On-the-tape

One of the greatest tome's on legal philosohy ever written; and by a Frenchman no less!! "Legal Plunder," the act of government taking from one person or group and giving to another person or group, only fosters negative feelings, class resentment, and condems the lowest class to professional groveling. Overall, Bastiat argues, a government that practices legal plunder under the auspices of equality and social necessity deserves not to be in power and people must have the courage to fumigate these corosive thoughts from public discourse. A book which deserves to be in the rooms of every high school civics class, "The Law" is a work that will last forever.

To read this essay knowing nothing of the author or when he wrote it, one would never guess that it was first published 150 years ago. This book is as timeless as ANY publication in human history. Bastiat demonstrates a thorough and flawless understanding of both the bright and dark sides of human nature, of the essential role each has played in the growth and divergence of collectivist and (18th century) liberal ideologies, and most importantly, the resulting tendency for government, in all of its most common manifestations, to grow and for liberty to yield. The principles proffered herein are the very genesis of the body of thought most commonly attributed to such brilliant authors as Milton Friedman, F. A. Hayek, Adam Smith, and Thomas Paine. Bastiat was the consummate humanitarian, and a genius with no peer. If you read no other book during your lifetime, read "The Law".

This was written in 1850, just after the 1848 revolution in France. Bastiat was concerned by all the different groups that were trying to use "The Law" or in Hayek's words, "The State" to remake society into their vision of a more perfect society. Bastiat argues that trying to use the law to help out one group does so at the expense of another group, he calls this "legal plunder" and points out how in the long run this will ruin society.

Bastiat starts off saying that the basic gifts man has from God are: life, liberty, and property. It is appropriate and correct to defend yourself, your liberty, and your property. "The Law" was created to ensure that individuals in society were allowed to use these gifts.

Bastiat says that unfortunately "The Law" is abused by the greed and false philanthropy of man. There are two basic ways of getting ahead in life, the first is to work hard and produce, the second is to plunder from others. When trade off and risks for plunder are better than labor, many people will turn to plunder. It is very tempting for those who make laws to use the law to plunder. Bastiat says "legal plunder" is to use the law to take property, which if was done without the benefit of the law would have been considered a crime.

He has some fairly pointed barbs at socialists. He says many of the writers at his time seem to view people as raw material, to be formed or controlled. He says that most socialists see mankind as evil, while they (the socialists) are good. This leads the socialists to feeling justified in using "The Law" to make mankind be good. Bastiat asks why so many people in government feel that mankind makes too many mistakes, but that they in government are nobler and will make better choices.

This is short, and because the original format was a pamphlet, Bastiat acknowledges that it is not complete. So many of his points and arguments are brief.

This is a good call to action, to encourage people to be more informed about their government, and to work to limit the government. So much of what Bastiat said long ago is still true.

It is awesome to hear the real old-timers talk about baseball's early days. They are old enough to be candid, to be sure. The interviewer does an admirable job of staying in the background, asking prompting questions only when needed and these are show his excellent preparation without making him seem like he's their (baseball) equal.
My only complaint, having heard this on CD (and I did that because I very much wanted to hear their actual voices) was that the audio was not done too well, mostly too faint except on extreme volume settings. Anyway, it was definitely worth the effort.

I'll be blunt. This is the single greatest baseball book I've ever read. I wouldn't be surprised if it were the best baseball book ever written. This book conveys the tone of baseball's early days. The players tell their stories in their own voice, oft-times a considerably different manner of speaking than we use currently.

I greatly enjoyed the slang words the old ballplayers used. They taunted rookies by calling them 'bushers'. One player warned another (speaking of Nap Lajoie) 'Watch out for the Frenchman.' Priceless!

Outside of the words, the stories themselves paint a glorious picture of baseball at the beginning of the century. The lesser ballplayers, the Hans Loberts and Chief Meyers', give their impression of the all-time greats; Wagner, Lajoie, Mathewson, Cobb, Jophnson, Bender, Waddell, and Shoeless Joe. Much of what we now know about these legends came directly from the recollections in this book. This is a baseball treasure and belongs in every serious fan's library.

Words alone cannot describe what I have read. Smoky Joe Wood, Rube Marquard, Wahoo Sam Crawford, and many others. We are talking legends of a game gone by. True hero's when a baseball world needed hero's. Many thanks to Lawrence Ritter for capturing moments in time with these baseball legends. I'm sure that they all had a million stories to tell, but I'll settle for just the few that are represented in this book. In today's baseball world of outright sheer greed and selfishness, it was so refreshing to hear stories about baseball's yesterday when times were simpler and the game was just a game. How I miss those days. How I miss those players. Thank you to them for allowing a little boy to dream the dream. Thank you for a memorable look at a simpler time, Lawrence.

The most enjoyable golf you can play is effortless and pressure free. "Doc" Rotella's "Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect" has literally liberated me from myself. I was definitely in my own way, halting my own progress. My swing coach brought me from a 35 handicap to a 16 handicap in two summers. Doc brought me down to a 10 handicap in six weeks, and I am still improving. Two key facets in the book grabbed me. First is, "The best swing thought is no swing thought!" This was riveting and when I finally let go and trust my swing, the ball went longer and straighter. Consistency and lower scores were the result. The second facet dealt with putting. Doc emphasized "When you land the green, hole the put, no matter the distance!" What a confidence and result booster!! My goal was to become a single digit handicapper by the end of summer 2001. I still have three weeks to lose one stroke and achieve my goal. I am convinced it will happen. On June 26th, I had a milestone. After reading Doc's book, I shot my first ever and only sub-par round of 35 for nine holes on a par 36 executive course here in Indianapolis. I had a playing partner and asked him to sign the card. It is now framed and sitting in my office. That was fun. Thanks Doc!! -Gary in Indianapolis.

This is an outstanding book filled with common sense, wit and wisdom from a true student and lover of the game: Bob Rotella. Rotella books have been a big factor in me bringing my handicap down from 20 to 3 over the last three years. Rotella uses stories to illustrate his ideas and concepts, making them easier to remember and understand. Much more entertaining than do this, don't do that type instruction. Great instruction for life as well as golf, especially his ideas on pursuing your dreams, hard work and overcoming obstacles. This book is great for competitive golfers and recreational golfers. Rotella teaches you to love and enjoy the process of improving and playing regardless of results for that given day. One of the hardest aspects of this book to implement is his suggestion that if you are not spending 90 percent of your practice time on shots from a 100 yards and in, you are not practicing to become the best player you can be. Yet he is correct. The more I pracice the scoring shots, the better I get. This is a book that every golfer should read.

I was a twenty something handicap for twenty something years, but here I am twenty something days since reading Dr. Rotella's wonderfully simple, yet powerful book, Golf is Not a Game of Perfect, with a personal best golf score of "79"!

Please read this book and I guarantee you that your game will improve.

Thanks doc! -Bill Smith, Murrieta, CA

If you can read this book and not think twice about your next meal- you must be dead. John Robbins, in his most convincing book yet, spells out all the reasons even the most avid meat eater can't dispute.

Have you ever tried one of those new diets like the Zone or the famous Atkins plan? John Robbins explains exactly why they don't work and why they're dangerous- with life long results!

Children and adults alike are less able to fight off infections, the medical profession blames it on overprescribing antibiotics- but did you ever think it could be because of the food we eat? Oh yes! John tells all about how the meat and dairy industry insists on using antibiotics on the animals- why? Because they are so crowded, abused and sick from mistreatment- that a huge percentage carry deadly illnesses to pass onto the dinner plates! Do you want to risk that?

In details, reports, interviews, personal experiences, and scientific and medical backup- Mr. Robbins provides all the fact, mental visual horror, and life long compassion that everyone should have before they eat their next meal. James Cromwell from the movie Babe turned Vegan after his encounter with the factory farms.

I began with his book Diet for a new World, this new book helps me explain why I won't eat or buy any animal products-ever!

And do you know the result? I lost weight naturally and I feel amazing! I can look at animals in peace knowing I won't be causing them death or harm.

Force the factory farms to change. Make them be humane in their practices. More importantly- buy this book!

When you've read it- pass it on or buy friends and family their own copies. One person at a time, one family at a time- we can change whats going on. A huge thank you to John Robbins! Support his work- buy his books!

I find John Robbins to be one of the most caring, loving, compassionate human beings alive today. In his book he gives detailed information about the food we eat and how our choices affect the whole world. The well-researched and documented information he gives us is just TOO COMPELLING TO IGNORE. I was unable to put the book down once I started reading it; I finished the whole book in two days, and I am forever changed. There are so many things that most of us simply are not aware of, until someone comes out and tells us the truth, and that is exactly what John Robbins does. He boldly stands up and tells us all the things that our food industries spend millions of dollars to keep secret. If you want to be an educated consumer, if you care about your health and the health of your family and friends, you owe it to yourself to buy this book and read it. Then give copies of it to everyone you know. You will be glad you did!

I read John Robbins's "Diet For A New America" many years ago and have been passing it on to friends ever since. I had been a vegetarian for almost 10 years when I read "Diet," but it wasn't until I read Robbins's book that I understood why. I had a basic feeling that it was wrong for animals to suffer, but I had never really educated myself about what that suffering entailed. Moreover, I had very little understanding of the nitty gritty of the other arguments for vegetarianism/veganism. "Diet" absolutely shocked me when I read it, and it shocked my meat-eating boyfriend when I gave it to him to read; we both became vegan [basically] overnight. ...Fabulous though "Diet" is, it's wonderful to have an updated resource, given everything that has changed since it was published. "The Food Revolution" covers all the basics of gmo crops, mad cow disease, and the health, animal rights, environmental, and human hunger arguments for eating less meat and dairy products. I would highly reccomend this book, both for meat-eaters and committed vegetarians/vegans alike. I have taken to asking friends and family to read "Food Revolution" as their birthday or Christmas present to me. It's a fast, compelling read, with enough anecdotes to keep you going and plenty of great pull-quote type statistics. And most importantly, I really believe this is a book that can change lives. If you only read one book on vegetarianism, it should be this one! If you only give friends and family members one book on vegetarianism, it should be this one!

Peter F. Drucker writes in the Introduction, "...this is not a book of 'predictions,' not a book about the 'future.' The challenges and issues discussed in it are already with us in every one of the developed countries and in most of the emerging ones (e.g., Korea or Turkey). They can already be identified, discussed, analyzed and prescribed for. Some people, someplace, are already working on them. But so far very few organizations do, and very few executives. Those who do work on these challenges today, and thus prepare themselves and their institutions for the new challenges, will be the leaders and dominate tomorrow. Those who wait until these challenges have indeed become 'hot' issues are likely to fall behind, perhaps never to recover. This book is thus a Call for Action."

In this context, in Chapter 5 of this invaluable book, Drucker focuses on knowledge worker. He says that "the most important, and indeed the truly unique, contribution of management in the 20th century was the fifty-fold increase in the productivity of the 'manual worker' in manufacturing. The most important contribution management needs to make in the 21st century is similarly to increase the productivity of 'knowledge work' and the 'knowledge worker.' The most valuable assets of a 20th-century company were its production equipment. The most valuable asset of a 21st-century institution, whether business or nonbusiness, will be its knowledge workers and their productivity."

Thus, he defines six major factors determine knowledge worker productivity as follows:

1. Knowledge worker productivity demands that we ask the question: "What is the task?"

2. It demands that we impose the responsibility for their productivity on the individual knowledge workers themselves. Knowledge workers have to manage themselves. They have to have authonomy.

3. Continuing innovation has to be part of the work, the task and the responsibility of knowledge workers.

4. Knowledge work requires continuous learning on the part of the knowledge worker, but equally continuous teaching on the part of the knowledge worker.

5. Productivity of the knowledge worker is not-at least not primarily-a matter of the quantity of output. Quality is at least as important.

6. Finally, knowledge worker productivity requires that the knowledge worker is both seen and treated as an "asset" rather than a "cost." It requires that knowledge workers want to work for the organization in preference to all other opportunities.

He argues that each of these requirements-except perhaps the last one-is almost the exact opposite of what is needed to increase the productivity of the manual worker.

Highly recommended.

This is the invitation made by Peter F. Drucker in his book: Management challenges for the 21st century. The author writes: "Reading this book will upset and disturb a good many people, as writing it disturbed me" and "It is a very different book from the one I originally envisaged". These two sentences explain that the pressure of the future is so already with us that ideas coming to the author have difficulties to organize on the paper. But this stressing environment gives one of the best book of Peter F. Drucker with issues not to be ignored by knowledge-workers and executives who will have to work on them to make sure to be among the leaders of tomorrow.

In the 2 first chapters, we are sharing ideas from the Management's assumptions, which are no more valid in the "New Economy" to The New Certainties on which very few organizations and very few executives are working on and are invited to a call for action in front of a period of a profound transition.

In Chapter 3, Peter F. Drucker is describing, the Change leader, which mission will not be to manage change, because it is not possible to manage change, but to be ahead of it. Different recommendations are given, but the more important one is piloting the change to permanently test reality. If making the future is highly risky, it is less risky than not trying to make it in a period of upheavals, such as the one we are living in.

In chapter 4, the author convinces us that IT Information Technology has to move from the T to the I. That means that Technology as such is not the concern of executives when Information is. It is true that executives did not get always, with the Information Technologies Revolution, the Information they need for acting. But Information requires also to move from internal information to external Information, because strategy is mainly based on the last one. Information being the key resource for knowledge workers asks to be organized at individual and group level to anticipate and avoid surprises in front of significant events and to prepare for action.

In chapter 5, after discovering that the main contribution of management in the 20th century was the fifty-fold increase of productivity of the manual-worker in manufacturing, we are presented the challenge for the 21st century as being the increase of knowledge-worker productivity. The move there is from quantity measurement to quality measurement of an agreed defined task of a knowledge-worker, which is part of a growing population in developed countries. Knowledge-workers, owning their means of production, the knowledge between their ears, are becoming assets instead of costs. And if costs need to be controlled and reduced, assets need to be made to grow. This means a change of attitude of management but also of corporation governance who have to find balance between the interests of shareholders and knowledge-workers contributing to the wealth of the organization.

In the final chapter, we are presented the impact of all previous evolutions on the individual knowledge-worker, who will have to manage himself in this new environment. This is a real revolution in mentalities due to two new realities: workers are likely to outlive organizations, and the knowledge worker has mobility the manual-worker did not have. Partnership is becoming an answer to these changes with all the consequences for the individual who has to ask himself: "what should be my contribution" and "where and how can I have results that make a difference", yes a real revolution already there.

Management Challenges for the 21st Century is giving the basics to enter the period of profound transition we know with the arrival of the "New Economy" and will make the difference for the people who read this book. We really have to thank Peter F. Drucker for this important contribution at the age of 90, a masterpiece after more than sixty years devoted to management development.

Peter Drucker has a beautiful mind, forever fresh and overflowing with innovative thoughts. This book, published just as the master of management began his tenth decade of life, shows him at his perpetual best. The text carries with it the sweeping knowledge, deep experience, and astute analysis that a reader might expect from Drucker at this point in his life. But you will find no timid conservatism, no holding on to safe ground here. Drucker has made a lifelong habit of leading the way in business thought and this book confirms that he just can't help himself.

In contrast to the typical business book which is 200 pages too long, every chapter and every page of Management Challenges for the 21st Century relentlessly tweaks the noses of bad assumptions while focusing our attention on the future. Drucker pulls together diverse trends and forces to map out the truly new management challenges. His first chapter, "Management's New Paradigms" argues that organizations (or what ManyWorlds calls "business architecture") will have to become part of the executive's toolbox, yet we continue to operate on outdated assumptions about the role and domain of management.

Fortunately much recent management thinking explicitly challenges one assumption pulled apart by Drucker: The idea that the inside of the organization is the domain of management. This assumption, says Drucker, "explains the otherwise totally incomprehensible distinction between management and entrepreneurship". These are two aspects of the same task. Management without entrepreneurship (and vice versa) cannot survive in a world where every organization must be "designed for change as the norm and to create change rather than react to it."

Although Drucker is intent on uprooting old certainties and focusing organizations on constant change, he does not leave the reader without a compass. In the second chapter, "Strategy-The New Certainties", Drucker says that strategy allows an organization to be "purposefully opportunistic" and explains five certainties around we can shape our strategy. While other writers have addressed a couple of these, too little attention has been paid to some of the inevitabilities analyzed here, including the collapsing birthrate, shifts in the distribution of disposable income, and the growing incongruence between economic globalization and political splintering.

The book's third chapter, "The Change Leader", gives Drucker's unique perspective on the need for 21st organizations to be change leaders. "One cannot *manage* change. One can only be ahead of it." Change leaders have four qualities. They create policies to make the future which means not only continual improvement but *organized abandonment* - a practice still almost unknown in practice. Contrary to typical company reactions, change leaders will starve problems and feed opportunities. For Drucker this means, in part, having a policy of systematic innovation and - in tune with recent calls for new budgetary practices - having two separate budgets to ensure that the future-creating budget is not stopped off in difficult times.

Strong as the first chapters are, I found the other chapters of this book even more incisive. The reader may come away with the sense that many of Drucker's points are obvious, but will realize that they only *became* obvious after hearing them. In his chapter on "Information Challenges", Drucker gives his own, historically-rich, controversial, and provocative take on our current information revolution - the fourth such revolution, he says).

The man who coined the term "knowledge worker" has no shortage of fresh thoughts in the chapter on "Knowledge-Worker Productivity", and has profoundly important things to say in the final chapter on "Managing Oneself". Management Challenges for the 21st Century is, of course, essential reading for aspiring manager-entrepreneurs in these confusing times. As for aspiring business writers, I can only say: Read it and weep!

The history of the Panama Canal, and it's construction is very unique in itself. The references of all the French names (although I couldn't pronounce all of them) were very interesting and kept me hooked. I'm a history buff, so naturally, I like to read historical books.

After nearly a hundred years of owning the Panama Canal, on December 31, 1999, the United States gave the Panama Canal back to the nation of Panama. When Europeans first began to explore the possibilities of creating a pathway between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the nation of Panama did not exist; it was a part of Columbia.

When prospectors discovered gold in California in 1848, all that changed the author, David McCullough writes in the book. The Panama Railroad, at the time, was the most high-priced stock listed on the New York Exchange. Building a canal through this area that would be approximately fifty-one miles seemed to be an easy situation for investors, but it turned out that it took over four decades and an army of workers to complete the canal. In the book it mentioned that enough soil, rock, and dirt was removed to build a pyramid a mile high.

When the construction began, McCullough notes that the leader of the project was Ferdinand de Lesseps, who went bankrupt. After President Theodore Roosevelt orchestrated the purchase of the canal, the United States entered the picture. A revolution took place that removed Panama from the rule of Columbia.

David McCullough is a very unique and interesting author and writer, and he kept me captivated while reading this book.

The historical aspecets of the book are accurate as far as my research has gone on the Panama Canal. This book is just fasinating because of the history that is involved. When Theodore Roosevelt bought the canal and a revolution occured between Columbia and the United States, the United States won, and the canal became ours. But remember, on 12/31/99, we returned the canal to its rightful owner, the nation of Panama.

The Path Between the Seas explains just about everything one could ever possibly want to know about the Panama Canal. You start off by reading about why the canal was needed and learn about the pioneers of the building of the canal. You then read about the French Era which is filled with scandal, lies, and a start to the canal. Then you read about the American Era. The America era is alot more interesting than the French. The American era starts with "TR" becoming president. The Americans start a Revolution in Panama fight off the misquitos and successfully build a canal in Panama.Thourghout the book you learn about the backround of the men who built the canal and about the life and times not just in Panama but in France and the United States. This is a must read by the award winning David McCullough that anyone interested in engineering, history or just learning new things should read.

... because you will be inspired to visit Panama to see the Canal. Fortunately tourism in the Canal Zone has become much easier ever since the US withdrew from the country. Many of the exclusive areas formerly reserved for Canal personnel are now open as hotels, restaurants, and for general tourism. McCullough writes about the flood of tourism that attended the Canal's construction and opening. He is probably responsible for quite a bit of the modern Canal tourism!

This is the first Sharpe series book that I read, and it won't be the last -- I plan to follow the series in chronological order (although that's not the order in which Cornwell wrote them).

Richard Sharpe is an infantry grunt who joined the British army to avoid jail for his crimes. Beaten down by his sergeant, trudging through southern India in England's ubiquitous (woolen) redcoat, he first considers fleeing the army but is soon framed for a whipping after encountering his first firefight. Events and a sympathetic officer contrive to launch Sharpe into a spy mission to rescue a British officer who is in the custody of the Tippoo of Mysore -- the man whose kingdom the British are trying to topple in order to control southern India and who has planned a surprise for the British for their impending attack on his fortress.

Cornwell keeps the action flowing, uses his viewpoint characters well and has vast knowledge of both his general historical subject as well as the tactics, arms and daily life of the British army in the Napoleonic era. Sharpe is a common soldier with a strong will to survive and an appreciation of loyalty and bravery, not a super-heroic James Bond with old weapons. And Cornwell doesn't pull his punches regarding the darker aspects of British imperialism. This is accessible writing that flows, unlike other historical novelists who write with an eye for the arcane. Good stuff.

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After having read the Starbuck serie (Civil War) from B. Cornwell, i had great expectations. To my great delight, the same feeling of plunging in the middle of an historical battlefield seized me after a few pages, making me forget about (every bloody thing I had to do in) my new house for a few hours.

SHARPE'S TIGER is the first in the serie (of about 12) in chronological order. Even though Mr. Cornwell does'nt write them this way, if you want to appreciate the historical flavor and Sharpe's career in Her Majesty's army, you want to read them chronologically.

The reader looking for nice fancy figures of speech will be left unsatisfied. Political correctness is also left in the closet. It is blunt, direct cannon-fodder daily life we are looking at and it is written that way

You may disrespect these incompetent officiers, having bought their grade, you will probably hate Sgt. Hakeswill, the potence saved maniac. you will feel pity for Mary and the destiny traced for her.

One thing is sure, we will all finish that book with the smell of gunpowder floating around us and a smile in the historical note about general Wellington

All rights reserved to The Reviewer Provided by courtesy to Amazon.com

I really have to hand it to all the positive reviewers for this series and this book in particular; you are right. Sharpe is outstanding and I can't wait to read more of the series. After months reading positive reviews of some of the earlier books in the series (and by earlier I mean those that were published first in time) I decided to give Cornwell a go. What I expected was a rip roaring adventure and I was not disappointed. In fact, I was esctatic! Believe everything good you read about Sharpe's Tiger: the book is fun without being light. Cornwell includes some very helpful maps and his prose is extremely colorful. He is particularly good at describing battle scenes and dialogue. Expect to finish this book at record time; its not short, its just that you will want to read just one more exciting chapter. Now, if only movies could be this good!

The Mitford Series is a collection of incredibly simple books about small town life. Told from the point of view of a preacher in a mythical town in the hills of North Carolina. Everybody knows everybody else, and not much happens. These are the perfect books to curl up with for some summer porch or beach reading.

Like life the plots are winding and not necessarily purposeful but by the end of the stories your can think back and realize how things developed to an inevitable conclusion. You basically follow a 60 year old preacher through his travails. Since he is a Christian man there is quite bit of bible quotation, but otherwise the story is not about his church so much as his efforts to keep life in order and cope with being a single man, past his youth yet surrounded by a small town that loves him - sometimes too closely.

One warning..this is very much a "sweet" book. It challenged me to forgo my natural skepticism. I put this in the category of a read that won't tax the reader all but may instead impart a little smile.

Also be aware that a stong Christian message plays throughout much of the dialogue and thinking.

This book was every bit as delightful as At Home in Mitford, and I look forward to reading the rest of the series. Jan Karon has created the perfect small town in which we would all like to live, and it is a joy to visit there, even if only for a little while. Esther Cunningham, the mayor of Mitford, says that Mitford always takes care of its own, and I think that is what we all love about the place. It's a place where the community love God and love their neighbors, with all their faults and eccentricities. It is also wonderful to read a about romance between mature adults Father Tim and Cynthia. I applauded Karon's way of communicating Christian values without hitting us over the head with them. I always leave Mitford a little more aware and a little more kindly disposed toward my own neighbors. If only we could create such a community in the real world.

I liked this one better than the first book, At Home in Mitford. The story lines in this book seemed more compelling, more interesting. Father Tim deals with the long absence (most of the book) of his neighbor, Cynthia, while she writes her new book in New York. He also deals with Edith Mallory, a recent widow with her sights set not only on the rector but on a well-known Mitford establishment too. Sadie Baxter tells more of her interesting life stories while she arranges for the long-closed ballroom in her house to be fixed up for the wedding of a relative she didn't know she had. And the man in charge of construction of the new Hope House seems to be quite a rough old sourpuss. The usual charming cast of characters is back and if you liked the first book, you'll like this one even better.

Skeeve, a magician's apprentice. Aahz, a green scaly Prevect from the dimension of Perv. Gleep, Skeeve's pet dragon. Tananda, a green haired, shapely assassin. These are just a few of the characters you'll fall in love with just from reading this first book in the Myth series. Follow the adventures of Skeeve as he meets and becomes the apprentice of Aahz and accidently aquires Gleep at the bazaar on Deva. Be enthralled by following the characters from Skeeve's home dimension of Klah to the bazaar on Deva and back to rescue the world from the evil wizard, Isstvan. The story is enchanting, the dialog is hilarious, and the characters are, well, many dimensional. If I were to write a book, I hope it would be as entertaining as this one

Another Fine Myth is the beginning of Robert Asprin's Myth series, one of the best (and THE most hilarious) fantasy series of all time. This introduces us to the characters that make the series so wonderful. Some of the characters are

Skeeve: The apprentice to a washed out, burned out magician. When that magician is killed, Skeeve has to find a way to save his own life and find justice for his mentor.

Aahz: a Pervert, (oops make that Pervect), a demon rendered powerless by a practical joke gone awry.

Tanda: A beautiful, voluptuous green haired assassin with a firey temper and wicked sense of humor.

And Gleep: A loveable but dumb baby dragon.

This book is ideal not only for fans of fantasy but for humor fans as well. I picked it up and could not put it down. I also couldn't stop laughing! Don't just buy one, buy one for your friend! It's that good!

The book itself is wonderful and author does a wonderful job of explaining the years of conflict in the in this particular region of the world.

There are times particularly in the introduction when you want the author to shut up and get on with the story. Later on you see how much this one example(in the beginning) kind of weaves all of the points to come together.

Overall-Good book if you like history (and good journalism)

I loved this book. Acutally this is the second review I have written for it, but for some reason, it didn't get into the system, so if eventually I show up twice reviewing it, sorry...
This is a wonderful book about a man with a most interesting story. I remember seeing Mr. Kerik on the news after 9/11,and of course, I had no idea of the path his life took to get him to that moment. I don't normally read very much non-fiction, but my sister told me about this book after seeing him on T.V. talking about his life. I am so glad she told me about it. His life has heartache, hard work, danger, excitment and sadness, and he tells you about it as if he is sitting in your living room talking to you.
I can't tell you enough how much I loved this book, I really suggest you read it, and then pass it on to a friend or better yet, buy them one also. He is a man to admire, and a man with a fascinating story to tell.

As a police officer for the last 24 years, I can tell you that Bernard Kerik is truly, an amazing individual. Whether you are in the field of law enforcement or not, you will enjoy reading this inspirational book, about a young boy who came from a broken home, and followed his own path, to become the Police Commissioner of the largest and greatest Police Department in the world.
From experience, I can tell you, that in this day and age, individuals like Bernard Kerik do not usually make it to such a high level in law enforcement. It is normally those individuals who spend more time studying for the promotional exam, than doing police work. Bernard Kerik went to the school of "hard knocks" and graduated with honors! At a young age, he was smart enough to realize the physical and mental benefits of martial arts. Bernard Kerik enrolled himself into a program, and ultimately obtained his black belt. But the true prize was the confidence and sense of discipline that he obtained.

From the military to private security in Saudi Arabia to a warden in New Jersey, Bernard Kerik was a leader and a warrior. One of the most fascinating and inspiring moments in Bernard Keriks life was when he gave up a $52,000 a year job as a warden, to start as a rookie cop in New York, at half the pay! No matter where he has worked, Bernard Kerik has been an inspiration and a true leader. He cares about the people who work for him and he cares about the victims of the crimes they investigate. He truly is someone, you would gladly follow into battle. In these difficult times, we need more leaders like Bernard Kerik.

Talk about a man's man! Kerik's life is captivating. This book reads like a novel. Kerik tells his fascinating story of overcoming exceptional obstacles to achieve his dream. The pace never lulls and each new event in his life is intriguing.

I have great respect for Kerik after reading this book. He is the epitome of a leader and fighter. His story is inspirational to anyone facing seemingly insurmountable odds.

It also includes the drama of Kerik searching for his mother after many years and the emotions that a man who is the Chief of the NYPD experiences when learning the truth of his mohter's life and death. Kerik doesn't try to create a facade in this book. He tells a transparent tale of his life that includes, at times, his softer side.