Credit-history Books

EPIC FILMS is a fun and detailed checklist of nearly 300 movies that are "concerned with monumental events and larger than life characters" that "take place during the period of time from the Creation to the thirteenth century." Utilizing that somewhat broad definition, Gary Smith writes with contagious enthusiasm about a wide assortment of titles, ranging from low budget but frequently stylish Italian-made peplum like GOLIATH AND THE VAMPIRES to stodgy and bloated multi-million dollar Hollywood extravaganzas like THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD. Smith provides informative and occasionally hilarious commentary and plot outlines, with brief cast/crew information for each film. Dozens of decorative stills and publicity photos are strewn throughout the text. The book offers a jaunty and entertaining look at these often spectacular productions and is highly recommended for fans of this mostly mindless but undeniably opulent genre.

Chown, a practitioner instead of an academic, is wise and pithy, covering a lot of territory from Charlemagne to the end of the 19th century. He wisely gives equal time to coins, paper money, and bank deposits. He knows the academic literature, but writes mainly for educated laypeople. The book is fun to read, but is too short and anecdotal to be a reference. But you will learn that many 20th century controversies in monetary affairs go back to the Middle Ages and Renaissance. See how playing sleight of hand with banks and paper money has proven seductive for generations. The terminology changes, but not the dilemmas and temptations. And wisdom is likewise of long date, namely the work of Richard Cantillon around 1720, David Hume around 1750, and Henry Thornton in 1802.

Better books in this vein include Jim Grant's Money of the Mind", and Glyn Davies's "A History of Money from Ancient Times to the Present Day." Somebody should also bring Lloyd Mints's "History of Banking Theory" back in print.

This book sounded good: An alphabetical listing of nearly all recent movie stars with a discussion of each star's worst film. To qualify, a film had to be both a commercial and critical disaster. Only problem is the authors appear to have written the book over a long weekend. The entries are very short -- usually a page, sometimes less -- and contain almost no background on the films, apart from their box office take and, occasionally, quotes from reviewers. We all know Halle Berry's a fine actress and Catwoman was a bomb. Why not tell us how she came to make the film, what problems the film encountered in production that made it so bad, and so forth? The authors did essentially no research that might have enabled them to discuss these issues. Instead they provide a brief summary of the actor's career before and after the bomb under consideration and make a few smart remarks about the movie itself. They would have to be far wittier than they are to pull this off. In short, if you are movie fan, you probably already know everything you will read in this book. For a much better book on the same subject, check out James Robert Parish's Fiasco.

This book is a waste of money. The authors claim to have spent "hundreds of hours" watching films to come up with a list of the worst movies that famous actors made. But there is no evidence they even saw some of the movies. It's just a rehash of stereotyped film flops, such as Ishtar, Town & Country, Catwoman, etc.

Each "chapter" is merely a couple of paragraphs that summarizes an actor's career and then gives a little synopsis of the worst flop of that performer's career. There is no evidence of any research being conducted other than a quick Internet search. You'd find more information on Wikipedia than you'll find here. Some "chapters" are literally four paragraphs and say nothing other than someone like Madonna is a bad actress.

Get ten pages into this book and you'll regret buying it. Here's a sample from just the first few pages: Ben Affleck "not only isn't funy, he isn't remotely charming." Tim Allen "hasn't shown he has the chops to pull off any performance on the silver screen." Drew Barrymore has "not played the lead in any motion picture of any consequence."

Do you see where this is headed? They make catty remarks about easy targets but offer nothing of substance. And their opinions are so off-based that you have to question everything in the book.

One problem is that the book is divided by actors (alphabetically). But really what these authors are doing are reviewing (in a couple paragraphs) the bad movies the actors were in. The book should have been divided by movies--but there have already been a couple (much better) books done that way, so the only way to justify this book was to divide it by actors even though the content really is more about the film than the performer. For example, for Warren Beatty there are paragraphs about how bad the movie is but little mention of the actor himself. For Alec Baldwin, they make fun of him for being in the children's movie Thomas and the Magic Railroad, but then admit he's better than the other performers and basically just don't like the movie.

Don't waste your money on this. The publisher loses credibility when this type of poorly-researched, badly-written waste of time gets put into print.

The authors seem to have had a very rough job while researching this book--it consists of nothing but big, big Hollywood bombs. I never thought it would be this fun reading about Battlefield Earth, Surviving Christmas, Mary Reilly and other tanks by Hollywood's biggest stars. Lots of interesting information. It's a page-turner.

I'm in the process of reading this book. Some of the advice is very pedestrian (i.e. someone who gives you good service should be rewarded when possible.) And there is a little too much ettiquette-like advice along the same lines previously mentioned, and it's a little short on more of the quantitative explanations for me, but all in all, helpful, though keep in mind, this was written before the market exploded a decade ago.

This book has been damned for being too simplistic, therefore consign it to the trash cart, or so we are expected to do. But given the relative novelty of these financial products simplicity in the best sense of word could be seen as a virtue in any work dealing with this topic. So, why the evident annoyance from some. Could it be that this work dissolves some of the mystery involved, and threatens some closed shop in these markets ?

The book easily shows its age in its focus on standards and issues which have long ago fallen by the wayside in this dynamic market. Far worse is that the book is preciously short on quantitative and analytic methods, and long on third-grade-teacher types of admonishments. I read the whole book becasue I paid for it, there are better, more up-to-date volumes out there. Could possibly be re-named "Swaps for English Majors", although, English majors as a group might correctly be upset at this association.

The author didn't do her homework. Ten minutes of Google yields more fruit that this tome. Her appraisal of "The Ghost Writer" pilot is particuarly obtuse, as the version she saw was obviously heavily edited unlike the ones currently on view on You Tube. A shabby excuse for a book, devoted to subject matter that deserves better. Understandably, this is now out of print. How it was published in the first place is mystifying.

Laura Kay Palmer's book was a treat and is a treat to any Anthony Perkins fan. She covers absolutely every bit of work Tony ever did and thankfully exposes what a gifted and brilliant actor/director/screenwriter/singer he was and always will be. It helps considerably that she knows whereof she speaks. Her reviews of his music and film and television work,(that which was available), are incisive, intelligent and unbiased, contrary to what one might expect from a fan of his work. When she likes a film that was poorly received by critics and public alike, she supports herself very well and backs up her competent criticism with elements of the work in question that failed to dawn on critics of that time. She also speaks out heartily against the "post-Psycho revisionism" that almost completely destroyed any respect he had as an actor up to this point. She also conjures up quite an impressive bibliography, which is worth reading by itself. Pick this up instead of Charles Winecoff's SPLIT IMAGE.

I opened this book with high hopes, being a huge fan of Tony Perkins, and was disappointed to find it consists largely of flippant remarks/opinions by its author rather than any serious probing or insight into this remarkable theatrical family. As a listing of career moments, it is fine, but as a biography or anything deeper than a roster, it is very thin. Some of the so-called chapters are merely one paragraph long, in which the author says she could not come up with any info.

This is basically a textbook, quite dry and academic, except for the author's occasional slips of mild witticism which occasionally make up an entire chapter (usually when she was unable to come up with any hard information). I found this admirable for its obvious effort, but ultimately unsatisfying as it offers little to no insight into either Perkins personally, and has a funny tone of proprietariness and prudishness. Also, why the high price? Not worth it. Stick with the biography.

Wonderful book that was reprinted badly. Original book had gorgeous illustrations, copies of the original bills of exchange, etc. Paper in this reprint is downsized, so letters are really tiny and all illustrations are black.

somebody read this 360 pp bk, doesn't want it anymore, yet it is worth $89.23 USED? Oh, ok.

I ordered this book thinking it was a "Guide" to Mauritania (as the title indicates). Unfortunately, it was little more than a pamphlet that gave very sketchy information about schools in Mauritania.... totally worthless to me. I would not recommend this book to anyone... WAY overpriced for the very small amount of information that it contains.

I would not recommend this book to anyone. Soro's self-absorbtion as he carries on about his genius is not worth the time it takes to read this short book.