Howard Weinstein lets the reader peek into his life with Annie and perfectly describes Corgi ownership--from tummy control to mommy watch. This enchanting story makes you feel as if you know Annie, Howard and their circle of family and friends. If you own a Corgi, you should read this book. If don't own a Corgi, you should get Corgi, then read this book. Even if you're just a dog lover, you should still read this book.

I highly recommend it.

I have also read this to older children and they are able to appreciate the humor throughout the entire book. The way the illustrator incorporates other stories like Old MacDonald and the Wizard of Oz into the pictures.

It is amazing how many people have had their life courses influenced by Howard Pease! Read some of these reviews, and see for yourself. I read them all: The Jinx Ship, The Tattooed Man, Shanghai Passage, I think every book he wrote.

Largely because of Howard Pease's books, and an "old" guy who worked in the same auto repair shop as I, when I was in high school, who described what it was like in the "black gang" aboard a freighter in the tropics, I hitchhiked to San Francisco in 1945, at the age of 16, and shipped out on the S.S. Tacoma--in the black gang where I became a fireman!

On my 17th birthday I joined the Navy, from which I am now retired.

I'd like to find copies of any or all of Pease's books for my library, to read again and see if they were as good as I remember them to be.

Joseph (Joe) Pierre, USN (Ret.)

author of Handguns and Freedom...their care and maintenance
and other books

While to stories are different in tone, they are not different in content. In "Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath," Randolph Carter goes in search of Unknown Kadath, the mountainous home of the gods. In his long journey, he drifts in and out of other stories, encountering Richard Upton Pickman, the City of Celephais, the Cats of Ulthur and an enjoyable assortment of other characters. I advise you to read this story with other Lovecraft books at hand, to reference the cast of characters.

Other tales in this volume complete the quests of Randolph Carter, and tell the stories of other journeys through the Dreamlands. Each story is enjoyable, mixing fancy and horror in equal measure. I recommend this book to fans of "The Sandman."

However, while this is a great book, I'm going to be the only one to give it less than five stars. Not because Howard lacked the talent to write a five star book--he had talent to spare--but because he simply didn't have the time to make "Hour of the Dragon" as good as it should have been. There are passages that clearly could do with editing or rewriting; occasional infelicities of style; and minor inconsistencies in the plot. In spite of this, "Hour of the Dragon" will keep you up reading all night. If you've never read Howard before, you'll wonder why it's so difficult to find his books. So, pass up the pastiches and cinematic stereotypes. Give Bob Howard, of Peaster, TX a read and you won't be disappointed.

Howard got an opportunity to publish a novel in England, and he fell back on his old standby, Conan, to serve as the protagonist. Howard expected that his English audience would never have heard of Conan, so he borrowed a number of motifs from several of his short stories. Those who take the time to read all of Howard's Conan stories will recognize many of the elements in "Hour of the Dragon."

Alas, the book deal fell through, and Howard had to publish "Hour of the Dragon" in a pulp magazine.

Whatever Howard's difficulties in publishing the book, he had no difficulty in writing a wonderful tale of heroic fantasy. Conan is the ultimate sword-and-sorcery hero, and this is Conan's ultimate adventure.

If you really like Conan, you might want to compare "Hour of the Dragon" with "Conan the Conqueror," a paperback republication which was "edited" by L.Sprague DeCamp and Lin Carter. "Conan the Conqueror" is about 90% Howard, but DeCamp and Carter polished Howard's grammar and softened some passages they deemed politically incorrect. Howard's original version is more rough-hewn, but then Conan was a rough-hewn hero.

If you want to learn about today's brand-building challenges, other books handle that subject much better. If you want to learn about how the Wedgwood, H.J. Heinz, Marshall Field, Estee Lauder, Starbucks, and Dell businesses got started, this is your book. The material is handled much like historical fiction (except the facts are meticulously gathered and documented), and you will find the going easy and pleasant.

If you like Horatio Alger stories, you will find those here as well. I suspect that exhausted entrepreneurs on long plane trips where their computer batteries have run out will find this book helpful in recharging their personal batteries. As Winston Churchill once said, "Never give up." That's the key lesson here. Through trial and error, these entrepreneurs kept trying until they found formulas that worked.

The choice of examples is a little flawed. Five are consumer branding examples and only one is a business example (Dell). Of the consumer branding examples, you will find that most are about selling to the higher income people. That gets a little repetitive.

The explanation of the examples is also incomplete. Considering that this is a business book, there is relatively little financial information other than annual sales and occasional asset turnover ratios. Qualitative example are helpful, but they are more helpful with more pinning down. For example, when you see the profit margins that Wedgwood had, that explains a lot about why the company could afford such lavish promotions. Without similar information on Heinz, you wonder why he was so successful in making sales but went bankrupt. Presumably, he had low margins.

The photographs and maps in the book are a plus, and I enjoyed them very much. The book was printed on such high quality paper (similar to that used for diplomas) that the images are on the same paper as the text. This permits the book to have many more illustrations than similar-sized business books.

The point about earning trust in the book is easily explained. At the time when these entrepreneurs were getting started, their largest competitors usually provided poor quality products, sometimes had inappropriate brand images, often failed to offer decent guarantees, and typically acted in self-serving ways. Earning trust isn't too hard if others are scoundrels or incompetent. Above all, these entrepreneurs stood for decent human values, and got that point across in one-to-one situations. I'm not sure that point comes out clearly enough, even though it is certainly present in each example.

Those who think the Internet age is unique will find the comparisons to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in England and the transportation improvements in the United States to be valuable contrasts. But each age brings its unique changes. Entrepreneurs should seek to grasp those changes, but also see what others have missed. I think that the Starbucks concept could have been successfully innovated in the late 1950s. It's just that no one did it then.

After you finish enjoying these stories, I suggest that you think about the values that your organization stands for. Are those values presented and delivered in ways that make your organization more trustworthy than any other? How else do you have to be superior in order to establish a burnished brand image?

Be serious about giving people the best you can possibly provide!

Wedgwood improved the quality of earthenware, and changed the way that the products were used by the wealthy and the aspiring. He courted the visible elites and royalty to inspire emulation by those who could afford the products.

H.J. Heinz offered quality and convenience at a time when most preserved food products were shoddy and women did most of their own preserving.

Marshall Field courted the carriage trade who could afford to pay top dollar for top quality goods and service.

Estee Lauder provided high quality cosmetics at more affordable prices.

Howard Schultz introduced most Americans to the latte, taking coffee from being a source of caffeine to a tasteful experience.

Michael Dell changed the business model for how corporations got their computing equipment, customizing for each one just-in-time.

Having been educated in both history and in business, it is clear that Professor Koehn comes at the problem more from the historical discipline than from the business one. As a result, the book will be most appealing to those who are interested in the origins of one or more of these brands, companies, or entrepreneurs. At this level, the book is five-star entertainment.

Business readers will find that relevant details are often missing. For example, Wedgwood staged very expensive exhibitions of his wares. You wonder how he could afford to do this, and finally learn near the end of the study that the company had enormous profit margins. H.J. Heinz is described as being very successful in a predecessor company, yet he goes bankrupt. Some information about his margins would probably have revealed that he had low margins. The information is not included. There are bits and pieces of ratios and annual revenue numbers, but the financial side of these examples is clearly underdeveloped. That's a shame, since they all built up important enterprises on a shoestring.

The choice of cases seems flawed from a business perspective. Five of the six are consumer products and services. Of the five, all appealed initially to high income people when good products and services were largely unavailable. Forming brands in such an environment is no great trick. Readers would have learned more about brand building from cases where the competition was fierce from people who were providing exactly the same choices.

As a result, from a business perspective, this is a three star book. I averaged the five and the three star ratings out to reach my four star conclusion.

After you read this book, you should think about how you decide which brands to trust, and how you go about establishing the trustworthiness of brands that you represent. What else is important before trust can be earned? In particular, pay attention to the significance of establishing improved business models (something that all six entrepreneurs had in common).

Make your brand stand alone in its desirability in the eyes of all who see it!

Koehn is a perceptive historian and biographer as well as an astute analyst of brand creation, entrepreneurship, and organization-building. She explains how the entrepreneurs in her book were able to understand the economic and social change of their times and anticipate and respond to demand-side shifts. This understanding, she argues convincingly, enabled these entrepreneurs to bring to market products that consumers needed and wanted and to create meaningful, lasting connections with consumers through their brands. Koehn also focuses on the importance of these entrepreneurs as organization builders who understood that their success depended on developing organizational capabilities that supported their products and brands. Her book is very well-researched throughout, and uses primary archival documents extensively in the historical chapters on Josiah Wedgwood, H. J. Heinz, and Marshall Field. Koehn also brings her entrepreneurs and the stories of how each built his or her company and brand to life with her talent as a biographer and historian.

The book's emphasis on drawing lessons from both past and present offers many valuable insights for those interested in coming to a better understanding of brand creation, entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial management, and organization-building. Koehn's emphasis on the demand side of the economy and on entrepreneurs and companies making connections with consumers through the brand distinguishes her book as an important work of business scholarship on brands and entrepreneurship. A lively, interesting, and engaging read, Brand New is also valuable reading for anyone interested in business, economic, or social history or biography of business leaders. I highly recommend it!

Some of the previous reviewers have alluded to the rather plodding pace at the beginning but once the character of J. Curwen is introduced you literally will not be able to put the book down. Even the rather slow start of the story is very entertaining (esspecially the glowing language Lovecraft uses to describe Ward's ramblings in Providence - clearly Lovecraft has a special kinship for the historian in the book's title character).

The story itself is compelling and foreshadows many plot elements that were to become horror mainstays in later years. Interestingly, the typical Lovecraftian mythos here are not the central object of the story, but merely mentioned almost in passing. Curwen - his diabolical use of his young descendent, the noble yet hopelessly naive Ward and the brave Dr. Willet have all become horror archetypes. While these characterizations could be considered wooden and almost one dimensional, they none the less fit the mood and "feel" of the story perfectly.

Lovecraft also treats the reader to well crafted details. The small, minor details and difficulties Curwen experiences in 'modern' day Providence illustrates this perfectly. Curwen's detailed and yet still mysterious history and the town's efforts to expunge his evil from their community are a gripping joy to read and re-read.