Foreign-market Books

I sure bought the advertising hype, but have to say that the quality of this book seriously detracts from the effectiveness. The book appears to be a photocopy of a hand-typed 1970s manuscript. Some of the typefaces don't match up. The pages weren't even printed in the correct order so I had to scramble to find the continuity. Jumping back and forth to go through the first couple chapters was almost enough to make me give up. The pronunciation guide is also weak (not explaining how to pronounce common combinations of letters.) That said, the exercises ARE okay and the grammatical explanations are easy to follow. The major exception to that is the usage of the Italian articles for "the"and "a" which was sorely lacking. The vocabulary is fairly limited but is presented in a logical fashion. I think someone needs to edit this book and put in some quality checks. I wouldn't recommend this book, or its supposed "method."

I am a former US diplomat and current international business consultant. I can say that Language Dynamics courses are the only courses I know of that are truly dedicated to effective and immediate communication in the target language. Academic courses often reflect the literary interests of professors, many of whom never had the experience of learning the target language as a second language. With these courses, you can hit the streets after every lesson knowing you can say more than you could yesterday.

I picked up this book along with several others on doing business in India. It cost 5-10 times as much as the others, and I was expecting something very down-to-earth and detailed. It actually told me very little that the other (much cheaper) books didn't. It has a number of eminent contributors, but the result is a book that - with the exception of a few chapters - is rather broadly general, and sometimes reads like a series of press releases. Perhaps it will drive readers (presumably, foreign companies) to the eminent contributors for practical advice.

Now in a completely rewritten, updated, and expanded second edition, "Doing Business With India: A Guide to Investment Opportunities & Business Practice" under the expert editorship of Roderick Millar (a specialist in personal finance, business start-ups, development economics, and management education) continues to be the definitive instructional guide for any entrepreneur or corporate CEO wanting to do business on the Indian subcontinent. The roster of contributors is nothing short of impressive and includes KPMG, the Confederation of Indian Industry, DTZ Debenham Tie Laung, Maersk Line, the Management Development Institute, the Ministry of Commerce, the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion, Nasscom, Shilputsi Consultants, Synovate, Titus & Company, and Winning Communications. "Doing Business With India" is a superbly organized instructional guide to India's commercial laws, banking system, accounting practices, and the rules of business engagement in Indian markets. Of special note is the analysis of India's investment climate and the assessment of opportunities for American companies in a vigorous and growing economy. "Doing Business With India" is essential, very strongly recommended reading for anyone considering or actively engaged in outsourcing to India, setting up operations in India, and working with Indian partners to mutual commercial benefit.

At the outset, it is important to mention that my special area of interest is cost of capital with finite cash flows (CF). And in my review, it is this point that I would like to address.
In chapter 10, compared to similar books, the author presents a good detailed exposition on the cost of capital. However, my big complaint is that the author assumes that the formulas on the cost of capital that are derived from CF in perpetuity simply carry over to finite CF.
In practice, we derive finite cash flows from financial statements and on grounds of simplicity, one may use the formulas from CF in perpetuity. However, it is not self-evident that the formulas from CF in perpetuity are relevant and appropriate to finite CFs. This may or may not be true, but the equivalence certainly needs to be demonstrated with some simple numerical examples.

The book deals with the emerging markets' specific problems of investment valuation and financial decisioning. Elementary financial methodologies are modified to capture the different variabeles in emerging markets. It is an easy to read book but I would have liked it to be more in-depth than it is now. It gives, however, a nice structured view on emerging markets valuation theory.

Wonderful reminiscenes of a French students year at Washington and Lee. Tender and sincere, it evokes the feelings of youth, the period of the late 50's, and the characteristics of the south I experienced thirty years later. Fairly easy to understand in French.

American culture from days past is sometimes interesting to look at. Nowhere can a less biased view of the 1950's be found than in the eyes of a foreigner. If that is what you seek then this is a good book. The plot kicks off pritty well. The book draws you in, bringing forth events that make you think. I reccomend reading to page 197 to anyone. Then strange things start to happen. Labro goes on for a few chapters about springtime. With the kinky/racey stuff long-gone, the reader might as well quit now. There are a few high moments before the end but it doesn't come near the intrest found in the first half. So overall I give this book a decent score because it is based on something that really happened. We can't all expect our lives to be interesting. If you're a book lover, you'll like it. If you speak french, it might amuse you. If you're looking for something more enlightening to read, try Ayn Rand.

This book is actually quite accessible to the student of French, compared to many of Gide's other works. It is an excellent introduction to Gide, and comprises an essential part of any student of literature's repertoire. It is still very relevant to our times, and while not as avant-garde or shocking as it must have been at the time of its publication, it is still a fascinating look at human morality and social mores.

Complicated structure. Was difficult to read even at the advanced level. Very depressing story.

Rachel, une juive de 16 ans, est promise par ses parents à un Hassidim. Heureusement, la jeune épouse est conquise par son mari. Ils filent le parfait bonheur malgré les contraintes imposées par leur religion.

Après dix ans de mariage, leur amour n'est pas encore scellé par la fécondité. Un Hassidim peut répudier sa femme pour cette raison. En cachette de son mari, Rachel consulte un gynécologue malgré les interdits. Le résultat des tests dénie sa stérilité. Malgré ce réconfort, elle se doit d'en garder le secret et de subir les pressions de sa communauté d'autant plus que son beau-père est un rav, c'est-à-dire un chef religieux. Cette séparation fera sombrer la jeune héroïne, qui n'espèrera plus que la mort pour obtenir sa délivrance.

Ce petit roman soulève le sort réservé aux femmes dans ces religions composées de machistes, qui prétendent obéir aux lois soit-disant divines. C'est une démonstration qui vient confirmer une fois de plus que certaines religions ont dévié de leur mission première en s'immisçant dans la vie privée des gens au lieu de fortifier les liens de l'être humain avec son Créateur. D'une plume alerte, Éliette Abécassis a écrit une oeuvre expéditive, mais éclairante d'autant plus que cette auteure est juive.

Un très très bon roman! un peu court par contre mais bon c'est déjà ça.

C'est l'histoire de Rachel, une juive Hassidim, mariée à Nathan depuis bientôt dix ans. Le hic... ils n'ont pas encore d'enfants et après dix ans un mari a le droit, et non le devoir, de répudier sa femme si celle-ci n'a pas donné d'enfants à son époux. Rachel vit dans la crainte que Nathan la répudie, surtout que ce dernier subit beaucoup de pression de la part de son père.

J'ai beaucoup aimé découvrir les coutumes, les habitudes de vie, les croyances et les fêtes religieuses des Hassidims. Bon on reste un peu sur notre faim car c'est un petit livre de 130 pages alors l'auteure n'a pas le temps d'élaborer mais c'est correct car ça me donne le goût de lire autre chose sur le sujet.

Très intéressant de voir comment la religion peut prendre toute la place dans la vie de certaines personnes et ce sans se poser de questions, c'est ainsi. Alors que d'autres ont la force ou la clairvoyance de remettre en question les préceptes de cette religion, comme la soeur de Rachel.

En tout cas j'ai vraiment aimé!

20081214 DEPARTED AMAZON WITH OUTRAGE OVER THE MANIPULATION OF VOTES.

I give the author high marks for understanding early on the difference between FREE trade and FAIR trade. While he is an avowed protectionist and much of what he offers must be balanced by more progressive views, the tide is turning as "true costs" become established and we all begin to realize that between exporting solid jobs for the middle class and the earnest blue collar trade specialists, and allowing illegal immigration and the Reagan-led destruction of the trade unions, we have put a stake in the heart of THE fundamental source of national power and prosperity: people.

See also:
The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism
The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy
Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class - And What We Can Do about It (BK Currents (Paperback))
The Global Class War: How America's Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future - and What It Will Take to Win It Back
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
No Logo: No Space, No Choice, No Jobs
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
The Working Poor: Invisible in America
State of the Unions: How Labor Can Strengthen the Middle Class, Improve Our Economy, and Regain Political Influence
Election 2008: Lipstick on the Pig (Substance of Governance; Legitimate Grievances; Candidates on the Issues; Balanced Budget 101; Call to Arms: Fund We Not Them; Annotated Bibliography)

This is an incomplete and polemical history of U.S. trade policy written from a protectionist point of view. On the plus side, Eckes served as an International Trade Commissioner in the 1980s and has an insider's knowledge of American trade politics; in addition, while preparing the book, he turned up some interesting documents on the role of the State Department in trade remedy cases in the 1950s and '60s. However, he offers no economic analysis, does not present both sides of the trade debate, and sneers at professional economists rather than rebuts the case they make for free trade. (One almost wonders about his impartiality on the ITC). He also barely mentions U.S. policy in the GATT or the WTO. These are fatal lapses in a book on this subject. Not recommended.

Because this book has been slammed by an earlier reviewer, I feel compelled to offer a more positive view.

I bought TRC:500 Cases more than 10 years ago in Beijing (this edition has a 1993 copyright). It's one of several books I brought back from China that I cherish. If you are looking for an academic book on the early history of Chinese characters, this may not fit the bill. But it is scholarly, and has been accurate whenever I have run across character etymologies in other sources. The pictures, though a bit saccharine sometimes, are entirely legitimate since the characters covered are pictographic.

This is a book you can learn something from.

Finally, as other reviewers elsewhere point out, if you don't offer alternative sources in your review then tearing down legitimate works, like TRC, is to no one's advantage.

Overall, the book is a low-quality, PRC printing and binding, below Western standards; mine is coming undone after opening it only a few times, and some pages are faint, uneven, or otherwise unclear in places.

Explores the origins of 500 graphs in typical mass-market style, with focus on pictographs, one per page, with cartoons, rather than on the majority category of phonetic compounds and their actual evolutionary processes. Acceptable for the casual peruser, but not accurate or informative enough for the serious student of etymology. Like all such books I've seen now on the market, explanations are extremely brief, without references, and without noting competing theories, occasionally misleading the reader into thinking that his are the single, correct explanations, even though a handful of the readings are idiosyncratic or outdated (to be fair, most are correct). Examples: yao1 (now 'die young'), he defines as 'to bend' (following the outdated Han dynasty Shuowen and ignoring the established evidence that it means 'walk quickly or run, rush' based on zou3 'walk' and ben1 'rush'); bai2 (now 'white'), which he describes as 'a burning candle' (ignoring the two major theories that it is a loan of 'thumb' and 'head'); yin1 'prosperous; last Shang1 capital', which he describes as a man being beaten with a stick, despite the obvious presence of a graph for 'pregnant woman' which is probably playing a phonetic role and may even be its etymonic root (pregnant --> multitudinous, flourishing, prosperous).

Li is inconsistent in mentioning semantic and phonetic components in compounds, with omissions in graphs such as the role of ji4 'a mortar' in jiu4 'owl; old; ancient' regrettable. Polyphony is ignored; there is no mention of the role of li4 'tripod cooker' in two common compounds pronounced ge2, 'separate' and 'belch, hiccup', implying a second reading of ge2. Beginning students will not be able to make some of his leaps. For example, at ji1 'chicken' he mentions one component is phonetic, but does not mention its pronunciation or meaning; nor is there mention at the entry for that component, xi1, that it is phonetic in ji1 'chicken'. Similarly, decomposing ming2 'name', he fails to mention the origin or pronunciation of its top component (xi1, xi4), identifying it only as 'night' (although the illustration does show it correctly as the moon). Entries are sometimes slightly confusing, e.g., at wan4 '10,000': "Its original meaning was 'scorpion'. ... Later, it was loaned to be the numeral ten thousand, and was written as [ ]." This is somewhat unclear as to which meaning was written [ ], scorpion, or 10,000, and the printing quality in my copy was so poor as to render the graph [ ] illegible.

The 3-page preface, covering the history of the Chinese script, writes pinyin only, sans tones, for Chinese words, and a few minor details are incorrect (e.g., those oracle bones using turtle shells were mostly the plastrons, not the carapace, or back shell, as Li states). Otherwise the overview, albeit brief, is generally correct.

There is a stroke index by simplified char., while the main entries are conveniently ordered by pinyin.

A sequel with another 500 graphs was published as Evolutionary Illustration of Chinese Characters in 2000. Beijing Language & Culture University Press, ppbk; ISBN 7561908520. I don't plan to buy it.

Extremely helpful for all fashionistas. Makes a great gift for clients as well. Very well researched and a fun read.

I think that Born to Shop: Italy is far more informative and instructional. It is also more personalized with additional information on favorite hotels and cafes located in the vicinity of favorite shops. There seems to be much more information on bargain and outlet shopping, which Where to Wear ignores. Where to Wear also does not discuss price ranges and seems to assume that the reader is extraordinarily wealthy. I am taking the two books to Italy next month and will comment more later if I change my opinion!

I take Packer as a stand-in for capitalism gone wild and savage. There was a line in there somewhere about how the logical conclusion of capitalism is killing. Packer's rapacious and deliberate murder of the world's currencies in one day's time leads him logically to seek the assassin who's been stalking him (a former employee). The two wax philosophically about each other's personality deficits, a bumbling last rites.

I loved White Noise and Great Jones Street, so I expected to enjoy Cosmopolis. Although it had some moments of brilliance, the protagonist of this work lacked authenticity, thus the work as a whole failed to capture my interest. If you must read every work by DeLillo, pick it up, but otherwise, you can skip this one.

A total mismash of observations, half baked philosophy, unstructured paragraphs, pointless dialogue. Waste of reading (or listening) time.
I read this after rereading Philip Roth's Zuckerman books. Perhaps that was a mistake. Roth lives and creates life on the page. DeLillo is off in some never never land of his imagination. It does not relate to human experience. It is artificial posturing, meant to shock, but ends up boring.

I recommend you get works by Roth, Updike, Bellow, Richard Ford, Ruth Rendel, among others. Even formula writers like Robert Parker and John Mortimer are more stimlating and fun.

Relevant and enlightening reflections from DeLillo on the heartlessness of our media driven, globally connected world and its demonic obsessions with money and success. Although not on level with Libra it still is a good book with momentary flashes of brilliance.

Most criticism of this books seams targeted towards its cold universe and although DeLillo certainly have created a world from a fine blend of the worst features of modern life, he is rightful to do so. The brilliant description of the perverse indifference and fascination surrounding a mans attempt to end his life by pubic burning, is in my view no more grotesque than most modern video's circulating the internet.

So despite its gloomy views and complete ignorance of the good in the modern world there certainly lies truths in this crazy book. And since it is also filled with great prose, memorable paragraphs and grotesque displays of human insanity, it all ads up to a worthwhile read.

Don DeLillo is someone I regard as a serious, engrossing, remarkably *talented* writer. But as much as I enjoy reading him and as engrossed and mesmerized as I am by his breathtakingly masterful use of language --I'm disappointed. Let me try to explain.

DeLillo describes one of his characters in "Cosmopolis" as follows: "She talked. That was her job. She was born to it and got paid for it. But what did she believe?" ... This is what frustrates me about Don DeLillo: he writes, masterfully; indeed, he was "born to it." But what does he believe?

He falls, for me, into quite a populated category of modern-day writers who know and understand the pathologies of modern life, but the cure either eludes them or else they're not especially interested in exploring those pathologies. And that leaves them profoundly incomplete as a writer.

Put another way: "Et tu, Don?"

Ideology is not something that concerns many modern-day novelists, and indeed that may be the overarching problem regarding the current crop of fiction writers. One has no problem saying: "Sure, I get it, Orwell had an ideology; Hemingway had an ideology; Fitzgerald had an ideology." But modern-day novelists "play it safe" when it comes to an overarching socio-political point of view. In fact, may I suggest that taking a strong ideological stand would probably alienate a certain percentage of their potential audience (read: market share) -- and where's the profit in that? After all, beliefs may be sacred, but profits are divine.

And so novelists today, novelists such as Don DeLillo, "play it safe." While outstanding in his craftsmanship, we're still left to wonder: Yes, libermeister, you've characterized the problem brilliantly -- but what's the cure? Are you outraged by all this, or is it simply more grist for your literary mill?

Where, for example, can we place Norman Mailer nowadays, ideologically? He was FOR the first Gulf War, AGAINST the current Gulf War, but supports Hilary Clinton for president, Hillary being FOR the current Gulf War! Bing-bang-boom, he's all over the ideological map -- indeed: many things to many people. To quote The Church Lady: "How conveeeeenient!"

Evidently, self-professed "tough guys" aren't tough enough to stop dancing around the ideological middle, Mailer quite proudly labeling himself a "liberal-conservative."

Or Philip Roth. How, one wonders, does Philip Roth feel about the current state of affairs in and around Israel as they relate to the Palestinian question? How much mileage (read: fame, wealth & popularity) has Philip Roth accrued writing about Jews, and yet where has he written about the Israel government's relationship to the Palestinians and the West Bank?

I'm not saying he should take this, that or some other stand on the matter, where he stand ideologically is up to him but, as far as I'm aware of, he hasn't taken ANY position on the issue.

Here's how desperate Philip Roth is for grist for his literary mill. In his autobiography, "My Life as a Man," he confesses that he married his first wife knowing beforehand that she had diabolically tricked him into marrying her by faking a pregnancy. Why then did Roth go ahead with the marriage knowing, in advance, his wife's deceit? Well, as Woody Allen put it at the beginning of "Annie Hall" -- he needed the eggs. That is to say, Roth freely admits that, diabolic though she was, by going ahead and marrying his scheming wife, she would provide him with interesting "experiences" that he could transform into so much literary gold. (Oy, the humanity!)

Lenny Bruce once said: "Never trust a preacher who owns more than one suit." To the extent that novelists are our secular preachers, from a strictly prescriptive point of view, you'll excuse me but I prefer those novelists who don't know one yacht wax from another. I rather prefer those writers who have the guts to disturb their readers by taking a stand and in doing so offer a *cure* to the maladies they (so promiscuously) write about. As opposed to a cleverly written play-by-play of our contemporary maladies.

Writers such as DeLillio, Mailer and Roth all profess to be "progressive" in their point of view, but from where I sit, it takes guts to be *truly* progressive; it takes ideology and, with ideology, prescriptions; not just grist and talent.

Alas, Don DeLillo, you have my fullest respect as a master craftsman when it comes to the English language; and your books are full of delight and intelligence but, I hardly know ye, paisan. Upon what rock do you stand?