This is a wonderful little book for piano & music lovers. The storyline is simple, based on the rediscovery of the author's own love of pianos & piano playing, and is set against the backdrop of life in the heart of Paris. There is plenty of sensitive commentary on music and Parisian society, and of course lots of documentary-style descriptions of pianos, their history, various brands, and so on. But, as a piano lover myself, I must warn that some of the information rendered in the book is subject to counter arguments. For example: although 100 year old pianos are often beautiful pieces, I am convinced that modern instruments are vastly better, at least from a musicians point of view. So, read the book for enjoyment (and it is enjoyable!) but be careful not to use it as your guide to chosing an instrument....!!

This is such an enjoyable little book to read. In addition to information on pianos and music are the stories of quiet lives lived with a satisfaction and ordinary magic about them. One of the themes is simply the pleasure of playing the piano for oneself rather than in public and especially not in the yearly recitals of childhood. The structure of the book is ideally suited to bedtime reading; chapters just the perfect length that you can actually get through one before the book hits your nose, and chapters that weave stories in alternating threads, so that your interest never lags. This is a little jewel that readers will find themselves talking about with friends, and that does not require any previous personal experience with music or pianos to enjoy fully.

A reliable reference work - I have found it to be very useful and informative. I would rate it alongside Helicon's Political Systems of the World, by Derbyshire and Derbyshire, which looks at the political structures and histories of each of the world's states. The latter is very readable, while the handbook contains a wealth of detail.

If you need to know anything about the world whether it is specific info. about a country or simply general information, this is the prefect reference. is is clearly organized and extremely useful for everything. i highly recommend it!

My department has found this and previous additions extremely helpful in cutting through IRS compliance language. However, it is outdated in some areas. Inquiries to the publishers regarding a new edition have not received any response.

This guide is excellent in providing a comprehensive review of tax reporting requirements. The authors have taken a complicated subject and simplified it, telling you what you need to know in a format that is easy to read. This guide also contains detailed excerpts from the IRS tax regulations for your additional reference. A must read for those wishing to understand the basics and some of the details about tax reporting requirements.

If you are looking for a comprehensive book that explains and analyses quantitative portfolio optimisation and asset allocation, then this is probably the one for you. The author has clearly taken a lot of time to lay out the subject in a logical and easily understandable way, despite the fact that the subject matter is very complex. Having read this book, you'll be able to apply quantitative portfolio analysis and optimisation techniques yourself, and the book's final part on risk management - which includes chapters on active risk management, monte carlo simulations and extreme value thery - is a must for anyone in need of more adcanced risk management skills. Only draw back is its somewhat technical nature, but since the most technical stuff is in the appendices, the reader can skip it without major problems. An excellent and very accesible book.

Whenever I buy a book I try to look for ones that have a strong practical aim. This is definitely such a book. It starts off with a fair amount of theory, which is required to fully appreciate it, but then moves into very practical territory with lots of real life problems and situations. This book is one of those A-Z books that ties all the treads together, but spiced up with practical applications in almost every chapter. Definitely worth reading if you need to understand the mechanics of quantitative portfolio optimisation and risk management.

Mr. Banks has produced a fine how-to guide for anyone interested in the field of freelance writing. As with most books of this genre, he gives an honest, forthright evaluation of both the possibilities and the pitfalls of striking out on your own as a freelance writer.

The book deals with subjects such as finances for writers, dealing with the day-to-day routine of writing, and even has hints about what to do if your writing career doesn't go as far or as fast you'd like.

Although he does touch on other ways for a writer to pull in income, this book deals mainly with writing for publication. Writing for business is only mentioned as an additional way to make money but does not go into much detail as to how to get started in business/commercial writing.

Since commercial writing (writing for business and industry) is where the money is, and if you don't mind writing things that don't give you a byline, you may want to consider the "classics" on freelance writing by Bly or Bowerman in addition to or instead of this book.

However, this book is another fine introduction to the sometimes-difficult field of freeelance writing and you will benefit from it should you decide to buy it.

How To Become A Fulltime Freelance Writer: A Practical Guide To Setting Up A Writing Business At Home by professional author Michael A. Banks is a straightforward and practical guide to earning a living by writing full-time. Individual chapters address the skills and character traits necessary to supporting oneself through writing, financial planning for writers, relationships with agents and editors, sources of extra income, and much, much more in this well-thought-out compendium that should be required reading for all aspiring writers who hope to establish themselves professionally.

Once you start reading this book filled with underwater non-sense and highjinx you won't want to stop. The book follows the show from which it was based very well. After this book, you'll want to join Spongebob and patrick in all their crazy mis-adventures.

This is a wacky book that is totally cool and doesn't get boring at all. Get it and you won't be disapointed! Get them all you person you.

The television series, Soul Food, is being captured in books by
Leslie E. Banks, and this second episode Through Thick and Thin
features some serious issues confronting our favorite couple Kenny
and Maxine. Readers are made aware of how easily a marriage can
become bland.

The stress begins when Maxine, after 13 years of living for her
family, realizes there is something she wants to do just for
herself. But when she approaches Kenny about attending a six-week
writing class, things hit the fan.

Maxine is wondering when or how their sacrifices became so one-sided?
But she's determined not to take this lying down. Kenny is the model
husband and father, a hardworking man who has provided for all of
his family's need. At least that's how he sees things, but Kenneth
has ghosts he needs to confront. When he becomes chauvinistic, Maxine
has had enough, and a standoff ensues. Kenny's position is further
endangered when her instructor sexy, single, renowned author, Paul
Gotier ignites a smoldering fire in Maxine.

Fans of the stories will undoubtedly embrace these books with the
same eagerness afforded the television series. And with good
reason, because Ms. Banks writes a strong mature story with a
good measure of realism. There are lessons to be learned from
the insightful emotions she presents as she showcases the obstacles
and benefits of sharing a marriage. This story will entertain,
enlighten and refresh. The light at the end of the tunnel never
looked so good. Pick up a copy and savor a taste that will please
the palate.

Reviewed by aNN Brown
of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

Writing this book was such a wonderful idea. For those of you who do not have access to Sho.com or the time to watch the series this is the perfect remedy.

Through Thick and Thin is the first in the series and concerntrates on Kenny and Maxine. They are married with children and Maxine who happens to be a stay at home mom decides she wants to write. The class is once a week in the evening, during hers and Kenny's special time. What follows will have the reader anxious to get to the end, but sad it ended.

The actions and situations match each character from the series. I enjoyed the history Ms Banks furnished throughout Soul Food it afforded the reader the opportunity to get reacquainted with situations from the series, however if your new to the series reading the book will give you a feel for the characters and their issues.

If you think you cannot understand the banking system and how it affects you, give this book a try. Technical terms are avoided. Explanations are made in simple ways. A variety of clear methods are used to illustrate key points.

If you already think you know all you need to know about banking, think again. Mr. LoCascio has new observations about old problems that will cause you to stop and think. And hopefully to act!

During the worst of the Savings and Loan bailout, the Lesser Developed Country debacles, and commercial real estate collapses of the past 20 years, articles in the financial press repeatedly pointed out that many bankers were playing fast and loose with taxpayer money to take a chance to make it big for themselves, at little personal risk. Today, little is said about this problem. Special Privilege reopens the debate by pointing out that those old problems may be small potatoes compared to what could be ahead for us without fundamental reform in the banking system. Like a lake rapidly filling with gasoline, the potential explosion just keeps growing. Although no one can predict the spark, Mr. LoCascio describes a major stock market collapse as a potential cause.

With a title like Special Privilege, you might think this is a liberal view of economics that doesn't reflect the underlying needs of capitalism. Actually, the book attacks the current banking system as being harmful to free markets, holding back capitalism, and undermining our democratic traditions by letting a select group benefit at the expense of everyone else.

Special Privilege is the clearest book I have read on the inherent structural weaknesses in the U.S. banking system. These weaknesses are becoming greater as they are pushed to new extremes by decreasingly imprudent bank lending practices, at a time when the banking system is in a very weakened state due to excessive lending to poor credit risks, a national recession, and inappropriate regulation.

In the book, you get a good sense of how banking worked (and didn't work) before the current system was established, and how many safety underpinnings have been removed. Like a hereditary group of nobility, money center bankers have been turned loose to compete recklessly for deposits, make bad loans for high fees and interests rates, and degrade the value of the currency safe in the knowledge that the Federal Reserve, the IMF, and the Federal Government will "solve" any problems that crop up. In this system, insolvent lenders are propped up with new loans and banks earn outsized fees for accommodating this.

Mr. LoCascio does a good job of describing the special privileges that bankers have available to them, and the harm that is inevitably created as a result. He uses a series of fictional dialogues involving two bankers to help put you inside of the temptation that faces bankers in such a system.

The only thing I thought that the book was missing was an explanation of how the U.S. banking system sets up the whole world for increased frequency and degree of volatility in values of currencies, stocks, real estate, and other assets affected by the free flow of capital. While we are still recovering from the dot-com bust, the seeds are being sown for the next collapse as we all watched Enron's and Argentina's financial structures collapse.

If these costs came home to bear in the form of higher rates on bank loans or losses by bank investors, that would be the normal working of capitalism. The challenge here is that our banking system has much of the crony capitalism in it that we have condemned in other countries (like Japan) . . . and the costs of failure are ultimately passed along to taxpayers through new Federal borrowing.

While Mr. LoCascio's suggestions for change certainly warrant consideration, I suspect that reform will more likely succeed if financial incentives are created to go to a sounder system while the current incentives are gradually removed.

If you are already pretty familiar with past issues about the banking system, you will probably find this book a little on the repetitive side. Feel free to skip ahead to chapter IX where all of the key points are repeated. If you want more on a particular issues, you can then read just the chapter that deals with that area.

Regarding peace protesters, Al Haig is reported to have once said, "Let them march all they want, as long as they pay their taxes." Alan Greenspan could well say something similar about the Fed's control over the nation's money -- if, that is, he ever got around to saying anything intelligible at all.

In this volume financial planner and consultant Vince LoCascio, following to some degree in Murray Rothbard's footsteps, aims to blow the lid off the "special privilege" of the banking elite. Inspired by Rothbard's _The Mystery of Banking_ and _The Case Against the Fed_, LoCascio seeks to provide the reader with an accessible, easily understood introduction to the sort of jiggery-pokery that currently goes on with our "money."

His effort seems to me to be quite successful, though I may not be the best judge of how a reader completely new to the topic would respond to the book. The exposition is set out in clear and intelligible prose and laced with illustrative dialogues. And his proposals for reform are presented cautiously and with due regard for alternative proposals (LoCascio's own is to freeze the money supply at its current level).

The "special privilege" of the title is sixfold. Under current U.S. law, banks have six "special privileges" that grant them sweeping and pretty scary powers: the power to create money out of thin air (both by the Fed's initial creation of unbacked currency and through individual banks' pyramiding new money on top of it through the "fractional reserve" system); special protection of their assets (any bank whatsoever can be "rescued" whenever the Fed chooses to do so); liability protection (FDIC deposit guarantees that encourage banks to engage in rash speculation); bailout schemes (at taxpayer expense, of course); funny accounting (e.g. booking outstanding loans at their original value instead of at their current value); and secrecy (banks don't have to report certain information even to their stockholders, let alone to the public). Each of these topics gets a chapter-long workout, and LoCascio does a good job of making them clear.

Moreover, his discussion of how things got this way is based in large measure on Milton Friedman's/Anna Jacobson Schwartz's _Monetary History of the United States_, a fine work highly regarded even by non-monetarists (even some Austrians like it). I would have liked to see a reference to Ludwig von Mises in here somewhere, even if just a nod to his _Theory of Money and Credit_, but at any rate LoCascio has selected good sources.

Another feature worth noting is LoCascio's insistence that banks' special privileges are a _moral_ problem -- that lending out multiples of demand deposits is a kind of fraud. (This feature has its good and bad points; on the one hand, it's nice to see the ethical question raised, but on the other hand I'm not sure LoCascio adequately explains _why_ it's wrong.)

On the whole LoCascio's presentation is thorough and even gripping, and he has a knack for grabbing the reader with the most telling points up front: for example, that the purchasing power of the dollar in 1937 was just about what it had been in 1802, whereas today's dollar is by comparison worth about eight cents. This fact appears on page eight and sets the reader asking exactly the question loCascio wants to answer: how in the world did this _happen_?

LoCascio's hope is to help prevent a financial disaster by informing the ordinary citizen about these "special privileges" and their ill economic effects. One way of helping him to succeed in that aim is to read this book.

The author leaves you at the end of each chapter searching for more time to read the next. After reading this book you won't believe that it is true.

The book was the best book I have ever read..