If your really want to understand how to compete for the future, read Crossing the Chasm, following by Inside the Tornado (Geoffrey Moore). Competing for the Future will largely waste your time. It is a 100 page book crammed into 300+ pages. The authors spend lots of time repeating fuzzy feel good ideas, and criticizing current managers, but say little that would actually help you compete for the future. They continually cite Apple as the poster child for Competing for the Future (ignoring the fact that the Mac was created in a skunkworks -- a concept they poo-poo.) Yet you can see from Apple's plight today that Hamel and Prahalad have certainly not found the most important thing for long term success. Companies that spend too much time looking 20 years out will never see it, as Apple will not. The truth is that top management can certainly ask themselves "What will competition mean in 20 years?", but they will most certainly be wrong. We live in chaotic times, and the best companies know how to turn on a dime and exploit current emerging markets (Microsoft is great at this). Hamel and Prahalad's books is destined to sit on many shelves, looking very impressive but doing nothing for its readers.

I am a corporate strategy consultant who works mostly with FORTUNE 200 companies, and I also write books and articles about strategy. Strategic thinking has gone in and out of fashion in such companies several times in the last 40 years. With this book, Hamel and Prahalad have raised the value of strategic thinking in the current context in an effective way. This book is clearly designed with the large company in mind, where the need to envision, communicate about, and organize for the future is most difficult. By breaking down strategic thinking into the elements described here, the authors make strategic thinking easier for those who have little experience. Interestingly enough, many companies have "banned" strategic thinking in favor of more tactically-oriented programs that produce near-term cost reductions. Our firm recently did a survey of the most successful CEOs, and they reported that they felt that better strategies had the most potential to most improve their companies. These same CEOs also reported that they understood little about how to create better strategies. In such companies, COMPETING FOR THE FUTURE can provide an excellent balance. A good book to read in conjunction with this one is Peter Drucker's, MANAGEMENT, which provides the intellectual heritage for many of these ideas. For people who need more detail than Drucker normally provides, COMPETING FOR THE FUTURE will be the more helpful book.

Competing for the Future, by Gary Hamel and C. K. Prahalad focuses on new issues and techniques of strategic planning as discovered, articulated, and reported by the authors, both Professors of Business at the University of Michigan. The main message of the book reads as follows: in order for a company to be a success, the company must create its future instead of following other companies into the future.

By "creating the future" the authors understand defining and exploiting yet unknown future market opportunities. The opportunities do not have to be confined to the company's core competencies (although the book places significant emphasis on utilizing those). Instead, the company can choose to find alternate distribution channels, beneficial alliances, and other creative means of reinventing itself. The authors offer a wide array of management tools to successfully perform the corporate definition of future consumer needs.

The authors emphasize the corporate need for continuous innovation and reinvention. According to the book, many once-successful companies have failed because of their lack of regeneration and their erroneous belief in persistence of yesterday's business practices. Among the ways to successful corporate regeneration, the authors credit corporate diversity on the thinking level as successful means for breaking established corporate "myths" of the right way of doing business. The authors note that hiring personnel from outside industries can bring fresh and vital perspective on the present state of an enterprise.

In order to develop the future, a company must first define it. In defining the future today, Hamel and Prahalad suggest building "the best possible assumption base about the future." The "assumption base" is to indicate to management what changes in the company's products, competencies, and consumer interface are necessary in order to address future customer needs. The collective information about the changes of tomorrow comprises company's vision.

In order to create a successful vision of the future, a company needs dedicated senior management that "can escape the orthodoxies of the corporation's current 'concept of self'", and can enlarge the window of today's possibilities as projected into the future. The authors stress that a corporation should stretch the boundaries surrounding its competitive position of today in order to include tomorrow's competition and changes in customer needs. The book defines a successful corporate vision as the one that demands more of the corporation than the corporation is capable of providing today. Such a "stretch" between today's capacities and tomorrow's vision ensures that the company innovates in order to achieve the set goals, whereas "perfect fit [would guarantee corporate] atrophy and stagnation".

The book underscores the importance of basing tomorrow's market vision on core competencies of the corporation rather than on acquisition of other businesses or "grass roots 'intrapreneurship'". According to Hamel and Prahalad, core competencies represent "competitive strength" of an enterprise, defined and agreed upon by the company's general management. Building on the core competencies gives the company an immediate advantage over competition that needs to assemble similar competencies prior to entering the competitive race.

The authors note that corporate vision by itself "does not guarantee competitive success". In order for a company to be profitable, the company's foresight should be accompanied by a sufficient executional capacity. Executional capacity refers to continuous leverage of core competencies accompanied by healthy risk mitigation practices. The authors list several tools that can be used to leverage corporate core competencies in order to take hold of future market opportunities. One of the aforementioned tools is the process of aligning corporate operations based on core competencies rather than products and/or business functions. Operations focused on products and services fragment core competencies, and can subsequently truncate corporate opportunities for growth by disallowing deployment of core competencies when the need arises. Another crucial tool in successful execution of corporate vision is a regular review of core competencies together with competencies benchmarking against existing and potential competition in order to assure the company's market position.

In addition to the ideas cited in this paper, the authors describe myriad of ways to enhance tomorrow's competitiveness of an enterprise. Overall, the book is written in a motivational and comprehensive style. Peppered with real-life examples, the book offers thorough guidance to advance in the future marketplace.

The authors have taken a step by step approach to deliver a good amount of useful information and resource links. The book is easy to read (or scan as a reference). The book proceeds from a general overview to the minutia of search engines and how they work. Very useful guide on analyzing top-ranking pages. The content is written with the SEO professional in mind, but is also useful for the do-it-yourselfer with basic web page editing skills. I highly recommend this book for anyone looking for legitimate ways to increase their web site placement on the search engines.

After months and months of trying to get listed well in the search engines, I discovered this book. It took me step by step through the different procedures required for success in the major search engines, like Yahoo and AOL Search. Easy to read and very thorough, too. I recommend it highly to anyone looking for greater web traffic. It's working for me.

After 3 successful years of immersion in the search engine optimization business, I've read quite a bit and I've been to most of the conferences. "Maximize Web Site Traffic" is surprising in it's scope. Obtaining good position in the engines and directories is like surfing a large powerful wave; if you are not in the perfect position you either miss the wave or are buried beneath it.... In this business we have to have the best information and one needs to see the whole picture. This book works. I am using it for training inexperienced employees as well as giving our more experienced analysts very interesting techniques to use in their work.

I have read Don's Essential COM and was really looking forward to this one, having read the reviews.

While "E COM" covers things you must know about COM, "E .NET" often tells "deductions" about things you aren't supposed to know.

Writing style: how would you like "Having said that" and "To that end" in every other paragraph? Also Don spends 3 sentences where 1 would suffice and doesn't spend enough were it's needed. And I thought I knew his style.

First 1/3 is quite a waste if you already have spent a few month working with .NET and digging MSDN. And if you haven't the last 2/3 aren't for you.

If you expect insights into .NET technologies, such as ASP.NET, Forms or ADO.NET, pass it by. This book as title claims is just that - CLR. It tells you too much about CLR if you just want to use it and not enough if you want to port it to another platform.

There was pretty good explanation of COM-.NET relationships, well, to be expected. If it was up to Mr. Box he wouldn't let COM go, even though he sympatizes MTS team that had problems employing it for AOP introduction.

If you expect to do a lot of porting/plumbing this book is for you.
I'm giving it 3 points and I will leave it to dust until I come across a problem that's been addressed in the book.

In a world where developers are baying for customers' attentions, very few people can claim to command that of the developer. Their blogs may be the only clue to the higher level of thinking that they operate at, creating the answers to why and when code works in addition to the perennial how. Whether he likes it or not, Don Box is one such system-meister. He may dislike writing books, but when one comes out, people pay attention and read. His first foray into text, Essential COM, was the book to explain how COM worked, and his latest, Essential .NET, takes the .NET Framework's Common Language Runtime (CLR), and does exactly the same.

After chapter one's history of the evolution from COM to the CLR, the book takes a bottom-up approach to the CLR, starting with a deep and detailed six chapter look into the core elements of the platform. Chapter two begins with assemblies, the programmatic units in the CLR, and the implications of their construction. We learn how they are versioned, loaded and built, and why therefore they may be written in as many .NET languages as required. There's real depth to the material here - you really do touch the bottom of the abyss so to speak - but it's countered with occasional levity that keeps it a readable book instead of a dense reference manual. The same is true of all the text. To whit, there's even some irony; "To allow old dogs to avoid learning new tricks, there is finalization", he declares in the next section on the Common Type System.

It's here that we discover how different types and interfaces are distinguished from themselves and from one another, and how their variations and relationships are kept separate by the CLR. It's refreshing to note that the proverbial big picture is never very far away from the commentary. After taking time to explore the avenues for types and interfaces, Box notes that types themselves aren't very interesting until you start working with instances of those types and we're off again working through another thirty pages on how object instances preserve a sense of identity, how they are cast into other types and how they incorporate themselves into the concepts of reflection and metadata. Only then do we look at the actual lifecycle of an object, its creation, modification and disposal. The attention to detail is great, and there's pretty much no ambiguity in the text at all, but with that comes a slowness to this section that may have readers floundering in its wash.

One recurring theme of the book is the idea that while there is a very proper way and set of rules for doing things, there will always be circumstances in application development which call for exceptions to be made to those rules and made possible by .NET. This is true at a small scale and, as chapters six and seven prove, at a large one too, covering as they do how the CLR calls and runs methods first on a single machine and then over a wire. How does the runtime treat methods called explicitly, implicitly through a delegate, asynchronously, or as a combination of the three? How do remote calls and types bridge whatever gaps they must cross and activate the remote objects and methods they're targeting? The answers are here.

Essential .NET reflects Box's pride in .NET and also his slight dissatisfaction with it too. You can sense that while he knows .NET version 1 is an improvement over COM, it's not as good as it could be and things are still be done in v2 and beyond. Chapter eight's look at AppDomains and in particular its discourse on threading within and through AppDomains is a good example of this. Meanwhile, we finally come full circle in our investigation of the CLR, seeing how the assemblies we built in Chapter 2 are resolved and executed within AppDomains. Exceptions to rules being included, we also see how objects references are marshaled across AppDomains for inter-application communication if this is required.

The last two chapters look at wider topics around the CLR in as much detail as they can for topics which have entire books dedicated to just them. Chapter nine covers code-access security and chapter ten topics which are not of the CLR but which be can be addressed from within a .NET application: explicit memory management, using p/invoke to import COM methods from DLLs and so on. Both are concisely written and to the point, but unsurprisingly leave you feeling like there's more to these topics than is covered here. Chapter nine is a great and clear introduction to code-level security for example but you'll get a lot more out of Michael Howard's book, "Writing Secure Code" if you want to know more.

Essential .NET isn't an easy read but everyone should try and read it at least once. Focusing on the CLR itself and how it deals with the components of an application means that it truly is aimed at .NET developers as a whole (including those building and using alternate implementations of the CLR). What code examples there are, are given in C# but this is incidental really and won't stop VB.NET, J# or any other developers getting a great deal out of this book.

It's a dense, complex volume that requires a fair amount of effort to understand and use, and to some extent this may put people off. On the other hand, it is so packed with great nuggets of information that they may be inspired to keep reading. Of course, there is the question of whether this book will actually improve your .NET development skills, but in reposte, you can honestly say that no volume details the CLR and its potential so well and that is worth its cover price alone.

Don provides excellent coverage of how the CLR actually works, If you have any interest in what's going on under the covers, this is the book for you.

I give up! I struggled to read through this book. Phil Carpenter attempts to present how Internet brands are developed by presenting "case studies" on six well-known companies. The marketing strategies of these companies (iVillage, CDNow, BarnesandNoble.com, Yahoo!, FogDog Sports, and OnSale) are detailed in a manner filled with "buzzwords" but little in the way of thoughtful analysis or performance measurement.
Carpenter follows the same business methodology of many Internet companies today in believing that "big numbers" translate into success. As we have seen this is a flawed formula. Further, the simplisitic discussions of banner ads, viral marketing, etc., provides little insight into eBrand management for your organization. Specifically, Carpenter never makes the connection between an eBrand and profit.
If you are attempting to formulate an internet-based marketing strategy a much better read is Seth Yodin's book on Permission Marketing.

As Carpenter explains, his book "is based on an analysis of the brand-building efforts of six companies. Four of them, which represent the core of the book, are established Internet ventures that rose to the challenge of developing brands distinctly for this new medium." The six are: iVillage, CDNOW, Barnesandnoble.com, Yahoo!, Fogdog Sports, and Onsale. Carpenter does a brilliant job of explaining what each did right...and what each did wrong. In process, he rigorously examines a number of best practices common to all:

Focus on Building Brand Awareness

Cultivate Customer Commitment

Forge Strong Distribution and Content Alliances

Move Early, Move Fast

Develop an Intimate Knowledge of the Market and the Customer

Cultivate a Reputation for Excellence

Deliver Outstanding Value

Carpenter devotes a separate chapter to each of the six companies. In the Conclusion, he suggests that "the development of an Internet brand is a holistic process. Building awareness -- the activity that many equate with 'branding' -- is just one aspect of brand development. Crafting a powerful online brand requires paying just as much attention to developing other facets of brand as well, such as customer loyalty and influential distribution partnerships. There is no silver bullet solution for the development of a substantial Internet brand. Instead, dominant ebrands emerge when companies invest in a rich mixture of marketing and business practices." If there is a better book on this subject, I have not as yet read it.

This author is very knowledgeable about Silicon Valley and has some great insights. He picked Yahoo!, CDNow, iVillage, Onsale, Barnesandnoble.com, and Fogdog Sports to show how quickly a powerful brand could be built with the web growing like it was. Problem is...only one of these brands still matters - Yahoo.

Still the book is a must read for anyone trying to create a standalone branded website or online service. Gives some pretty compelling tips and histories on what works and doesn't. Also like the eBook format for this one...you'll want to skim and bookmark and highlight and the eBook Reader is pretty helpful for that. Recommended.

I can't remember the last time I read such an extraordinary book!

The Leap is the story of a successful journalist who risks everything he holds dear to follow an Internet dream. Tom Ashbrook allows you to live vicariously through the eyes of someone who dares to do what so many of us merely dream about. This richly crafted book is both a thrilling page turner and a beautifully written story where each chapter, each sentence is treasured.

I guarantee you will love The Leap! Don't miss out on the first book by the best American author to come along in a generation.

I read this in about two days...could barely put it down. I actually cried at a couple places late in the book, which is absolutely weird for a business book, but Ashbrook's tale is poignant, beautiful, and wonderful, as much a story of indefatigable spirit and the human appetite for risk and glory as it is a business case study. And this book worked on a different, more personal level for me, too. I've lived a teeny bit of "The Leap" myself -- my husband founded a small financial magazine with his childhood friend and eventually quit his job to make a go of it, doing the venture capital route, etc. He wound up selling the little company to an Internet company (in the process, he actually met with some of the same people who Ashbrook talks about), and got a tidy little sum as well as the satisfaction of seeing it live on online. I never knew quite what he was going through then, and admittedly I could have been more supportive, but now I think I know. Wonderful, wonderful book...not just for Internet fans or business book people, but for anyone.

Tom Ashbrook's book is the thinking man's action story, a true story of taking a chance, trading security for freedom, treating the internet economy as the 21st Century Klondike. Its a very personal tale, and obviously a candidate for a movie starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.

One gets the feeling that Ashbrook has not only taken the leap, he has landed as well.

A good read; a must read from anyone over 18 and under 50 (older folks will also enjoy what could have been ---- perhaps, indeed for some with the freedom to take chances, what still might be!).

This is an excellent book for those who wish to become an informed and independent investor. Although I am a long time investor in both stocks and options, I found the material presented to be quite useful. Yes, much of what is presented is "known", but this book provides an extremely valuable outline for developing the discipline required to be a successful self directed investor.

It is definetly not a "how to get rich quick in the market" book, but rather an orderly presentation of the skills you need to develop and useful techniques that will make you a successful investor. Must read for new but serious investors, very good review for the old hands.

The information in this book is by no means ground breaking. However, it is a well written book that provides solid all around advice for the new investor.

The book touches on many aspects of investing without being biased toward any particular one. It basically gives an overviews of many of the tools available to make investing decisions and leaves it to the reader to choose and learn more. For example, it starts out with an overview of economic factors and then moves into fundamental analysis, charting and buy/sell guidelines. It then touches on options, IPO's and tax issues.

Compared to other "newbie" books such as those by the Motley Fool, I think this offers a much more rounded approach. These books (and others) tend to present a biased view of the "correct" way to invest. This book gives a broader view that gives the reader more starting points to continue their learning and ultimately make better investing decisions.

One final comment -- there is not a lot of advertising for the thestreet.com in this book. Many chapters are accompanied by lists of websites to help you explore the topic presented in the chapter. Naturally, thestreet.com is often in the list, but all websites are given very fair treatment throughout the book.

First, this book is written in plain English and is meaningful to anyone from age 16 high school student to college professor. Second, the book is lucid and comprehensive. Third, it's worth the price. By most standards this reviewer is a successful home office private trader and investor, not a broker or money manger. I'm a much better trader and investor because of TheStreet.com Internet site to which I have subscribed since it started some years ago. During twenty years of private investing I have read hundreds of books and periodicals and examined hundreds of Internet sites promising "personal trading and investing systems" and examined what to buy - the so called hot stocks and funds. Most are nonsense and a waste of money. TheStreet.com Internet site and book are different, they explain how to trade and invest with a combination of fundamentals and contemporary interpretations. As a former analyst in another field, I especially appreciate TheStreet.com's process because it is analytical. This is a book about how to use information, knowledge, analysis, findings, conclusions, and judgment to make sound decisions. That's the only process that works in the real world, good times and bad. In my opinion, TheStreet.com is superior to any university or broker house course on the subject. The explanation pertaining to why and when to sell a stock (or fund) described in this book is alone worth the reader's investment. The book, TheStreet.com, provides an understanding of the fundamentals of how to trade and invest free of brokerage nonsense. Whether investing in an IRA, 401k, 403b, for college, for savings, to supplement income, or to become independently wealthy this book is worth reading. The book includes basic mutual fund and stock investing and options. If you are a student, new, intermediate, or even an expert trader or investor, this book is worth reading. If you teach trading and investing use this book. This book explains why to use the Internet investing tools -- Moringstar.com, TC2000 technical analysis, and the Wall Street Journal. But...to get the full advantage of this book, a successful trader or investor also needs to daily read the full range of columnists at TheStreet.com Internet site. (This reviewer is not affiliated with TheStreet.com in any way except as a paid subscriber.)

This book provides very useful information for marketing on the Internet. Topics in this book range from very basic to more advanced. Inforamtion contained in this book include creating your website, maintaining and monitoring your site and various legal issues to name a few. Over all this book is very helpful for those that are interested in marketing their products or services on the internet.

Now in a fully updated and expanded fifth edition, Jan Zimmerman's Marketing On The Internet: Seven Steps To Building The Internet Into Your Business is "must" reading for anyone charged with the responsibility for marketing their business's products or services in today's highly competitive, rapidly evolving marketplace. This outstanding, "user friendly" how-to book will instruct the reader on passwords for accessing private web sites, the latest Internet market news, online marketing resources, and more. Whether a novice entrepreneur launching a business on the Internet, or a seasoned corporate manager seeking to incorporate the Internet into an overall marketing strategy, Marketing On The Internet may well prove to be the single most important research reading they can do to ensure their company's success.

In my opinion, Marketing on the Internet by Jan Zimmerman is a book that every online business should read. The reason I think the book is of such high quality is because of three reasons, the organization, the graphs, and the ease of reading. First, the organization of the book is well laid out. There are bullet points to list each topic that will be discussed and then after the list, the chapter goes into detail on each point. The chapters are also organized to take the reader from the basics of the information to a point where it's detailed, but not confusing. Furthermore, the graphs, statistics, and pictures help in making the points clear. When the book mentions a specific site and how the site had a characteristic that made it look better, a picture of the site usually followed the summary. As well as the pictures, there were graphs and statistics to show the percentages of various subjects like ethnicities and the number of hours a browser was used per week. The information from these demographics can helps the reader to think of ways to enhance his own online business. Finally, the book was easy to read and easy to comprehend. Most computer-related books are very difficult to read because of the acronyms and the technical words used. This book kept the paragraphs short which kept my attention and didn't go into an extension of detail like other books. In conclusion, Marketing on the Internet is a book that can make your business soar to the top.

Van Tharp's earlier book, Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom, ranks with Market Wizards as a trading classic. Like Market Wizards, Tharp showed how the true "Holy Grail" of trading is to develop your *own* system, one which is perfectly suited to your own goals and needs. (I know it sounds wishy-washy... but believe me it's anything but.) Not only that but, unlike Market Wizards, Tharp showed you step-by-step how to actually do this! The result was, while far from perfect, one of the most amazing and probably the single most useful book on how to become a successful trader. I was hugely excited when I (a day trader) found out that Tharp's next book would be about day trading. Alas, it turns out to be a disappointment. It's not bad as such, only nowhere near the same level. Specifically, this book consists of: (1) material by Tharp that covers the same ground as before, only in less detail; (2) an overview of the basics of day trading, such as how to read Level II screens; (3) occasional insights and ideas which you might not find elsewhere. So here's what I would recommend. If you don't already know (1), run (don't walk!) to get Tharp's earlier book; don't even think about buying this one instead. If you don't already know (2), this book is a pretty good introduction to day trading, better than most that are out there. Lastly, is the book worth buying for (3)? It sort of depends. If, like me, you love to devour books about the markets, and believe that they more than pay for themselves if you get even one new tradeable idea -- then sure, buy it, just don't expect too much. If, on the other hand, you only want to spend your time and money on the very best books, well, this is no must-have. I like both authors, and they do know what they are talking about, but this book is far from the best that either is capable of. It shows all the signs of having been put together hastily.

i think the business side of trading is often overlooked by the private online trader and this is a great place to start. but don't just read it, do it! a constant reference and definitely needs to be reread every 6 months to keep you on your toes.

This book contains a wealth of information - I strongly recommend it! The content is excellent, and the writing style is understandable and candid. Brian June not only discusses the nuts-and-bolts of day-trading (Level II screens, time-and-sales data, "ax" market makers, direct-access systems, trading strategies) but covers in detail how one should prepare prior to the market opening and how one needs to debrief trading after the close. Dr. Van Tharp covers two of the most important concepts of trading: risk management (i.e., capital preservation) and money management (i.e., position sizing). If you have not internalized these concepts into your belief system already read these chapters, memorize them. They are key disciplines as they will keep you in the game. Four days ago I recommended the book to another full-time trader, and he just wrote back saying, "I wanted to thank you for recommending the Tharp/June book. It is full of mandatory knowledge one needs, but also they make it clear what the requirements are to be successful. I am finding the book extremely enlightening - thanks again." I have been a student of the markets for over ten years having proceeded through the study of fundamental analysis, technical analysis, and trading psychology (in that order). I wish I had this information at the start of my journey.

Who should buy this book? The real question is who shouldn't buy this book. For the Phd Quant this book is a tour de force in how to explain technical topics clearly and concisely. For the newbie, this is simply the lowest barrier to entry available.

Interestingly, QF does not "replace" a bookshelf of quant books -- rather it nicely compliments many that you're likely to have such as Taleb, Neftci etc. As sales of QF increase, it is likely that readers will be less likely to buy a derivatives book that is over their head.

Volume 1 covers 37 chapters of the equities/currency derivatives world, While Volume 2 covers the Fixed Income World, Risk Measurement , Miscellaneous Topics and Numerical Methods.

Chapter 10 has an excellent and all too rare discussion of Probability Density Functions and First Exit Times, whilst Chapter 14 has an outstanding Trading Game invented by one of Paul Wilmott's former students.

Chapters 16 through 21 cover the Path Dependent world while the balance of the chapters cover extensions to Black Scholes.

Its in these sections that Wilmott delivers some surprising thoughts and insights into Stochastic Volatility Surfaces that are currently the rage.

Throughout both volumes I continue to be astonished at how clear, concise and effective his explanations are. The icons are not annoying at all -- rather I found myself skimming the icons to find out what was required to be committed to memory in each section versus what was background.

As obvious as it sounds, a glaring weakness in Derivatives texts is the inability of authors to elucidate what must be memorized as rote for the student to make further progress. Paul's easy to follow icons lay out a precise plan of study.

I can't say enough about what a leap this is over competing texts.

In Volume 2, Chapters 38 through 50 cover models that Wilmott likes as well as ones that he doesn't [again, a rather novel approach]

Some surprises in Chapters 51 and 52 are an excellent overview of Portfolio Management and a survey of Robert Merton's Asset Allocation in Continuous Time.

Sprinkle in outstanding chapters on Derivatives Fiascos, Real Options, Energy Derivatives and 5 chapters on Numerical Methods and an astonishing survey of Quantitative Finance is complete.

Throughout the books Paul's practical use of Term Sheets and quick and dirty VB code and spreadsheet tricks [you just have to see his Excel shortcut for approximating the Normal distribution] leave the reader constantly wanting to rev ahead.

To round out a tremendous effort, Wilmott also pays homage to authors that he's found helpful and he's generous with suggestions on further reading. This builds sorely needed confidence when attempting new material.

The comparison with Richard Feynman is apt but misses an important detail...Feynman was not noted for turning out hordes of talented understudies. Paul Wilmott has turned out enough talented graduate students that maybe he will be a bona fide cult leader someday.

I have been an appreciative reader of the previous books by Paul Wilmott, and I eagerly bought this updated edition of Derivatives right away. There was no surprise: this is possibly the most comprehensive book on mathematical finance up to date. Several new chapters have been added, some of them addressing very interesting subjects such as stochastic control (one of my favourites), and many others have been expanded. For instance, American options are explained more thoroughly in this edition. You won't need a PhD in math to read the book: it takes little mathematical knowledge to understand the models to a good level of accuracy (strange as it may sound, the author succeeds in demonstrating it is so), and the derivation of more subtle quantitative subjects is straightforward. Wilmott as usual includes some funny lines throughout the text that make the reading light and enjoyable. The drawing boxes depicting the author himself providing concise advice on what issues to focus on may certainly look childish, yet I think they are of some help to the reader. Actually, I think it's impossible to conceive a topic in derivatives theory (and practice, as the author reminds) not covered in these volumes. Do not expect Paul Wilmott on quantitative finance to provide a useful quick reference for formulas and basic ideas, though. The thick and heavy two volumes are a nightmare to carry around (despite the stylish box that accomodates them) and you won't like to browse through the index jumping from one book to the other. Overall, I think this book is a must for all those interested in financial mathematics. Students and first-timers can not, in my humble opinion, find a better textbook for developing a wide knowledge of mathematical finance, and they will certainly read it cover to cover and will have hard time putting it down. More experienced readers might find the level of exposition, especially in the first chapters, quite introductory, but they certainly will appreciate the broad scope of the book and the unconventional yet very enjoyable style with which the subjects are explained. Moreover, Wilmott is available for answering questions and exchanging ideas and opinions, and I think that's a huge resource, considering how greatly knowledgeable he is. There are only two small drawbacks with this book: the price tag and the ugly suit worn by the author (who, surprisingly enough, seems proud of it) in a picture on the back cover of one of the volumes, but serious Wilmott enthusiasts will happily accept both. As a matter of fact, I'm already looking forward to hear about his next (4 volumes, 2K pages?) release.

It makes difficult material easy to understand.