No comments about The Prudence of Mr. Gordon Brown.

No comments about Clarence W. Barron.

No comments about Zen Ranching and the Farming Game.

5 comments about A Job Ain't Nothing but Work: Confessions Of A Corporate Negro.

1. I enjoyed this book so much. Anyone who works in the corporate world will break out into side splitting laughter while reading this testimony of office "politricks". Not only is this book well written, insightful, and clever, it also manages to slip in more than a few tips on how to survive the job market jungle.

   Note: Chapter 2 is beyond funny!!!




2. During a time when unemployment is high and morale is low, Emanuel Carpenter's new book is quite apropos. He covers those moments most office workers have dreaded with both a keen eye and great humor-- the bathroom, office gatherings, and arriving to work late. While much of his advice is to be taken tongue-in-cheek, the main suggetion we should all keep in mind, whether looking for work or looking to get out of it, is that a job ain't nothing but work.



3. This is the kind of book that could be made into an ethnic man's cinematic version of the cult classic, "Office Space". Emanuel Carpenter is a black man offering his candid perspective on the occupational hazards of, well occupations. The book is a series of frank insights wrapped in a cloak of humor. His experiences with a lifetime of seeking and gaining employment have provided him with valuable information he passes on to the next generation. He takes the grandiose ego of managers and supervisors down a peg or two; to him they are elevated employees who believe themselves to be way more important than they are. Tales of bizarre interviews and the interviewers who conducted them are recalled as a series of off the wall methods of finding the "right" person for the job. His tales of co-workers and their world do not focus much on race, but on the sheer weirdness of human nature in the corporate world. I found the constant trademark symbols (™) whenever he mentioned cars, fast food brands, office machines, and the like a bit distracting. Mr. Carpenter could have done it on purpose, in which case it added to the insanity of our label-intensive world. I would recommend this book especially for high school and college students about to embark on the corporate world.



4. "A Job Ain't Nothing But Work," is the written, laughing national anthem for work. The author, Emanuel Carpenter, does a great job of poking fun at the real side of working in the New Millenium. His take on humor will have you cracking up. As a retired military man, who is looking for a job, it was great relief and I could definitely identify with the various circumstances and situations presented in this book. The author is on the money about the perils of working: from explaining the desire or lack of desire to get off your butt and look for a job to dealing with the dynamic personalities and situations within the job place. His transitions are smooth, timely and very laughable. Trust me, you will be able to identify with the author's views and he will leave you with a smile on your face.



5. Emanuel Carpenter's book, "A Job Ain't Nothing But Work is a light-hearted and inspired stroke of genuis that takes a look at the convoluted rigmarole of trying to climb the corporate ladder without really trying. The book is a must for corporate stuffed shirts who take themselves too seriously. It is almost a therapuetic bandaid to all of one's problems. I know - I almost popped a rib laughing at the comic timing of all the situations presented in Emanuel Carpenter's humorous take on all aspects of getting a job, keeping a job and adjusting to the mind-numbing parade of characters and psychos that one spends the better part of their days with, called co-workers and bosses. Emmanuel Capenter displayed his comic good timing and his writing dextrity by executing a perfect foil for stress- "A Job Ain't Nothing But Work."

No comments about Past, Present & Futures: Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

No comments about A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. Barnum.

5 comments about The Murdoch Mission: The Digital Transformation of a Media Empire.

1. Wow - a big-time publisher like John Wiley and they don't even hire a decent editor to cull through Wendy Goldman's galleys? Page after page of errors litter this book. One page, Rupert is walking into his third floor office - next page his office is on the fourth floor. Then back and forth. Goldman has people working at the wrong companies, James - Rupert's son - meeting his future wife at age six (not 26)... and on and on.

   In addition, Goldman hardly has one bad word to say about anyone in News Corporation. Throughout his career, Rupert Murdoch has never tried to stifle criticism of him nor his actions. Never tried to block a particular book or article. But a book full of this sort of adoration and adulation isn't necessarily going to win Ms. Goldman any points with him.

   What carries this book is not Goldman's writing, her insights nor the publisher's editing. What carries in the end is the fascinating scope of News Corporation's activities worldwide.




2. I bought this book in anticipation of a learning something new about Murdoch and I unfortunately did not. The books seems mainly to deal with the last two years of News Corporation and while it did provide some behind the scene information a large amount of the information could be gleamed out of reading the news articles that have come out about the Sky Global deal. The author never had anything to say bad about Murdoch or raise any new information but instead rehashed a large amount of news clippings.

   Additionally, I agree with the reader that stated the author needed to check some facts because you will see mistakes such as when she comments one of his sons started working in 1977 at News but on the next page says that he was born in 1973. Even Murdoch's sons are allowed to have some childhood.




3. Do Not waste your money on this book, particularly if you are in the business and/ or have even a little working knowledge of News Corp. The book is contains no insight into the Murdoch way of doing business, is full of factual errors and was apparently not edited at all. It is full of mistakes, omits context and timing and ignores many of the key executives who actually make and made things happen at News Corp.
   How does stuff like this get published?



4. The is a surprisingly good read, the narrative is lively and informative, and the information is fresh and based on exclusive interviews with the Murdochs and those inhabiting their inner sanctum.



5. I'm not sure who commissioned this book to be written, but it is completely disgraceful the lack of any formal criticism or challenges that confront the Murdoch empire. I would get more insight reading a brochure about the company than from this book. Truly disgraceful.

2 comments about Warren Buffett Speaks : The Wit and Wisdom from the World's Greatest Investor.

1. I think that this is an excellent book for anyone wanting to learn how the worlds most famous investor made his riches or anyone wanting to follow in his footsteps.

   As a 14 year old who loves business and investing ......... this book can be read and understood by almost anyone




2. Ok, this is is so simple that even fifth graders can understand it. It is however, painfully superficial. Only the most rudimentry information is presented about Buffett. Buffett said in the book that you can't think of good ideas by reading/talking. I agree, and that makes the book pretty much worthless. Here is an example of where he is lacking in details. (no fault of the author). He talks about how he only buys stocks for the long term and actually wants a 100% tax on profits from stocks that were held less than a year or two. He doesn't explain the economic ramificiations clearly. He makes investing sound like buy it and forget it. I paraphrase something he said, "we buy a stock and leave it alone until we hear bad news, we don't care about the good news". I mean, come on, over simplification, can you really believe that? He thinks that stock price directly correlate with company's fundamentals. I agree, but uh, long term is a long time. Ok just to sum it up, this book is really more of a biography than a 'investment philosophy+tips for investing'

   I think the book is bad because of the lack of information from Buffett. And I am 18 years old and I have been investing for 4 years now.

5 comments about Launch Fever: An Entrepreneur's Journey into the Secrets of Launching Rockets, a New Business and Living a Happier Life.

1. If you are looking for a some inspiration to start your next business or complete the one you have started you will love this book. The writer tells a story that is a true page turner. I started reading this book and could not put it down mainly due to the subject matter and the dialog writing style which made it really easy to read. No fluff and long complex sentences to distract you but rather a good book you can read in a couple sittings out by the pool.



2. If you are looking for a some inspiration to start your next business or complete the one you have started you will love this book. The writer tells a story that is a true page turner. I started reading this book and could not put it down mainly due to the subject matter and the dialog writing style which made it really easy to read. No fluff and long complex sentences to distract you but rather a good book you can read in a couple sittings out by the pool.



3. If you are looking for a some inspiration to start your next business or complete the one you have started you will love this book. The writer tells a story that is a true page turner. I started reading this book and could not put it down mainly due to the subject matter and the dialog writing style which made it really easy to read. No fluff and long complex sentences to distract you but rather a good book you can read in a couple sittings out by the pool.



4. This is a great book about starting a business and working your plan to be succesfull. I love how the author encourages the reader to tell their own story. He writes "Each of us have a compelling story to tell so I encourage you to write your story if you have that desire. You might notice from my lack of complex sentence structures and possibly the lack of a tight subject focus that if I can write a book so can you! Don't be discouraged by the elite publishing community and their agents. We all can't be Pulitzer Prize writers but we all have a story to tell nonetheless. Tell your story and leave the critics to their own misery."
   Now how can you not like a guy who humbles himself right up front.
   I was hooked when I read the first page from the first chapter..."Although bright and sunny, the day of the Space Shuttle Challenger launch was an unusually cold morning for central Florida. The combination of the cold and the moist salt air made it a very unpleasant day. The few times it gets cold in the Sunshine State, my body feels it down to the bone. No one had to tell me that January 28, 1986, was the coldest day that NASA had ever launched a manned rocket. For those who witnessed the event that day, it became an overwhelming personal experience for them. For three of my coworkers and I it was even more eventful because we were one of the closest people to the explosion, and Judy Resnik, Ph.D., the Challenger Mission Specialist Astronaut, was a coworker and friend of mine.
   A sharp and quick to the point engineer, Judy became an astronaut in 1979 after having been a biomedical engineer and staff fellow in the Laboratory of Neurophysiology at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. She was a classical pianist and pilot who didn't tolerate incompetent people in the space program. The Challenger mission would be her second time in space; she first flew as a mission specialist on STS 41-D, which launched from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on August 30, 1984. This was the maiden flight of the orbiter Discovery. Judy loved to fly and encouraged me to obtain my pilot's license.
   My office was in the Deep Space Instrumentation Facility or DSIF, (pronounced "dee siff" by the locals) located on the east coast of central Florida, on the Cape Canaveral side of the Kennedy Space Center, only a quarter mile west of the Atlantic Ocean. In existence since the beginning of the space program back in the 1960's, DSIF had served as a central data house for all incoming radio signals. It was the building that received the first orbital communication signals from John Glenn and Alan Shepard. The décor was typical government gray with metal desk and matching swivel chairs, rotary dial phones and broken tile floors. NASA employees and their contractors worked in facilities and with equipment which looked like something out of an antique military museum. Only the space shuttle and its spotless clean rooms were new, high tech and state of the art. The majority of the 20,000-person work force worked in a musty, dull gray atmosphere, while a select few, like my group, worked in both the old facilities and the high-tech new. Working in a large government organization can be very compartmentalized although I was fortunate to be part of a group who worked across most boundaries. NASA, thank goodness, was in the process of converting our facility into a more advanced facility, and my colleagues and I were part of the team doing the upgrades. Our facility and the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) were a special place to work, guarded by military personnel who wore M16 rifles.
   Every morning seagulls hanging out in the parking lot greeted me as I drove up to work. There was a constant light ocean breeze, and a comfortable summer environment. If the wind blew from the east, you could hear the ocean and smell the salt air.
   Oftentimes when I arrived at work, I felt like I was going to the beach for a day of fun and strolling down space history lane. Just over the trees I could see the original launch pads used for the Mercury program. The Mercury program began in 1961 when, only four weeks after the Russian astronaut Yuri Gagarin made the first orbital flight, the U.S. followed with a flight by Alan B. Shepard on May 5th. Shepard's launch took place only a few football fields away from our office.
   As soon as I arrived to work the morning of the Challenger mission, I began to listen over the local secured audio loop to the astronaut communications as they began their third attempt at a launch. The previous two launches had been scrubbed for various reasons and the media was starting to point fingers and cause what we referred to as "launch fever" - an emotion that overrides logic and entices people to take more risk than normal. NASA, being a federally funded political football, demanded we keep everyone happy, especially the media. The press wanted a launch, while we wanted safety and quality.
   Kennedy Space Center was hectic as usual preparing the launch of the 25th space shuttle. It was Mission 51-L, the 10th flight of Orbiter Challenger, and the first launch from the new launch pad 39B. Because it was the first time a civilian, a schoolteacher, was going into space, the launch was highly publicized. Millions of people watched the historical event on TV because it represented an average person going into space for the first time.

   As I continued to monitor the launch countdown process, I noticed some frustration on the part of the astronaut crew due to the cold temperatures. They were having a hard time with their gloves and equipment, and the entire process sounded more unorganized than with previous missions.
   A consistent, timely and methodical program was followed for each launch. Organization was key because it reduces the chance for error and emotions. The customary routine for an astronaut on launch day involves steak and eggs for "breakfast" even if wake up time is at noon or midnight. Steak and eggs are served because they reduce body waste. The last thing an astronaut needs to eat before liftoff is something that will upset his/her stomach and make for large bowel movements. The astronaut's goal is to reduce the number of bathroom breaks in space hoping to reduce debris, smell and privacy issues. A birthday party type of celebration follows the breakfast, which includes birthday cake and several top prelaunch workers. Then the astronauts walk fifty feet to an ultra clean white room to suit up in their orange pressurized suits. The astronauts exit the large Operations and Control building and enter the van, which takes them on the seven mile drive out to the launch pad. From wake up call to liftoff is about four to five hours. On the day of a shuttle mission, instead of sitting horizontal like you would in a car, the shuttle is pointed straight up towards the sky so that the astronauts lie on their backs with their feet above them. The time lying feet first in the space shuttle restrained to a giant hydrogen/oxygen bomb is about one hour.
   As time drew closer to what is called T-Zero...

   Read this book and do it on a weekend when you need a boost and a day full of enjoyment.




5. I started reading this book on a flight from Birmingham to Madison. As I started on the first page of the book, Mr. Taylor got me hooked on to the book with his humble opening and inspirational message. As I read through the book, being an engineer myself, I could relate to several of his life experiences. His advise at the end of each of the chapter is simple in wording but full of wisodm and practical experience. I could not keep the book down even for a minute till I finished this book. Great read for anyone, especially an engineer who wants to be an entrepreneur.

No comments about The Capitalist Class: An International Study.