City Travel Guides > Books > Professional and Technical

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.The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life
City Travel Guides > Books > Professional and Technical
by: Alice Schroeder

September 29, 2008
Alice Schroeder has done a wonderful job parsing the incredibly interesting and complex life of one of the world's true living legends.

This should become the tome to site for all things Buffett. It is thorough, examining his family history, his father's career, and details of his youthful adventures; which in some instances, went well over the moral line he now teaches people to steer away from. The hardships suffered by close family members of the financial, psychological, and personal variety are honestly portrayed through the biography, as are details of the complex relationships he has had with women throughout his life.

For students of business and investment, the book details clearly the growth of his business ... Read More:
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.Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--And How It Can Renew America
City Travel Guides > Books > Professional and Technical
by: Thomas L. Friedman

September 08, 2008

In Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America, Thomas Friedman presents an irresistible opportunity for Americans--one that can save the planet and increase our wealth.

The world is flat because of globalization--which is good, as ideas and practices can spread effectively. What is not so good is that our world population is exploding and countries like India and China are seeing an increase in wealth, which puts more strain on the world's resources and increases global warming.

Friedman begins the book with a discussion of how America has changed post 9/11. He uses the example of the US consulate built in 1882 in Istanbul. The consulate was built in the heart of the ... Read More:
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.The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
City Travel Guides > Books > Professional and Technical
by: Naomi Klein

July 29, 2008
I've enjoyed Naomi Klein's writing ever since No Logo, but I must admit that I find that she can be hit and miss. In this book, she scores a straight-out hit. What I enjoy so thoroughly is that she manages to do so with a fascinating thesis: comparing the effects of electric shock on the human mind and body with the effects of disasters upon the collective social psyche, and how the unscrupulous attempt to use this vulnerability to their advantage. Indeed, in some cases, as Klein points out, the people doing the electroshocking are the same people trying to massively alter economic structures.

Reading this book has its own shock value; the section on how tsunami relief money was used to force the victimized fishing villagers out ... Read More:
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.A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge
City Travel Guides > Books > Professional and Technical
from: Project Management Institute

2004-01
This book was the textbook for a Project Management course I recently completed. We covered the project management methodologies, as promoted by the Project Management Institute (PMI). I found the format of this book somewhat difficult to absorb. However, I must admit that the PMI did a good job including many concepts that are important to the profession of project management.
The first three chapters give a good introduction to project management, while chapters 4 through 12 are dedicated to each of the 9 PM knowledge areas. The core of this book is the set of 44 processes, mapped out into the 5 process groups and the 9 knowledge area. Each process has corresponding Inputs, Tools and Techniques, and Outputs. One aspect of the formatting of the book ... Read More:
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.The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing
City Travel Guides > Books > Professional and Technical
by: Benjamin Graham, Jason Zweig

June 24, 2003
With more than one million copies sold and an endorsement on the cover by Warren Buffet, you know there has to be something to this book- and I think I know why. Simply because it is the first book ever to describe the emotional framework and analytical tools necessary for financial success for individual investors.

Probably the single best book on investing written for the lay-public and the stock market bible since its first appearance in 1949, it's a great resource, although it's quite a thick book and filled with detail- and probably not for anybody but the serious stock market investor. And if getting motivated to start investing is your problem, suggest The Sixty-Second Motivator. Good luck!


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.The Brain That Changes Itself
City Travel Guides > Books > Professional and Technical
by: Norman Doidge

December 18, 2007
The history of Sigmund Freud's approach to the mechanisms of the mind has exhibited some tumultuous changes over the past century. Norman Doidge reminds us that Freud developed a thesis about the mind's plasticity over time. Freud's psychotherapy - irrespective of some questionable methods - was designed to allow the mind to search within itself and change outward behaviour by identifying memories hidden or repressed. However, after Freud, researchers using diagnoses of stroke or brain-injury victims, "mapped" areas in the brain for function. The first of these was the speech-producing region now named Broca's Area, after Paul Broca, its discoverer in the mid-19th century. Brain modularity, or "localization" as Doidge deems it, became the norm in brain research for decades ... Read More:
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.Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse
City Travel Guides > Books > Professional and Technical
by: Peter D. Schiff, John Downes

February 09, 2007
My only regret is not having read this book sooner - I ordered it some time ago and it sat on my "to do" pile... until this global economic crisis hit.

Reading this book is liking reading a play-by-play of how the global credit crisis, real estate bubble, stock market plunge and ensuing recession (depression?) are all precipitated by the out-of-touch economic policies of the United States and Federal Reserve. Schiff also explains how national and consumer debt have hamstrung our economy, and debunks the fallacy that borrowing to consume drives the economy.

The frightening part is the worst is yet to come - Schiff explains that this global financial crisis could become much more severe. Thankfully, he offers chapters of tips for not only surviving, but profiting ... Read More:
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.Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...and Others Don't
City Travel Guides > Books > Professional and Technical
by: Jim Collins

October 04, 2001
Good to Great is a new and different research on the forces that drive change in all types of organizations. Written in textbook style, Jim Collins' book aims to help the reader bring his organization from a good (read average) level of performance to a great one by presenting and analyzing the case of a dozen Forbes 500 companies that have achieved the deed.

According to Good to Great, the first step in achieving greatness lies in the selection of a special, ``Level 5'', manager who will install a climate of passion, debate and performance in his company while remaining modest. Other important factors in becoming great are a management that analyzes and believes in data, a culture of discipline inside the company, a well-defined and well-applied business concept and the creation of a talent ... Read More:
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.Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions
City Travel Guides > Books > Professional and Technical
by: Dan Ariely

February 07, 2008

At first glance, the title of Dan Ariely's book seems to be an oxymoron. (It certainly catches one's attention.) Can irrational thought and/or behavior be predicted? Perhaps if it is repetitive? (The judgment and behavior of at least some people can be repetitive and thus predictable.) So I began to read his book with curiosity but also, yes, with some skepticism. Here are a few of my reactions. First, he learned a number of "lessons" from what he calls "experiments" in his life, each of which struck him as being counterintuitive. For example, everything is relative...even when "it shouldn't be"...or in fact isn't. That is, our mind can "play tricks" on us and thus we tend to see what we expect to see, hear what we expect to hear, etc. Images and sounds are relative to their context or frame-of ... Read More:
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.The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What It Means
City Travel Guides > Books > Professional and Technical
by: George Soros

May 05, 2008

At first glance, the title of Dan Ariely's book seems to be an oxymoron. (It certainly catches one's attention.) Can irrational thought and/or behavior be predicted? Perhaps if it is repetitive? (The judgment and behavior of at least some people can be repetitive and thus predictable.) So I began to read his book with curiosity but also, yes, with some skepticism. Here are a few of my reactions. First, he learned a number of "lessons" from what he calls "experiments" in his life, each of which struck him as being counterintuitive. For example, everything is relative...even when "it shouldn't be"...or in fact isn't. That is, our mind can "play tricks" on us and thus we tend to see what we expect to see, hear what we expect to hear, etc. Images and sounds are relative to their context or frame-of ... Read More:
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Used Price: CDN$ 29.45