Now that I have hopefully prevented various pretenders from ruining the Anabasis like the Iliad and other works have been ruined by the mass media let me say that this book has had a profound influence on my life. I don't understand why but Xenophon in particular reaches out across time to speak to me in a way that most other ancient authors do not. I can say nothing better about a book. His analyses are not always correct but they are always insightful. One of my favorite stories of all time.

This book is a great resource for those who need this information. But much of it is concerned with "misconceptions" that border on attempts at fraud and showing that you just can't get away with it. The main theme of the book although the author does not point this out is KISS. Keep It Simple Stupid. That way you can understand it. Also the sections on minimum distributions are useful. I will leave it up to the individual, as it should be, to determine the usefulness of insuring the estate tax portion of a retirement plan. All in all a rather useful tome but I am not sure it required all that so to speak. As others have pointed out the "humor" in the book is distracting and does not add much. Ed Slott makes the error of writing pretty much exactly like he speaks at his seminars and it can grind at times. Great for seminars, not so good for books. Worth having on the ole bookshelf.

Don't get me wrong. There is a lot of good ideas in this book. But the author, instead of sharing what works for him and letting the reader decide what is appropriate for him/her self tries the one size fits all approach in some areas. The book completely ignores the use of computers for tracking money and the investment advice in the book is very low level and shallow. All in all most of the book is just personal opinion. For those who are truly ignorant of these matters it may have some use but in general it is a paen to the author's personal methods backed up by a few horror stories. As is frequently the case in this situation much of this is wrongly interpreted and may not even be correct. In general the book relies too much on ancecdotal evidence for those areas of our lives for which objective evidence is available. Still there are some useful ideas in the book and the book is worthwhile reading. But there is just too much childish ego at work here to make the book a first rank reference. Also, virtually all of these ideas can be found elsewhere.

This is an interesting complement to the writings of William Berstein and takes a slightly different point of view on most of the topics including asset allocation and indexing. This is definitely a guide to the merits of indexing and diversification but the justifications come from a different direction than Bernstein and some may find this discussion more palatable. Swedroe keeps it simple and to the point. Once again I do not agree with every last word the author utters but overall this is a great book. The material may be similar to the author's previous books but the real value of his material in general lies in his different approach than say Gibson or Bernstein. No matter how you approach it the vast majority of evidence supports indexing over active management.

There is simply not enough value in this book to justify using it. I'm sorry but words like Alta Vista and Cisco just should not appear anywhere in a value investing book. Period and discussion over. At least not up to the present. Maybe in the future but I doubt it. Also there is way too much verbage to describe much of nothing. The modern budding value investor would be better served by other book including Security Analysis by Graham. A lot of detail is missing here and much of the analysis leaves one wondering if the authors know what value investing really is.

Let me first say that I like this book better than most of the other investing psychology books out there that I have examined. But I have two problems with the book. First, there is an investor psychology test at the back of the book which is also available on a website. My question is, especially after reading the test questions, how scientific is this test? I doubt that it really tells the taker anything but many will be suduced by it anyhow. Most of this material I have seen is either rubbish or Mickey Mouse. Second, any investor that needs this material does not need this material. In other words any investor that does not already understand this material independent of the book a priori is certainly not in need of studying this book and then attempting to beat the market with his/her new found knowledge. My own experience is that the psychological equipment needed to truly outwit the market is necessarily the result of long hard experience, not reading books. The completely clueless may find solace here but until the material is internalized it is probably of not much use. The book provides no help on internalization.

This is actually a wonderful introduction to the theory of derivatives and personally I find it to be a little humorous on occasion as well. There is definitely some ego here but it does not interfere with the author's sincere attempt to present the material in such a way that it can be understood easily by anyone with the required math background. That of course is the problem for some: this book requires a fairly extensive math background to be really understood. Fakers may try, but the successful will have a pretty good background in mathematics. That said, the discussion of stochastic calculus is better than many have led the casual onlooker to believe. It is not rigorous but is perfectly sufficient for the subject matter at hand. A good understanding of the material in this book will make the reader truly dangerous in the realms of the PDE theory of derivatives.

I routinely use accounting in my investing activities as well as my management activities and I have found this to be among the most insightful short accounts out there. Plenty of detail is provided and the programmed teaching format is highly effective. Although simple in its approach, it also has one of the best overall approaches to accounting that I have seen. Most accounting books make it difficult to see the forest for the trees. This book is just the opposite: it starts by showing you the forest. Highly recommended to those who need a good knowledge of accounting but do not wish to become accountants.

I have to say this is a fantastic presentation of Thucydides although I have not read him in the original Greek and therefore am not qualified to pass judgement on the translation. But I also notice that Victor Hanson provided the bibliography rather than the author and no sources are quoted for the essays at the back and the bibliography is mostly secondary sources. Yes, this book is meant for the masses, but I would prefer an approach more similar to the Penguin Herodotus. Nevertheless, the maps are useful and the book is well worth reading.

Years ago I discovered this book while studying for my electrodynamics and mechanics comprehensives. What a godsend! If the physics graduate student understands only ten percent of what is in this book he will do fine. Combined with the classical texts on electrodynamics and mechanics I discovered I became truly dangerous in the realm of classical physics. Still am much to the chagrin of my colleagues. Still the best after all these years, I cannot recommend this book too highly.