and other protagonists of what the authors call "preclassical mechanics" struggled with fundamental concepts and contributed crucial insights to classical mechanics, but it is not clear that they actually realized these insights themselves. This book argues that the emergence of classical mechanics was neither a cumulative change nor an abrupt revolution, but rather that the transformation was the result of exploring the limits and exhausting the possibilities of the existing, largely Aristotelian conceptual system.
In the dozen years that have passed since the appearance of the first edition, significant research has been done on Descartes and Galileo and the origins of modern science. There have also been important advances in the accessibility of sources and in technology for analyzing them. For this new edition, the authors take account of the most important new results. They include a new discussion of the doctrine of proportions, an analysis of the role of traditional statics in the construction of Descartes' impact rules, and go deeper into the debate between Descartes and Hobbes on the explanation of refraction. They also provide significant new material on the early development of Galileo's work on mechanics and the law of fall. All translations have been reviewed and revised for consistency of terminology and several new documents have been added. The bibliography has been updated to take account of new literature.
Book Description
Sammy Mountjoy, artist, rises from poverty and obscurity to see his pictures hung in London's Tate Gallery. Swept into World War II, he is captured and confined to a prison cell in total darkness. He emerges from his cell like Lazarus from the tomb.
Customer Reviews:
Waves of the past.......2005-05-09
Sammy Mountjoy recalls the main events of his life to date and tries to identify precisely where he lost his freedom. His recall of his past jumps between his childhood, adolescence, first love affairs and the war, in which he was a prisoner of the Germans. These events interconnect in his mind, but in a non-sequential way: impressions from one stimulate memories of the others.
"Free Fall" is a beautifully written, elegaic novel. Time is fluid, or rather time periods and memories mix with each other. Like Mountjoy, we tend to regret our past imperfections and misdeeds, asking could we have done better. But rather than having lost his freedom, did Mountjoy ever possess the freedom he imagines?
A highly skilled piece of fiction, very satisfying to read.
G Rodgers
. . . turning freedom outside-in . . ........2000-11-03
Here is a mind-boggler of literary art. Golding takes you in--in through the portals of the main character's mind. And then the true adventure begins. This is an exploration on the theme of freedom lost, which goes into an existential search, taking you through a labyrinth of broodings and memories deep, deep within the psyche, and in the end you (together with the protagonist) will experience something stirring and substantial. It is the turning of freedom outside-in, and in and in and in, and then out again. Just read one chapter. That's all it will take to enter uncharted territory.
beautiful.......2000-10-18
This is one of the most beautifully-written books I've read. There are only maybe two or three moments where every word is not perfect. It's like reading poetry, only it lasts for the entire length of a novel. Furthermore, everything that Mountjoy describes, tangents though they may seem, fits perfectly into our understanding of his character. And, to top it all off, the last sentence is one of the least predictable I've ever seen.
Book Description
"McGee has become part of our national fabric."
SEATTLE POST INTELLIGENCER
This time out, McGee came close to losing his status as a living legend when he agreed to track down the killers who brutally murdered an ailing millionaire. For starters, he renewed an unfinished adventure with a famous--and oversexed--Hollywood actress, who led him into a very nasty nest of murderers involving a motorcycle gang, pornographic movies, and mad balloonists. And Mcgee relearned the old lesson--that only when he came close to the edge of death was he completely alive.
Customer Reviews:
Worst Travis MsGee.......2007-03-30
I agree with the other two star reviewer for this book. Nothing seems real or convincing in this work. If this had been the first MacDonald book I read I would not have read another.
The plot read like the cheap 60's motorcycle themed movies the book kept discussing. I didn't believe any of it. Travis reluctant to grieve over a woman he knew that was brutally murdered because he couldn't focus in on her personality just amazed me.
Even if you're addicted to the series as I am; don't read this one!
A great McGee novel.......2007-01-09
This was a very good addition to the Travis McGee series. A quick read, but very rewarding. Nobody can write so well about the seedy underbelly of society quite like John D. MacDonald.
In this installment, our gallant beach bum hero takes on a case for an artist named Ron Esterland, who wants McGee to find out who murdered his dying millionaire father. The mystery pits McGee up against an array of possible suspects along with a brutal and sadistic outlaw biker.
If you're a fan of the mystery/noir genre, John D. MacDonald will not disappoint with this chapter of the Travis McGee series.
My new numero uno McGee novel.......2006-04-19
I'm running out of room on my bookshelf--MacDonald's Travis McGee series is eating up all the space. And now I've just added "Free Fall in Crimson" to that shelf. \
One of the other reviewers remarked that this was the 19th installment of this series. Amazing! And I really wish I had read these great thrillers in the order in which they had been written. No matter. "Free Fall in Crimson" holds as prominent a spot among its tribe as any of the other ones. As I have mentioned in other reviews, MacDonald's "A Flash of Green" had always ranked at the top of my list. "Free Fall in Crimson" has now taken over that spot.
Free Fallin' .......2005-10-29
One of the things I like about the McGee series is the strange authority MacDonald brings to it. He had a very strict, intelligent mind and a disdain for shoddy work that rivaled Hemingway's, which often gave his descriptions and depictions a shrewd authority. Even when you may not fully buy what's going on on the page, you can buy that the author and the characters believe it, which is often enough to go on.
But with "Free Fall in Crimson," the authority is a little flimsy. The book, published in the early 80s, is the first McGee that just does not convince on several key levels.
Most of that has to do with McGee's brief dip into California outlaw biker culture in his attempts to track down a murderous Hell's Angel named Dirty Bob. Nothing about the scenario -- not the crime McGee investigates, not the people he meets along the way, not the stilted dialogue he engages in, not the situations he encounters -- feels convincing.
A millionaire goes to buy a little hash and takes gold Krugerrands to purchase the drugs? McGee is made an honorary member of a bike tribe ("The Fantasies") and given a special pin to use... if he ever needs it? A character on the run who needs to hide his identity suddenly gets a terminal illness that allows him to drop 100 pounds in two months?
The second half of the book -- McGee's visit to a debauched, coked-out 80s-era film set, where a Dennis Hopper-esque auteur is having a big budget meltdown as he tries to make an existential thriller (about balloon pilots?) -- is a little more convincing than the biker stuff, but the dialogue still smells too much like exposition, the film crew's lines sound transposed from research.
I did enjoy the nightmarish riot that begins the last act; and I liked the creepy section in which McGee slowly, gradually figures out that his prey has turned around and is coming after him; and, oddly, I was completely convinced that McGee could survive a leap from a runaway balloon hovering 50 feet off the ground (just remember: land on the balls of your feet, tuck your chin, roll forward with your right shoulder out and down, hit the ground running....)
But as far as the series as a whole goes, this is probably one of the weaker entires I've read. But, should I ever fall or jump out of a hot air balloon, I seriously think I'll know what to do.
McGee tangles with motorcycles, balloons and movie producers.......2002-02-16
This is a great book if you're in the mood for a philosophy lesson on the meaning of life and how to maintain it. John D. MacDonald knows how to keep the action flowing, without hitting the reader over the head. It's nice to be treated as if you are an intelligent reader, which is why I keep coming back to the McGee series. Travis helps out a man whose father was killed, shortly before cancer would have taken him anyway. As Travis pokes around, he finds a web of dispicable characters hiding behind the entertainment industry. Justice is served to the guilty, as usual. Unfortunately, some of the innocent do not come out of this one, but only those who are not as careful as our houseboat hero. This is definitely one of the better entries in the McGee series, but one should read "A Quick Red Fox" first.
Book Description
The strange, exhilarating, and haunting story of the man who broke the world record for manned balloon altitude.
Locked in a desperate Cold War race against the Soviets to find out if humans could survive in space and live through a free fall from space vehicles, the Pentagon gave civilian adventurer Nick Piantanida's Project Strato-Jump little notice until May Day, 1966. Operating in the shadows of well-funded, high-visibility Air Force and Navy projects, the former truck driver and pet store owner set a new world record for manned balloon altitude. Rising more than 23 miles over the South Dakota prairie, Piantanida nearly perished trying to set the world record for the highest free fall parachute jump from that height. On his next attempt, he would not be so lucky.
In the spirit of Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild, Magnificent Failure portrays a loner driven to test himself. The story recalls a by-gone era when men tested the limits of mortality armed only with an indomitable spirit, ingenuity, and (some say) sheer lunacy. Part harrowing adventure story, part space history, part psychological portrait of an extraordinary risk-taker, this story fascinates and intrigues the armchair adventurer in all of us. 22 b/w photographs, 3 b/w illustrations.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent !! .......2007-09-13
As a collector of books written by or about former astronauts as well as balloonist I can honestly say that this is one of the finest written accounts I have read. This book truly captures both the technical side of this endeavor and the man behind the dream.
As a 3rd grade student of St. Bernard's Grade School in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1965 I distinctly recall being on the school playground and watching a small dot in the sky that we knew was a ballon. I recall at that time knowing the difference between gas and hot air ballons. The buzz on the playground was that someone was going to parachute from the balloon. I am not sure how I knew that but I was captivated by this event as I have been since by aeronautical events of all kinds.
Thanks Craig Ryan.....this is a very cool book!
EZ
A Man and his Dream, and a Debacle.......2004-03-29
On the morning of February 2, 1966, a gigantic weather balloon rose from the South Dakota prairie and soared straight into the Stratosphere. In the small aluminum gondola beneath the massive helium filled envelope, parachutist Nick Piantanida prepared to set a world's record. At 120,000 feet, he would jump out of the gondola, free fall for tens of thousands of feet - reaching a speed perhaps greater than Mach 1.0 in the process - and then glide to safety beneath a modified Para-Commander.
It wasn't meant to be. When he reached jump altitude, a horrified Piantanida discovered the quick-release on his oxygen hose had hopelessly jammed. He had no choice but to cut the gondola loose, and fall back to earth with the aid of its cargo parachute. Three months later he would make another attempt. Unfortunately for this brave and dauntless American, that jump would end in disaster, and cost him his life.
Author Craig Ryan, whose fascinating chronicle of military balloon flights and parachute tests The Pre-Astronauts briefly described Piantanida's Project Strato-Jump, revisits the topic in great detail in Magnificent Failure. While Strato-Jump has sometimes been denigrated as a haphazard effort undertaken by an amateur, Ryan makes clear that characterization is far from the truth. Piantanida was an extremely experienced parachutist, and a cadre of professionals from the civilian, contractor, and military world supported his effort. In reality, Strato-Jump was one of the boldest civilian efforts of its era, and it might well have succeeded had not the disconnect fitting jammed.
Where Piantanida's final, fatal flight is concerned, Ryan presents a great deal of new information and develops a credible scenario concerning what went awry. For years, this topic has been the subject of speculation and rumor. It is now clear that Piantanida was doomed from the moment he took off.
Yet while it does chronicle a debacle, Magnificent Failure is not merely a somber record of a botched endeavor. Rather, it is an entertaining and readable portrait of a larger-than-life figure who dreamed of glory and worked terrifically hard and against all odds to obtain it. Thanks to Ryan's research effort, technical insight, and journalism skills, the book is remarkably insightful, full of detail and pulse-pounding drama. In an era when civilian teams are once again striving to reach not just the upper atmosphere but space itself -- the X-Prize contenders come to mind -- Magnificent Failure delivers a message of inspiration, while at the same time reminding us that glory sometimes eludes even the bravest of men.
Correction to A Brother's Review.......2004-02-24
I am Vern Piantanida, Nick Piantanida's brother. I already submitted a review for the book. I did this using my son-in-law's system so it picked up my review as being from him - James Keenan. Of course, this caused confusion as people think James is another brother to Nick. Nick had only one sibling - me. Sorry for the confusion.
I jumped with and photographed Nick Piantanida in Free Fall........2004-01-09
As the manager of the Lakewood Parachuting Center in the 1960's I met and jumped with Nick from his first jump on. Craig Ryan understood what we were doing back then and wrote a wonderful story about what really happened.
A Brother's Opinion.......2003-12-26
Craig Ryan accurately captures the type of person my brother was. Criag Ryan's research for this book was extensive and the result is truthful.
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