James H. McDuffie

This book would not make a good movie. Really it wouldn't!!, Jan 26 2004

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.

Much Good Advice, Dec 29 2003

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… Read more

Too much anecdotal advice, Dec 29 2003

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… Read more