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Many ‘Captains of industry’ have committed their innermost thoughts to books after they have retired. Many of these books are insightful, and educational, but generally speaking they are dry and boring, unless you have a specific interest in their company or industry.

Allen Rosenshine, author of  Funny Business: Moguls, Mobsters, Megastars, And the Mad, Mad World of the Ad Game, is the exception to this rule.  This guy could easily climb up on the stage of your local ‘Improv’ and do a 20 minute stand alone comedy routine.

OK, so who is Allen Rosenshine? He is not someone that you would likely know unless you are in the advertising business, but as the head man at BBDO and later Omnicon, this was the man in charge of the worlds most influential advertising agency.

Allen has produced a book of 2-3 page vignettes, some are rueful and thought provoking, but the vast majority are just downright gut busting funny. It is hard to pick my favorites, they are all my favorites. Allen is not shy about sharing his most embarrassing moments, and he has plenty of them. Continue reading »

Harriet Klausner is Amazon’s #1 Reviewer

 In The Dallas Women’s Guide to Gold-Digging with Pride: A Novel, by J.C. Conklin, the Wall Street Journal sends almost thirty, Manhattanite Jennifer Barton to work at the Dallas bureau.

While there her boyfriend Rafe dumps her for a much older wealthier married witch. Outraged she asks her roommate Aimee to explain why he would drop pretty miss compatibility like her for a snake with a spouse.

Aimee explains once a Tall Texan always Tall Texan. Jenny vows to become a Tall Texan with Aimee offering to mentor her in what matters unlike her fortyish shrew of boss at work Carol Becker who wants her booted back east.

The native also explains the rule that you marry wealth symbolized by a rock of Gibraltar stone, divorce wealth and remarry more wealth with a rock the size of Everest until you hit the pinnacle in which males seek to marry your wealth; Aimee is at phase two. Continue reading »

Matthew Carr has produced a very interesting, thought-provoking, and in some eyes controversial book about the long, and usually not very elegant history of terrorism. I had the pleasure of interviewing Matthew recently. I have interviewed many authors, but this one has a twist in the tail that I certainly did not expect. The Infernal Machine: A History of Terrorism is the second book in as many months that I have reviewed and has been banned from being sold in the United Kingdom. One wonders what has happened to ‘free speech’ over there?

Can you tell us a little about yourself?

I’m 52 years old. I was born in London, but I spent my childhood in the West Indies. I returned to England and spent my teenage years in Cambridge. Since then I’ve lived in various countries. My resume reads as if I never had a clear goal; over the years I have worked dozens of jobs, building laborer, postman, signwriter, English teacher, bookshop assistant, house painter, and bike messenger.

I’ve lived and traveled in various countries. A year in Holland. Three and a half years in New York in the ’80s, where I did various dead end jobs and played guitar in a rock ‘n’ roll band. I spent the ’90s living in Spain. I’m currently living in a small town in Derbyshire that few people have ever heard of with my partner and 11-year-old daughter, where I attempt to eke out a living writing books.

I believe you are a journalist and broadcaster - can you tell us a little about that?

I’ve worked as a freelance journalist for a number of publications, beginning in the ’80s when I wrote about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Gaza strip and covered the Sicilian Mafia trial for The Observer.

I’ve also done pieces on human rights issues and the state terror in Central America, on the Spanish government’s use of death squads against ETA, in addition to numerous disparate assignments that freelancers get used to doing. When I lived in Spain I did a lot of radio work for the BBC, from short packages to longer documentaries.

Nowadays the only regular journalist work I do is for the First Post online magazine. Continue reading »

The Infernal Machine: A History of Terrorism could easily be subtitled, ‘One Man’s Terrorist is Another Man’s Freedom Fighter’. As Matthew Carr eloquently points out, it is all a matter from where you take your viewpoint. When someone mentions terrorism, Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden might first spring to mind - however, terrorism is not a new phenomenon.

Mathew Carr takes us back to Russia in the early 1880s and the assassination of Tsar Alexander II. When you read the circumstances surrounding this event, you begin to see the quandary of determining what constitutes terrorism. In a decade-by-decade, country-by-country dissection we see that terrorism has been with us constantly, for quite some time. The names may change, the techniques may vary depending on the goals, but terrorism it is.

One of the more interesting episodes that the author explores is how, in many cases, terrorism is actually used to a government’s advantage in enacting unpopular legislation with little or no grumbling from the population. Continue reading »

Erlend Peterson’s newest book, Rich by Choice: A Complete Guide to Your Financial Success, helps readers understand that they have a choice or whether or not he/she chooses to become rich (financially) or struggle without wealth. He claims that “most of the people around you will continue to make the wrong choices.”

Not wanting to be classified as “most of the people” I was eager to delve into “Rich by Choice” to see if, according to Peterson, I was on the correct track.  I was also enthusiastic in learning new ways of creating or sustaining wealth.  Peterson did not let me down.

One thing Peterson is clear about is that being rich is having $2,000,000 or more in liquid assets – cash, mutual funds, annuities, stocks/bonds, and the cash value of a life insurance policy.  It does not mean a huge house, a new expensive car, nor does it mean taking long vacations. Basically, what it does mean is the investments can be sold for cash or left to grow to generate income.  Peterson also adds that real estate, which has a net profit of 20% or more, can be considered as a liquid asset. Continue reading »

Are you clowning around with your career? Or do you equate your professional life to a Three-Ring Circus? Then take a read of My Office Is a My Office Is A 3-Ring Circus!: Must I Take Orders From Clowns?, by Judy Weigle.

Everyone makes this comparison…My Office Is A 3-Ring Circus…and uses this phrase to refer to all the crazy things that can challenge you in your job and business relationships.

Learn how to roar back successfully in office power struggles.

Through the 4 Performance Tools, 11 Performance Tips, and the career invention techniques of the Performance Tricks you will receive a blueprint formula for success and enjoyment in any career choice you make.

Let change be your graceful high wire act. Continue reading »

RIGHT TO RECOVER: Winning the Political and Religious Wars Over Stem Cell Research in America, by Yvonne Perry gives readers an accurate picture of the controversial field of embryonic (blastocystic) stem cell research. In addition, it highlights the progress of therapies resulting from adult stem cell research as well as those from stem cells found in cord blood and amniotic fluid.

The book covers all types of stem cell research and explains why a fish-looking embryo cannot possibly exist in a Petri dish.

Author Yvonne Perry says that the belief that a human life is being taken by removing a few cells from an in vitro blastocyst (IV-B) is a ploy to delay funding for a science that may likely produce effective treatments and possible cures for many illnesses and conditions.

“People have heard and read this erroneous report so many times they actually believe the research kills a baby,” says Perry. “Instead of doing research to find out what really goes on in the lab, they believe what they are told by political and religious leaders who are promoting their own agenda through the media.”

As a highly-sought after ghostwriter, Yvonne Perry has authored many books with her clients’ names appearing on the cover. In fact, it was a client, Reverend Dan Bloodworth, who got her interested in stem cell research.

The Bloodworth’s son has been in a stage 4 coma for nearly 20 years. In a search for anything that might restore his son’s ability to move Continue reading »

Harriet Klausner is Amazon’s #1 Reviewer. Here’s what she thinks of Walpuski’s Typewriter by Frank Darabont.

Hollywood writer Howard Walpuski dreams of one day becoming a household name, but so far even he recognizes the litter box junk he writes.

When his IBM Selectric II suddenly spit smoke and had one last death rattle, he panics because he needs that machine even to hack out crap because five dollars will not buy much. He finds the typewriter repair shop owned by elderly Cyril Pratt who greets his tragic story like an undertaker at a funeral. Pratt agrees that major repairs are in order for a down payment of five dollars after screaming at Walpuski for typing BS as bad as a monkey.

When he gets his typewriter back, Walpuski quickly learns all he has to do is feed it paper and the machine does all the work. Soon Walpuski becomes the instant King of bestsellers, but the typewriter wants blood, sweat and tears from the author and plans to collect once the third tale is written. Continue reading »

Grady Harp is an Amazon Top 10 Reviewer 

Mohsin Hamid writes so well that were it not for the propulsive force of his quietly building suspense story, the reader would be tempted to linger over passages of elegantly beautiful prose. The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a timely book, yes, but it is far more: the novel underscores the talent of a superlative writer unafraid to place before the public a story that is bound to create a disturbing response at the end of the roller coaster ride.

Cleverly written as a monologue from a Pakistani young man named Changez (a name when pronounced delivers major clues to the story!) as he joins an American in a cafe in Lahore, Pakistan. The story reveals a young lad from a family once well to do in Pakistan, but fractured by the political changes suffered by that country, a lad who goes to America to attend Princeton University where he transforms himself into an ‘American stance’, performs exceedingly well academically, and joins the wealthy American classmates on jaunts where he encounters the beautiful but mysteriously aloof Erica.

Changez and Erica become friends and were it not for Erica’s recovering from a loss of her previous lover Chris who died of cancer, the two seem to be destined to become lovers. Erica is from a wealthy family who accepts Changez even more readily when upon graduation he is awarded a position with the prestigious firm Underwood Samson. Changez learns the feeling of the American preoccupation with success and wealth while still being committed to his family ties in Pakistan. While Changez is on a business trip to Manila he watches the 9/11 event and he is surprised that he feels a bit happy that haughty America is being brought to her feet. Continue reading »

Harriet Klausner is Amazon’s #1 Reviewer.  These are her thoughts on The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle: Day One), by Patrick Rothfuss.

As a child, Kvothe traveled with his parents from town to town as part of a troupe giving performances. His parents were quite talented, had the patronage of a lord, and stopped at only the best places.

The troupe added Abertino who taught Kvothe much about his magic and was quite surprised how easily the lad picked up his lessons. After his mentor leaves the troupe, Kvothe decides to attend the University where he can obtain formal lessons in the use of magic.

However his life is shattered after returning from a long solo walk to ponder his future; he finds everyone including his parents dead, killed by the Chandrian because his dad was collecting knowledge on them so that he could write a song about them.

A traumatized Kvothe heads for the big city where he becomes a homeless vagabond who is picked on by everyone who lives on the streets. Still he does what he must to stay alive until he finally reaches the University. Continue reading »