Hit & Run - how jon peters and peter guber took sony for a ride - Nancy Griffin and Kim Masters

Good fun. reads like a novel. lighter stuff than "barbarians at the gate" though of the same vein. details the scams, dreams and lives of the two in hollywood even before they join Sony and makes you wonder that if even half of their exploits were true and half of that known to some body in Sony, how they were taken in.

On the flip side, as someone who has had credit taken away from my work, i felt better that i was not alone, i just need to get smarter which i hope i have. These guys scammed everybody they could and only the likes of Steven Spielberg could handle them.

God save the world from pigs like these.

Must read.

Three weeks with my brother - nicholas and micah sparks

I had to wonder:

1. Why does micah sparks name appear as a co-author when the book is clearly written in the first person by Nicholas?
2. How does Nicholas manage to make a mundane life readable?
3. Can a college prof (his dad) really have been earning so little leading to the life of penury he details?

A very readable autobiography but definitely not essential reading. Not in the same class as his own "the notebook"

michelangelo's notebook - paul christopher

Fast paced but very disappointing. characters are not fleshed out, plot vague and language average. Not a patch on Dan Brown's Da vinci code.

The greatest minds and ideas of all time - Will Durant

The book starts off with a nice anecdote on who would you want to meet from the past. Won't tell you Will Durant's choice but a good one. Well done.

The book is a collection of essays on his opinion and list..clearly not encompassing..even invention of zero does not get classified as a great idea. But good read getting together stuff we know into readable quick reference.

very small, could read it in an hour. Probably need a closer read that may take a couple more

Native Tongue - Carl Hiaasen

Slap sticky, lengthy but with some good fundas - a scamster who creates a blue tongue mango vole - a species in danger, a dolphin that's horny, a whale that chokes to death on the dead body of a vet who figures out the scam, an ex-employee who sends out PR messages to press on the company letterhead (stolen of course) and old lady who is trying to protect the environment and does not mind using her gun recklessly...you get the idea.

Would have been happier if the book had 250 pages instead of the 400.

Longitude by Dava Sobel

Traces the history of need to derive longitudinal locations on seas to correctly identify /plot location. Interesting tidbits of life in the seventeenth and eighteenth century.

In 1707, though underlings onboard were not supposed to track location, one brave guy did and came and told his Admiral they were heading for disaster. The Admiral hanged him first and then led four battleships aground with only two survivors. Nobody left to say - I told you so.

The politics and intrigue involved in assessing various methodologies to figure out the longitude on sea is amazing and entertaining. The fight put up by the first watchmaker of the world John Harrison to get his due reminds you that the best minds are not always recognized (often for private petty reasons)

An excellent history- for- the- common- man book. simplifies but does not dumb it down.

Another major positive - 12pt font and 175 pages. Could finish it in one sunday afternoon.