Book Description
Edgar Award-winner Laura Lippman is developing a reputation as one of the most exciting new detective fiction authors in years. Now she delivers her most suspenseful novel yet, and places Baltimore's Tess Monaghan . . . In Big Trouble.
First as a reporter and then as a p.i., Tess Monaghan has learned how to survive and thrive on the streets of Baltimore. But a new case will force her to confront her own past, and a man she loved and lost. It starts when she gets a newspaper photograph of her old boyfriend with a tantalizing shard of headline attached: In Big Trouble. The answers lie far from Baltimore, deep in a world of good-time music, old-fashioned ambiiton, and rich people's games. For Tess must find out what happened to a man she thought she knew, to a woman who may have changed him forever, and to the victims of a killer who dances to a different—and deadly—drummer.
Customer Reviews:
Crime Beat Street Blogger .......2007-09-21
After listening to NPR's Crime in the City Series I decided to check out a Tess Monaghan story, written by Laura Lippman. I picked In Big Trouble arbitrarily, not realizing that this is one story that does not take place in Balitmore, even though the Monaghan series is usually set in "Charm City". It didn't matter though, San Antonio was a great location and the same type of attention that Lippman probably gives to Baltimore in her other books was lavished on Texas with great affect. The mystery itself was good, especially the way a 20-year-old unsolved murder case was woven into the plot. I almost felt the murders were true, so well was the plot line developed.
Tess was also a great protagonist; honestly I wasn't sure how a woman my age could possibly fit my vision of a hard-boiled detective, but Lippman successfully did just that, giving Tess just the right amount of humility, warmth, longing, and cynicism.
The only criticism I have of this book is that in the end the story's conclusion was a little too neatly wrapped up, with seemingly incidental characters playing major roles. I felt that either they should have been developed more so that the reader could have a chance to factor them into the mystery or that the final answers should have involved some unknown players; everyone just seemed to fit too well into the storyline.
continued excellence.......2007-06-06
In this continuation of the Tess Monaghan series, Ms. Lippman removes Tess from her usual milieu and places her in San Antonio, Texas, about as far, culturally-speaking, from Baltimore as can be.
I live in San Antonio, so I can vouch for the accuracy with which Ms. Lippman describes the Alamo City, and she does a good job of incorporating real restaurants and hangouts throughout the novel. She even got me thinking about a couple of things, including the way that the Broadway area is laid out. Kudos to her for that.
As far as the actual story goes, I enjoyed this one because it brings Tess and Crow back together. Those of you who've read the previous books in this series know that Crow left Tess when she basically told him she wasn't ready to commit to anything long-term with him. He is younger than she is, and he was always the one who gave their relationship and time together a sense of permanence; Tess felt a bit smothered and uncomfortable with that, and she told him that she didn't see their relationship the same way he did. Being the straightforward guy that he is, Crow packed his things up quick-smart and left her within moments of the conversation.
This book picks up with Crow and Tess after they've been apart for a good while, and it brings him back into her life when she gets a newspaper clipping indicating he might be in danger. She puts off doing anything about it, then decides to look into what he might be involved in. This is typical of Tess; she's excellent at either willfully ignoring her own emotions or acknowledging them and refusing to do anything about them. But she heads to San Antonio to look for Crow and see if she can get him out of trouble.
What she finds is a tangled mess of abuse, sex, and lies that almost gets her and Crow killed.
The good parts of this novel:
1) the back and forth between Tess and Crow, who is no longer just a sweet foil that allows us to see how sharp and competent Tess is (she has to fight for him now, something she's never had to do before in this series, and she also isn't as sharp and competent when it comes to understanding and interacting with this young man);
2) the peripheral characters, including the young woman with whom Crow appears to be romantically involved;
3) Ms. Lippman's consistently strong descriptive powers (you'll likely want to visit San Antonio after reading this book); and
4) the abundance of peripheral characters who keep the reader laughing and learning (I particularly want to see more of the young couple that Tess almost breaks up).
Overall, this is a good continuation of the series. Enjoy!
Gone to Texas.......2007-01-14
This is a complex plot about relationships. Crow has left Tess and taken his band (Poe White Trash) to Texas. Now his parents contact Tess because he is no longer in contact and they are worried. Tess has also received a message with an indication that he is in trouble. The search should be simple. She has a recent photo and is looking for a performing musician. But the trail is initially cold, and things are complicated by Tess finding an overripe body, someone of interest to the police in connection with a cold case from 20 years earlier. Tess loses her lunch and decides that she will never eat another Moon Pie.
Tess eventually tracks down Crow, playing at local clubs with a new band, but it drawn into the cold case which involves the new woman in Crow's life. There is a complex web of relationships related to the woman's family and dating back to a triple murder 20 years earlier. Tess finds a second overripe body, also a man of interest to the local police. Police use some forensic entomology (maggots can be used to establish a time of death).
There are a few surprises as the novel moves towards a climax. There are questions about a past kidnapping, and questions about who was responsible for the various murders. And there are questions about motives including sex, money, and revenge.
As the novel ends, Tess is in a tenuous renewal of her relationship with Crow, her aunt Kitty has become involved with Tyner, a wealthy man is charged with murder but has a high powered attorney and social connections, a young woman is charged but her attorney is claiming insanity, and Esskay has been spoiled with pork rinds and pizza. Tess does finish reading Don Quixote.
The plot is somewhat slow reading with lots of background color. There are language, some sex (actual or by reference), and some violence. At best, I would give it a PG-13 rating. Some scenes are not for the squeamish.
Enjoyable change of pace for Tess AND Laura.......2006-07-24
It's a shame to see some of the kvetching about Tess leaving her beloved Baltimore for other climes. Lippman wisely chose as a place she once worked as a newspaper reporter -- Texas. Having worked on a daily in Texas myself (and as a big fan of the city of San Antonio), I can tell you that Laura's depiction of this wonderfully quirky city and its inhabitants is dang near perfect. As with other Monaghan stories, it's as much about Tess as it is about the mystery to be solved ... and there few more interesting main characters in the genre today. Well done, Laura!
Not the Best.......2006-01-28
I have read all the Tess Monaghan mysteries in order, and while this one was good, it wasn't the best. It was strange having Tess out of Baltimore, and I felt some of the plot points in the story were just too contrived. And worst of all, I just plain didn't like Tess as much in this book. She did some dishonest, unkind and even borderline sleazy things that weren't justifiable, in my opinion. Tess gets away with way too much, and needs to be brought down a notch or two.
Book Description
The first novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Idiot Girls’ Action-Adventure Club is a rollicking tale of small-town peculiarity, dark secrets, and one extraordinary beauty pageant.
When her husband is offered a post at a small university, Maye is only too happy to pack up and leave the relentless Phoenix heat for the lush green quietude of Spaulding, Washington. While she loves the odd little town, there is one thing she didn’t anticipate: just how heartbreaking it would be leaving her friends behind. And when you’re a childless thirtysomething freelance writer who works at home, making new friends can be quite a challenge.
After a series of false starts nearly gets her exiled from town, Maye decides that her last chance to connect with her new neighbors is to enter the annual Sewer Pipe Queen Pageant, a kooky but dead-serious local tradition open to contestants of all ages and genders. Aided by a deranged former pageant queen with one eyebrow, Maye doesn’t just make a splash, she uncovers a sinister mystery that has haunted the town for decades.
“[Laurie Notaro] may be the funniest writer in this solar system.”
–The Miami Herald
Customer Reviews:
The funniest book I've read all year.......2007-10-03
I loved this book from beginning to end. It's about a woman who moves from her hometown to a much smaller town and has trouble making new friends while missing all of the friends she left behind. As Maye, the main character, goes from adventure to adventure trying to find a kindred soul, she stalks people at grocery stores, attends a crazy book club and still comes up empty handed. She decides that the only way to make friends is to become the town Queen at the local, nutty pageant and win the title and the hearts of her neighbors. This book made me laugh out loud on more than several occasions and I could easily relate--I just moved to a new town myself and understood the struggle to create a new circle of friends. Though I doubt I'll take the route Maye did in order to get them, it was a blast reading her trials and tribulations, and I just fell in love with cranky old Ruby. I was sad when it ended, but am looking forward to more of Laurie's work. This book is a great read and is one that I'll keep and most likely re-read when I need a good, fun story.
i guess I read a different book.......2007-10-03
first to say I have read and enjoyed Laurie's other writing. She can be really funny. that being said this is the worst book I have read this year. It feels forced and stilted in it's descriptions. I didn't laugh even once and had to force myself to finish. I feel like I read a different book than most reviewers. Stay with the non-fiction Laurie.
A delightful, hilarious story!.......2007-09-14
I bought Laurie's book when it came out in May but did not have a chance to read it until this week. I read half of it on a plane ride to Ohio, and the other half the way back. I couldn't stop, I loved it so much!! This book really shows off Laurie's gift as a writer, she can do non-fiction AND fiction and not lose any of her magic. I fell in love with Maye, and her misadventures had me giggling from seat 20E all the way home. I truly hope Laurie writes another novel very, very soon!!! Viva la Bonnie!!!
Still a good laugh!.......2007-08-26
I can't recommend Laurie's previous books enough. Just the mention of her name puts an idiotic smile on my face! "There's a (slight) chance" is a bit of a departure for me, but still enjoyable. Whereas all the other books flow with complete abandon this one seems a little forced, maybe trying a bit too hard to be comical. Laurie's detailed description of Ruby Spicer and Rowena Spaulding (two of the novels main characters) makes me think these chicks really exist... You'll have to convince me otherwise!
Delightful Fiction Debut.......2007-08-23
Delightful fiction debut for Laurie Notaro. I really enjoyed this very funny book full of typical Notaro descriptions. I love it when authors actually have a beginning, middle and end to their stories.
Book Description
If Broadway's triumphant musical hits are exhilarating, the backstage tales of Broadway failures are tantalizing soap operas in miniature. Second Act Trouble puts you with the creators in the rehearsal halls, at out-of-town tryouts, in late-night, hotel-room production meetings, and at after-the-fact recriminatory gripe fests. Suskin has compiled and annotated long-forgotten, first-person accounts of 25 Broadway musicals that stubbornly went awry. Contributions come from such respected writers as Patricia Bosworth, Mel Gussow, Lehman Engel, William Gibson, Lewis H. Lapham, and John Gruen. No mere vanity productions, these; you can't have a big blockbuster of failure, it seems, without the participation of Broadway's biggest talents. Caught in the stranglehold of tryout turmoil are Richard Rodgers, Jule Styne, Jerry Herman, Cy Coleman, Charles Strouse, John Kander, Mel Brooks, and even Edward Albee. The infamous shows featured include Mack and Mabel; Breakfast at Tiffany's; The Act; Dude; Golden Boy; Hellzapoppin'; Nick and Nora; Seesaw; Kelly; and How Now, Dow Jones.
Customer Reviews:
Doomed.......2007-07-16
I couldn't put it down and if this book had just collected only Lewis Lapham's long, long, "new journalism" article on the disastrous Moose Charnap flop KELLY! it would be worth buying. Lapham spares nobody and takes no prisoners and he got everyone to go on record about Ella Logan who must have been a termagant beyond compare. The producers let her go because they couldn't stand her continual "vulgarity" of all things. Kindly old Mel Brooks comes in, takes a look at her, and says, "Fire her." Sadly she had once been a great Broadway star, the original Sharon in FINIAN'S RAINBOW, now reduced to playing mothers (in 1965). Wonder if she's still with us, Suskin might have played fair and allowed us to air her grievances against the horrid KELLY! people. Oh well, SECOND ACT TROUBLE garners one great story after another, and I can't really say which one I like the best. Great monsters always make fantastic reading, and Jerry Lewis in HELLZAPOPPIN is right up there with Hitler and Stalin! There's one part where--he hates Lynn Redgrave--he has to rehearse a song with her, and he refuses to stand up while she's onstage with him so she's forced to sing while he sings with her lying flat on his back on the ground. Oh my, but after a few more chapters of this sort of behavior you begin to feel that being evil is necessary to make it on Broadway, and the squeaky wheels make the most noise.
Steven Suskin has an elastic sense of what shows are hits and which are flops, and some of the shows he covers in this book I was surprised to see he called flops. Some were critical darlings, some were pure spectacle, and some notorious flops like CARRIE aren't covered here. There are many occasions to wonder. Would HALLELUJAH BABY have been a hit if Lena Horne had played in it? I don't think so. Could Jerry Orbach have saved MACK AND MABEL? Who knows at this late date. Could Liv Ullmann be as horrid and egotistical as she is painted here, on the payroll of I REMEMBER MAMA? There goes another illusion shattered.
The book reveals that during the out of town tryouts for KWAMINA Star Sally Ann Howes had an affair with her co-star, and that this behavior was nothing new for Sally Ann for she had previously (a few months before) cheated on her husband, songwriter Richard Adler) with German heartthrob Maxmilian Schell backstage on the sets of a John Frankenheimer telefilm. I didn't even know who Sally Ann Howes is and I'm still enthralled! Adler eventually comes to forgive Howes in the long decades since, and she seems like an admirable woman in many ways, leaving her home to come back to NY and nurse Adler's son in the final months of his tragic illness. Good for you, Sally Ann, I like a woman who goes after what she wants, why, that's what made me a musical queen to begin with.
Trouble with 2nd Act trouble.......2007-07-03
I was extremely disapointed with this book, having read most of the essays contained therein from other sources.
why can't i keep the title in my head!?.......2007-05-23
i read this book and after i finished it, i felt i had enjoyed it. but when i went to purchase it, i couldn't remember the name of it.
then, i was asked by more than a few people for a recommendation of a good book. and i would describe this one but not be able to catch the name for the life of me. and i wondered if it was me, or the title.
well, part of it is the title. it explains what the book is about but doesn't capture the humor of its subject matter or the acerbic prose used by suskin.
and then of course, is that snappy, light, humorous tone. it's fine for a start but then, i didn't stay invited in the book. i read it quickly because i wanted to see the other musicals for this perspective. but then i realized i can't tell you very much about the shows.
and after a moment or two, i can't even tell you any insightful line that suskin wrote about the shows. just that tone--light-hearted, well-researched but not probing or enlightening.
Interesting book about Broadway.......2007-04-11
I haven't read much of the book yet as it just arrived and I have other books to read first. But it looks very interesting to someone interested in theatre. The author seems to have done a very good job
Very disappointing.......2006-10-06
Compared to the wit and flair I had expected, I found this volume boring and dull. It is largely a compilation (with Suskin providing brief notes) of theatrical reviews. Approach this with care if, as I did, you searched on a star's name and found a mention in this book - it may be only one line.
I had expected great humour, inside knowledge, entertaining stories of the backstage. Frankly, I wish I had kept the receipt - I would have returned it the next day.
Average customer rating:
- Dave Barry
- Professional, funny, but slick, filmic and disposable
- A Definite Must Read
- Dave Barry's best full-length novel
- Twisted, in a good way!
|
Big Trouble
Dave Barry
Manufacturer: Putnam Adult
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ASIN: 0399145672 |
Amazon.com
Dave Barry, the only newsman to win a Pulitzer for exemplary use of words like booger, will please humor and crime-fiction fans alike with this racy debut novel. The scene is Miami. In ritzy Coconut Grove, the teen son of Eliot, a newsman turned adman, sneaks up to spritz a cute girl with a Squirtmaster 9000 to win a high school game called Killer. Meanwhile, two hit men sneak up to kill the girl's abusive stepdad, Arthur. Arthur cheated his bosses at corrupt Penultimate, Inc., which equipped a Florida jail with automatic garage-opener gates that accidentally freed prisoners in a lightning storm.
Farcical confusion ensues, witnessed by a saintly bum named Puggy, camped in a tree in Arthur's yard. Puggy works at the Jolly Jackal Bar & Grill, which has no grill and actually sells guns and bombs to an offshoot of the Crips and Bloods called the Cruds, and to Penultimate (which plans to conquer Cuba). But when dim thugs Eddie and Snake rob the Jolly Jackal and Arthur tells them it's a Russian mob front selling bombs, the proprietor snorts, "Bombs, pfft! No bombs! Is bar."
Can Snake and Eddie spirit a suitcase nuke through Miami, "where most motorists obeyed the traffic and customs of their individual countries of origin"? Can Eliot and cop Monica Rodriguez save the day? And how do the 300-pound hallucinogenic Enemy Toad, the 13-foot-long python Daphne, highway goats, and the Denture Adventure seniors' theme park fit in? Everything fits perfectly, including a few dark passages new to Barry's work. But one warning: if you read this book while drinking milk, at some point it will spurt out of your nostrils. --Tim Appelo
Book Description
Dave Barry makes his fiction debut with a ferociously funny novel of love and mayhem in south Florida.
In his career, Dave Barry has done just about everything--written bestselling nonfiction, won a Pulitzer Prize, seen his life turned into a television series. And now, at last, he has joined the long list of literary figures from Jane Austen to Tolstoy who have made the transition from humor columnist to novelist...and done it with a style and inventiveness that establishes that, yes, he is very good at that, too.
In the city of Coconut Grove, Florida, these things happen: A struggling adman named Eliot Arnold drives home from a meeting with the Client From Hell. His teenage son, Matt, fills a Squirtmaster 9000 for his turn at a high school game called Killer. Matt's intended victim, Jenny Herk, sits down in front of the TV with her mom for what she hopes will be a peaceful evening for once. Jenny's alcoholic and secretly embezzling stepfather, Arthur, emerges from the maid's room, angry at being rebuffed. Henry and Leonard, two hit men from New Jersey, pull up to the Herks' house for a real game of Killer, Arthur's embezzlement apparently not having been quite so secret to his employers after all. And a homeless man named Puggy settles down for the night in a treehouse just inside the Herks' yard.
In a few minutes, a chain of events that will change the lives of each and every one of them will begin, and will leave some of them wiser, some of them deader, and some of them definitely looking for a new line of work. With a wicked wit, razor-sharp observations, rich characters, and a plot with more twists than the Inland Waterway, Dave Barry makes his debut a complete and utter triumph.
"The funniest book I've read in fifty years."--Elmore Leonard
"Despite wealth, fame and a tendency to undermedicate himself, Dave Barry remains one of the funniest writers alive. Big Trouble is outrageously warped, cheerfully depraved--and harrowingly close to true life in Florida. This book will do for our tourism industry what Dennis Rodman did for bridal wear."--Carl Hiaasen
Customer Reviews:
Dave Barry.......2007-08-31
Dave Barry is probably the funniest man in America!! This book is as crazy as his columns, only longer!
Professional, funny, but slick, filmic and disposable.......2007-06-11
Well, I suppose in some ways it was quite brave for such a successful and established humour column writer to venture out into writing, as the cover says, `an actual novel'. While the occasional Wynton Marsalis might come along and suavely excel in disparate (if related) areas, there are cautionary tales of, say, respected TV actors not being able to manage the switch to the big screen, and vice-versa. And make no mistake, Barry gets away with it. It's not a cringeworthy disappointment.
We expect a lot from Dave, and we get pretty much what we expected. This is perhaps unfortunate in some ways, but more on that later.
The book gives a lot of rein to what there is to love about Barry. His style is just so friendly and palatable that the pages roll by (I read this in a couple of days). His descriptions of characters and settings are clever and funny, as is his dialogue. With a little help from his A-list novelist friends, these are all put together within a workable action plot. It's absurd, sure, but that's not a mistake, it's part of the conventions of this deliberately pulp tongue-in-cheek ludicrously paced action/thriller. I mean, it's almost like a screenplay - the feel of this book is overwhelmingly familiar to anyone who's spent any time watching Hollywood cop films, or something like `Pulp Fiction': Barry's hit men could be interchanged with this flick (as could Randy and Carlotta from `My Name is Earl' for two other characters). Indeed, the cover is largely an add for the `soon to be' motion picture. And it's no coincidence that the three stunning women who will be appearing in the movie will, somehow, gosh darn it, find that the action takes place when they just happen to be in a negligee or their underwear. Oh, and not one, or two, but all three of them will fall in mutual love (with blokes) at first sight (action films don't have time for complex relationships: there's a goodie, there's a baddie, and there is a love interest). But, hey, even though it looks easy, movie formula type books are not so easy to pull off well. I suspect the publishers and the writer had the savvy to have a few able people read it through to ensure it wasn't going to be an embarrassment. Big Trouble doesn't make you gag or roll your eyes, and it's novel to be given a new usable structure to enjoy Barry's undeniable talents. We expected to enjoy the book, and it's enjoyable.
Why might I quibble a bit and say it's a shame that I wasn't surprised?
I mean, it's not as if Barry was trying to put himself across as the next Dostoyevsky. I think he was probably just happy to be able to put something together that wasn't bad, and hats off to him for managing it in his first try at a novel. But by the end I found the plot was just starting to get in the way. What makes me pick up Barry over other writers is his able way of expressing his occasionally surreal perspective; I can flick to half the movies coming out of the US in the last decade or two to pick up people with guns running purposefully around airports or the like.
But, you know, some writers use novels to do something a bit more profound than a slick big-budget movie does. Or something a bit deeper than a humour column. Big Trouble, however, doesn't reveal new dimensions or perceptions in Dave - rather they just confirm that we're reading something by one of the top humour columnists around. To return to my jazz/classical crossover comparison (sorry if I sound too much like a w*nker here, but I reckon it works), I've heard a few classical players perform in jazz contexts - with unsurprisingly perfect pitch, lovely tone, and flawless technique. As established professionals they've got a team of people around them that are not going to let them go out and just make fools of themselves. But Yo-Yo Ma, for example, is a novelty rather than a jazz musician. Marsalis, however, can take you to a higher place whether sticking close to centuries old dots or playing havoc with a blues. Yo-Yo can play Monk with unimpeachable accuracy, he's an accomplished musician - yet at some point you wonder what the point is of someone playing `jazz' who is not even attempting to improvise?!
Iain Banks, in contrast, is a rare author who manages to have a foot firmly in two literary worlds, and although his SF books deal with some similar themes and may offer characters as complex as his contemporary novels, they require quite different skills. Perhaps I should wait and see though: Ben Elton's first few books were, unsurprisingly, a talented comic scriptwriter adapting his skills to more formulaic and filmic novels. But by the time we get to excellent works like Popcorn and The First Casualty Elton's reputation could stand on them alone. How cool would it be to be able to say that in a few years about someone as established as Dave Barry?
A Definite Must Read.......2007-03-19
If you have ever been to Miami or know someone who lives there this is a definite must read. It's still a fantastice book, even if you haven't been there, but if you have it is so much better because you have visuals to go along with Dave's hilarious descriptions. The action is great, the story is funny...I give it 2 thumbs way up!
Dave Barry's best full-length novel.......2007-02-02
What a recipe for an entertaining novel! Take a number of really unique characters (including "the toad"), develop a plot that has these characters going in apparently different directions, make the story line bring them slowly in congruence, and be totally in the dark regarding how the story can possibly end. Mix it all up with Dave Barry's unique humor. What you have left is... Big Trouble. The 2002 movie with Tim Allen also is good.
I think this would be a fun book to listen to while cruising in your car. Try it when you've obtained your hybrid.
Twisted, in a good way!.......2007-01-19
It was a bizarre, twisted ride through Florida that intertwined the lives of some very unlikely characters and kept me interested until the end. Let's just say an embezzler, a few teenagers, some cops, some hit men, a loner, and a few average people get wrapped up in a seemingly harmless kid's game, an assassination plot, and an arms deal gone awry. If that doesn't peak your interest, I don't know what will!
Book Description
Something BIG is going on in the woods near DSA! Wiglaf and his friends are on a rescue mission to save Worm, the dragon they've raised since he hatched. They thought that a gang of knightsin- training was the problem, but it turns out that it's a little girl GIANT! The DSA kids can't let Worm become her house pet. But how can they free him?
Customer Reviews:
Sosspan.......2007-06-26
My son had no interest in reading until we found the Dragon Slayers Academy. Now he reads non stop! He loves these books. They made him a reader! Thank you Kate Mcmullan
Amazon.com
Despite impressive triumphs over the years, leading companies like General Motors, Xerox, and Levi Strauss have also stumbled badly at times. In Big Brands, Big Trouble, Jack Trout points out their biggest missteps as well as the critical lessons that can be learned from them. In his typically no-nonsense manner, Trout--a "positioning" expert who has written numerous bestselling books on the topic and served as a consultant to several of these firms--lays out the myriad errors that caused them and other giants to lose ground in the fight for success. Helpful specifics abound, such as in the chapter on Crest, in which Trout notes how the toothpaste's one-time dominance slipped away when consumer concern over cavities gave way to worries about discoloration, bad breath, and gum disease (which other brands more effectively set themselves up to attack). The lessons Trout takes from this are threefold: even winning positions must occasionally evolve; knowledge of how leadership was initially attained must always be maintained; and competitors must never be given an angle to exploit. Likewise, the section on Burger King discusses how turnover at the top, inconsistent advertising messages, and a loss of focus on how to assault the industry leader resulted in a stagnation that has perpetually mired the chain as a fast-food also-ran. "It's a fact of life that the easiest idea to overlook is the obvious one," Trout notes in this chapter. Since most ideas are apparent only in retrospect, however, his insights should prove invaluable to readers who might easily make similar mistakes. --Howard Rothman
Book Description
Jack Trout, one of the most respected marketing gurus in the world, shows why some of today's biggest brands are having trouble and how to avoid repeating their mistakes. With the help of in-depth case studies chronicling the events leading up to the falls from grace of Sears, Miller Brewing, Xerox, Crest, Burger King, and other past market leaders, he identifies the ten most common mistakes that big brands make, and he develops a set of expert guidelines for marketing managers and executives on how to build, protect, manage, and expand their companies' brands and avoid brand-killing blunders.
Customer Reviews:
Keep It Simple and Stupid !.......2007-01-17
Since you are not tasting an apple I can Not Help you to feel it, have one and you will see the result, THIS BOOK IS A MUST FOR ANY ONE WHO IS LIVING ON THE PLANET OF EARTH, In this Book You can learn either LIFE lessons OR Business Lessons, So if you are looking for others idea like ME, Invest on it, IT IS WORTH 10,000,000,000 MORE than its price, God bless JACK TROUT!
A real page turner. Read it.......2004-07-27
Few marketing books has the enjoyable read character. it is safe to say that Big Brands...Big trouble leads the pack. Concise yet informative, the book focus on the notion that marketing is about winning your customers' minds and hearts.
By going through ample examples of famous brands, Mr. Trout dispel some of the conventinoal strategies most companies blindly undertake. Line extention according to him, has done nothing but damage to At&T and Miller Brewing. The giant P&G has lost big on the toothpaste line becasue they forgot what made their brand a hit. Fashionable outlets such as Levi' and M&S needs to rise out from the past and look more into the future by developing their own unique "brand lifestyle".
On the dark side, the book is relatively redundant and by the end of it, it looses out. Also, the recurring negative remarks on another business guru "Michel Porter" was needless and hence lost the book the full the mark.
Deliver a clear message-Perception is the most important!.......2003-09-13
¡§Big Brands Big trouble¡¨ is a very interesting and comprehensive book. This book explains several types of popular mistakes with different big brand cases, how to select a board of directors and how to be a good CEO. I think this book is suitable for anyone who is interested in Marketing or Branding because you could gain a lot of insight from it. After reading this book, you will understand why some brands cannot be established well even they have spent a lot money on advertising, introducing many new products.
This book impress me the most is that Jack Trout illustrated all mistakes clearly by showing how the big brands, like Levis, Burger King, AT&T and Marks and Spencer made in the past. Then you may discover that some of the existing well-known brands are actually making mistakes for their marketing strategies. Moreover, you may get surprise that some of the popular marketing strategies, like line extension, benchmarking cannot promote your product, conversely, they will hurt your company seriously. So you must read this book if you want to surpass your competitors by using appropriate marketing strategies for your company.
Overall speaking, this book is easy to read and understand because Jack Trout delivered a concise and important message in the book ¡V ¡§Marketing is a battle of perception, not product¡¨
Deliver a Clear Message - Perception is the most important!.......2003-09-13
¡§Big Brands Big trouble¡¨ is a very interesting and comprehensive book. This book have a clear organization which comprise several types of popular mistakes with different big brand cases, how to select a board of directors and how to be a good CEO. I think this book is suitable for anyone who is interested in Marketing or Branding because you could gain a lot of insight from it. After reading this book, you will understand why some brands cannot be established well even they have spent a lot money on advertising, introducing many new products.
This book impress me the most is that Jack Trout illustrated all mistakes clearly by showing how the big brands, like Levis, Burger King, AT&T and Marks and Spencer made in the past. Then you may discover that some of the existing well-known brands are actually making mistakes for their marketing strategies. Moreover, you may get surprise that some of the popular marketing strategies, like line extension, benchmarking cannot promote your product, conversely, they will hurt your company seriously. So you must read this book if you want to surpass your competitors by using appropriate marketing strategies for your company.
Overall speaking, this book is easy to read and understand because Jack Trout delivered a concise and important message in the book ¡V ¡§Marketing is a battle of perception, not product¡¨
Packed with Knowledge!.......2003-01-22
Jack Trout, head of the marketing firm Trout & Partners, digs for details about the major reasons big brands run into trouble and just how enormous companies mess up by handling their signature standard-bearers badly. He runs down the litany: mistaken extensions of the brand name, failures to differentiate the brand's qualities and loss of clarity about just what a brand represents. His failure sagas are mini-novels based inside Xerox, General Motors, AT&T, Digital Equipment, General Mills and Coca-Cola. Remember New Coke? Now that was a branding debacle. Trout highlights corporate shortcomings and lays the blame for branding woes right at the feet of people who should have known better: of out-of-touch CEOs, ineffective consultants and dysfunctional boards. Alert consumers who like insider business war stories will enjoy this clear, lively book, but if you own a company or market a brand, we from getAbstract suspect you should read it twice.
Amazon.com
In June 1997, just months before publication of his latest book, Big Trouble, Pulitzer-winning journalist J. Anthony Lukas killed himself. He was 64 and, according to many accounts, had finally surrendered to a lifelong despair over what he saw as his inability to meet his own exceedingly high literary standards.
Yet in reading Big Trouble, a gripping account of murder and politics in turn-of-the-century Idaho, one can't help but think that Lukas was far too hard on himself. His last work is a well-told tale of the struggle between labor and capitalists in the West at a time when entire state legislatures were effectively owned by corporate interests and America teetered on the brink of open class warfare.
The story begins with the 1905 assassination of Frank Steunenberg, an ex- governor of Idaho. His murder was rumored to be the work of vengeful labor bosses, and Pinkerton detective James McParland tracked Wobbly organizer Big Bill Haywood all the way to Colorado to bring him back to stand trial, where he and two other men were defended by a team of lawyers that included Clarence Darrow.
During the writing of Common Ground, his account of Boston's painful process of school desegregation in the 1970s, Lukas became intrigued by what he called race's "twin issue": class. "The more I delved into Boston's crisis," he writes in the foreword to Big Trouble, "the more I found the conundrums of race and class inextricably intertwined." Class simply wasn't as overt an issue as race in contemporary society. What Lukas needed was a time and place where class and class struggle were open and visible. He found it in Idaho in 1905, a time of change and uncertainty, when any notion of a large American middle class was still a distant dream. In order to make this era comprehensible to modern readers, Lukas has gone great lengths in Big Trouble to re-create the entire social, political, and economic context of the murder trial. Here are the histories not simply of mining, railroads, and unions, but of detectives, "modern" journalism, baseball, land speculation, and frontier-town boosterism. In its capacity to translate historical facts into an engrossing, insightful read, Big Trouble stands as a final testament to Lukas's well-deserved reputation as a top reporter of America's growing pains.
Book Description
Hailed as "toweringly important" (Baltimore Sun), "a work of scrupulous and significant reportage" (E. L. Doctorow), and "an unforgettable historical drama" (Chicago Sun-Times), Big Trouble brings to life the astonishing case that ultimately engaged President Theodore Roosevelt, Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, and the politics and passions of an entire nation at century's turn.
After Idaho's former governor is blown up by a bomb at his garden gate at Christmastime 1905, America's most celebrated detective, Pinkerton James McParland, takes over the investigation. His daringly executed plan to kidnap the radical union leader "Big Bill" Haywood from Colorado to stand trial in Idaho sets the stage for a memorable courtroom confrontation between the flamboyant prosecutor, progressive senator William Borah, and the young defender of the dispossessed, Clarence Darrow.
Big Trouble captures the tumultuous first decade of the twentieth century, when capital and labor, particularly in the raw, acquisitive West, were pitted against each other in something close to class war.
Lukas paints a vivid portrait of a time and place in which actress Ethel Barrymore, baseball phenom Walter Johnson, and editor William Allen White jostled with railroad magnate E. H. Harriman, socialist Eugene V. Debs, gunslinger Charlie Siringo, and Operative 21, the intrepid Pinkerton agent who infiltrated Darrow's defense team. This is a grand narrative of the United States as it charged, full of hope and trepidation, into the twentieth century.
Customer Reviews:
Fascinating study.......2006-12-12
Big Trouble is an enthralling study of the assassination of Frank Steunenberg and the amazing web of interrelated conflicts pitting the rich against the poor, the labor movement against the burgeoning private detective industry, the west against the east, etc. Unpredictable alliances emerge in a marvelous saga as the search for truth and justice is waylaid by a series of digressions. And, before long, we recognize, a la Holden Caulfield, that the digressions are just as essential and even more interesting than the ostensible story. Through it all, Lukas keeps a firm grasp on all of the myriad themes and storylines. The result is a book of some 750 pages and in fairness this book doesn't need to be quite so long; the segments on Ethel Barrymore and Walter Johnson add nothing to the book and should have been lopped. Yet this book should not have been much shorter and could not have been adequately told in less than six or seven hundred pages. Big Trouble is an outsized book about how an outsized time and place produced an extraordinary event. Its few defects, though obvious, are small blemishes on its far larger accomplishment.
From a Caldwell resident.......2006-04-22
I'm a police officer with the City of Caldwell, Idaho. When we first moved to the city (approximately 35,000 now)we lived one block from the old Stubenburg residence.
From a purely personal view point I found the book to be fascinating. The details were necessary. The book gives you an in-depth look at a specific time in the country's history. The extensive backgrounds that he provided for the many characters were also essential. For not only do they help the reader to understand the involved people, but their pasts also help to explain why the nation was like it was in 1906.
In many respects the book is almost an anti-western. By 1906 the Western United States was no longer the frontier, but many still viewed it that way. However the so-called "modern" world was now a presence. All the many social issues that we are still dealing with were a very real concern for those people in 1906 as well.
I feel that Lukas did an excellent job showing this time and the many tensions that exsisted. And whether he meant to or not Lukas also showed that we aren't so far removed from our ancestors. They too were convinved that their time was the worst and that the world was going to hell in a handbasket.
Editor, where art thou?.......2005-09-13
The book is centered around the murder of former Idaho governor Frank Steunenberg in 1905, but Lukas ripples out from this center so far that it begins to seem a minor detail. In formulating the book he began by researching the mining wars of the West around the turn of the 20th century (Boise, Cripple Creek) and the rise of the labor and concurrent Socialist movements in America.
But that wasn't enough. Lukas decided that in order to understand his central event fully, virtually the entire social, political, legal, and cultural fabric of the country at that time needed to be laid out. Thus the book becomes a very large and weighty tome in which, along with the main events of the Steunenberg murder and trial, the Pinkertons, newspaper reporting, Pullman cars, even the Elks and Odd Fellows all receive detailed coverage. Walter Johnson, the great Washington Senators pitcher, gets 14 pages for no other reason than he was playing minor league ball in Idaho at the time and the lawyers and reporters covering the trial of Steunenberg's alleged killers liked to go to the games. When such a minor thing receives such major focus it becomes difficult to distinguish it from the really major events, and it soon becomes just a catalog of events.
Lukas is an excellent writer and much of what he writes about is interesting, but the book almost becomes purposeless in its willingness to spread over such a large field. Here's where the skills of a good editor would have been handy. Unless, of course, Lukas refused such tampering of his work, and his reputation after winning the Pulitzer for his earlier COMMON GROUND (about the busing of school children in Boston in the 1970s) allowed him the privelege of final say. Who knows?
But the book is actually a handful of books rolled up into one, to the detriment of the one book (the whole is less than the sum of its parts). Although awesome in scope, it's finally disappointing because that scope was not harnessed in a useful way.
Class warfare in 1900's Idaho........2003-02-11
It's a blockbuster of a book and I had to buy a book-holder for reading it in bed. It comes in a big package - over 750 pages in my trade-paperback edition.
And it's American History made fascinating. What a mini-series this would be. What a movie! Lukas did painstaking research, not only in the relevant areas but in minor side-events and personages...all the tidbits of curious information about major and minor players in this riveting event of history.
Then add suspense, ..........What more do you need? Do something nice for yourself. Read this wonderful story told with consummate skill and sensitivity.
"The Book That Made Me Want to Be a Historian".......2002-09-30
Well, maybe not THE book, but when, for my first graduate course in history, I had to pick the work of history that most influenced my professional ambitions I picked Big Trouble, which I read in an undergrad U.S. Industrial History course. Big Trouble is a wonderful book and Lukas an amazing writer. I was interested all the way through the several hundred pages, which was not true for any of the other books I read in Industrial History, or in almost any other class ever.
What really struck me about Big Trouble, however, was what my professor passed out on the day we finished reading it: Luakas' obituary. He killed himself a few months before Big Trouble was published because, after winning two Pulitzers and a National Book Award, he felt that he had been a failure as a writer. I am sad that he did not live to write more.
Book Description
Tokyo Tower is falling down! From snowy wastes to urban sprawl, the Phantom Cats wreak havoc and destruction wherever they appear. The next target on their list is the seat of all paranormal activity in Japan...Tokyo Tower. Will Kagura be able to stop the cats' path of destruction or will Tokyo Tower fall?! Written and illustrated by the mega-talented Akihiro Ito, Geobreeders was made for fans of high action, intense thrills and cute chicks with guns!
Average customer rating:
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X-Men - Ghost Rider: Brood Trouble in the Big Easy
Jim Lee , and
Scott Lobdell
Manufacturer: Marvel Entertainment Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
X-Men
| Characters
| Comics & Graphic Novels
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Comic Strips
| Comics & Graphic Novels
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Comics & Graphic Novels
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 087135974X |
Customer Reviews:
A typical 90s Marvel.......2001-05-26
Not a bad story in and of itself. However it's nothing more than a typical crossover between two hot properties at the time. On the plus side it introduces Gambit's wife Belladona and sets the stage for a lot of the mutant Cajun's future development. On the downside it's somewhat tied into a confusing subplot from Ghost Rider at the time. A good read but there are better things featuring both the X-Men and GR out there.
Book Description
Has anyone today any conception of the grandeur, the extent, the million board feet a day production...the entire meaning of the forests of the Pacific Northwest-the "Big Woods"? The photographs alone in this absorbing book will instantly transport the reader into this former world. Here was the greatest stand of Douglas fir timber in existence and here was labor for the Poles, Finns, Swedes and Norskies lured out of the Midwest to convert the mammoth trees into the lumber that helped build the West Coast cities. Ralph Andrews presents a fascinating subject-the hope, courage and tragedy in the lives of the men and women who opened up the dense native forests or as the loggers said "brought daylight into the swamp," and converted the trees into the lumber which built the West Coast cities. Here are many nostalgic scenes showing high climbers, fallers balanced on high springboards, yokes of oxen and up to eight spans of horses dragging logs on skidroad, yokes of oxen and up to eight spans of horses dragging logs on skidroads to flumes, rivers and salt water, early donkey engines, railroads on steep grades, logging camps as well as devastating fires. Andrews' style of writing is graphic and spirited with strong emphasis on human interest.
Customer Reviews:
Another excellent tribute to the loggers of the PNW.......2005-01-05
From the late 1950s into mid-1960s Superior Publishing provided an outlet for Ralph W. Andrews to publish a number photo books of working men of the Pacific Northwest. Timber is one of those books. If one has only a passing interest in how logging used to be then probably one or two books would suffice. On the other hand if you're like me and enjoy collecting all of his works you can still find most of them still available. "Timber" has a number of great photos from when logging started with oxen and then later with donkeys (the mechanical kind not the animal) but it also has some great stories and photos about the terrible fires in Idaho during 1910. There's also the background about the Tillamook Burn of 1933 in Oregon. Most of these books by Andrews have a similar approach which is a number of black and white photos combined with stories told to Andrews or which he's gleaned from periodicals long since discontinued. While Andrews has had his critics for his approach, thankfully there was a person such as he willing to do the work in collecting the photos and Superior willing to publish them.
Books:
- Inside the Red Zone
- Introduction to Coding Theory (Graduate Texts in Mathematics)
- Kiss and Run: The Single, Picky, and Indecisive Girl's Guide to Overcoming Fear of Commitment
- Knocked Out by My Nunga-Nungas: Further, Further Confessions of Georgia Nicolson
- Leave It to Psmith
- Life, the Universe and Everything (Hitchhiker's Trilogy)
- Love for Sale (Grace & Favor Mystery Series, No. 4)
- Maybe Baby: 28 Writers Tell the Truth About Skepticism, Infertility, Baby Lust, Childlessness, Ambivalence, and How They Made the Biggest Decision of Their Lives
- Mother of the Bride: The Dream, the Reality, the Search for a Perfect Dress
- Mr. Monk and The Blue Flu
Books Index
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Butchers Hill (Tess Monaghan Mysteries)
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The Sugar House: A Tess Monaghan Mystery
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