The title promises much more than the book delivers
581219
This book doesn't say much of anything about investment, aside from the final line: "Good Luck!" It was a big disappointment.
4555127
This book is, to a large extent, not what it claims to be.  Way too much of it is devoted to a history of how mental illness has been treated and viewed throughout history, and to theories of what mental illness is.  These are interesting topics, but I expected more in-depth coverage of today's system, theories, and treatments...as well as more about his family's experiences.  A whole lot of pages go by, including many about his sons' prowess with music, before any substantive mention of their battles with their illnesses.  Powers is a parent of mentally ill children, and as such one's heart goes out to him, but he is not a mental health professional.  The "write what you know" adage in this case would have dictated focusing on his own family's experiences with mental illness and their experiences with the system, which would have been a far more powerful and useful book -- the book I suspect most readers are expecting based on the title and reviews.
4618715
I  was disappointed in the book; The author has missed
so much she could have said to reinforce the title.
951355
Half of the book is telling the reader what they are golng to learn. Obviously, they needed filler to actually fill the pages, thus the title.
819251
Less than a great book, written by the privileged, for the privileged.  It does not do what I hoped it would based on its title.
3574145
I bought this book based on it's title.  Unfortunately, it fails to meet the expectations.  I'm sorry I paid for it in hardback.
What I liked about this book.  Lots of interesting an inspiring quotes.  So many infact, that this book might be improved by removing the remaining content, and turning this into a quote a day calendar.  It's too much of a good thing, and often the quotes are included for no apparent reason.
To be fair, the stories are interesting, but the writing is not compelling.  I could not identify with the author or the people who chose to write about, because they all seemed so priveledged.
Furthermore, although the author is supposedly trying to illustrate the ethical and humanistic evolution of the people he describes, he validates their experiences with the same values system.  Money, status, prestige.  He never transcends this.
Despite all this, there's something essential in this book, that makes me want to read it again, make some notes, and then give the book away.  There is a certain noble spirit of possibility.
If I were the editor of this book, I would ask the author to remove over half the quotes, since less is more.  I would also suggest that he reduce the number of stories, since by the end, the way he tells the stories is formula.  In fact, I think that the strongest part of the book is "Judy Wick's Ministry," and perhaps this book could have used her as a single example.
I would suggest two other books, to people attracted to this book by the title.  One is Zen and the art of making a living and the other is Think and Grow Rich
1892040
All things considered, this book has to be considered a disappointment.  Its title, "The President We Deserve," is somewhat misleading.  It  suggests the promise of explanation.  Why do we deserve Bill Clinton?  How do we deserve him?  The book's introduction suggests that what will  make this work unique is the ability to place Mr. Clinton within the  "context" of his times.  This is an intriguing premise.  But it  never materializes.  Instead, what we get is exerpts from Bob Woodward's  "The Agenda" and Elizabeth Drew's "On the Edge" but  without the quality writing style.  I still believe that a book placing Mr.  Clinton within a generational context is a highly promising endeavor.  Newt  Gingrich, Hillary Clinton, George W. Bush, and Bill Bennett are all Baby  Boomers.  A look at how Vietnam, the civil rights movement, and the sexual  revolution shaped their personal lives and political ideologies would be  fascinating.  But, unfortunately, my fellow readers, we just have to wait.
3302119
As far as the subject goes the book is fine but it's misleading to say the book is that long. Only 30% of the book is about the title of the book. The rest is some book about Fred Texas. That should be on the cover. Although the author is correct on his subject, he seemed lazy in that he did a lot of research but didn't actually share it with us. Only his conclusions and very little if any exegesis of key texts. If I had paid more than 99 for this I would demand a refund. If I had purchased the real thing I would have been disappointed. With that said, I encourage people to read it. Just don't expect more than 99 worth of reading time. It can be read in less than an hour.
2951905
The best thing about this book is probably its title.  But the rest is a disappointment - unless you just need a source for all the latest exact figures on the topics covered here.  Hatcher treads well-worn ground with familiar statistics on the decline of marriage, the rise of divorce and out-of-wedlock births, etc., etc., and then pontificates on the underlying cause of or reason behind these social ills as if the numbers point in a straight line toward the usually ready and biology-free explanations which he provides.
Mostly these stories will be familiar in tone to those who've heard the PC/academic crowd before and a lot of the blame for what he sees as the growing divide between men and women falls on men - just as you've probably heard ad nauseum on Oprah or Dr Phil, the sitcoms, etc.  Hacker is too old-fashioned in his chivalrous attitude toward women to consider that maybe women's choices have something to do with it - i.e., that there's a dynamic going on which involves both sexes.  He seems like a typical "progressive" Neanderthal saying women can follow the Barbie Mantra ("Girls can be/do anything!") and men are just supposed to comply with all that women need of them like good little slaves.  Where's the flaw in that?
It's a pity that he didn't do some actual research on what others make of these matters because there's a fairly well developed literature out there which bears on the same statistics and reaches drastically differing conclusions and solutions.  But Hacker is oblivious.  And he doesn't seem to have talked to any real people.
For example, he fails to recognize that marriage these days confers no rights on men, only obligations.  (Some sacred institution...)  This has enormous implications which hardly anyone seems to grasp.  While Hacker cites the fact that the vast majority of divorces are initiated by women - 75% in some studies I've seen - he fails to connect this (as other studies have done) to the simple fact that family law biases the custody of kids toward the women; and while these "settlements" bind the man to his traditional role as breadwinner, it frees the woman from her traditional role vis a vis the man.  A man would have to be a fool to enter into such a "contract" (which the state will not only not enforce but will help one party break) and a woman would have to be a fool not to recognize the advantages of divorce.  When the chief purpose of marriage seems to be to supply woman with ex-husbands, it's suprising the divorce rate isn't higher than a mere 50%.  But you won't find a discussion of things like this in the book.
Sometimes Hacker goes entirely off the rails, as when he discusses inter-racial marriage (90+% of which involve a black man and a white woman) and the high proportion of black males in prison (relative to their representation in the population).  He concludes that the latter is being engineered by white males as a male-male sexual competition/jealousy sort of thing over white females.  If so, it ain't working very well!  I'd love to see what he makes of the fact that men as a whole outnumber *women* in prison by about 10 to 1...
So when the book isn't sadly predictable and blindered it's downright goofy.  I think Hacker, like all others I'm familiar with in academia who've attempted these topics, has it just about all wrong.  Too many numbers do not make for convincing cases.  1 1/2 stars.
152413
I was intrigued by the title of this book and really wanted to like it, but found myself struggling to stay focused while reading it.
The three contributing authors have impressive  academic credentials and I suppose this work will be used in university classrooms throughout the country, but I think the people who really need to hear the message that technology, economics and ethics can (and should) co-exist will not be attracted to this format.
The authors define people who do good work as: "People who do good work, in our sense of the term, are clearly skilled in one or more professional realms. At the same time, rather than merely following money or fame alone, or choosing the path of least resistance when in conflict, they are thoughtful about their responsibilities and the implications of their work."
 The authors spend a lot of time discussing Journalism and Genetics and how ethics and good work in these two arenas are under seige from a market-driven economy.  They offer up solutions on how to restore good work to the world and they share their methods of studying good work and their interviewing protocols, but the subject matter is just too academic for the average worker who struggles with ethics v. economics.
Maybe the book will reach university professors...and they'll share it with their students...and they'll go out into the world and strive to do 'good work.'
Let's hope so.
2416087
The title of this book is actually quite misleading. I guess I was expecting another pro-life polemic from a man who is famous for his single-minded (some say narrow-minded) devotion for protecting the unborn.  What I found was not a training manual for pro-life activism, but rather a  biblical handbook for Christians who desire to be ACTIVE for God, but who  are held back by a series of "numbing theological narcotics"  which dominate evangelical thinking today.
This umbrella of false  doctrine conveniently declares off limits those parts of God's Word that  have the most to say about our duties outside the home and Church. Once  established, it opens wide the door to the numerous ancillary false  doctrines which are so common today. They range from "You can't  legislate morality" to "God likes pluralism" to "All we  need to do is preach" to "All we need to do is pray" to  "Jesus is going to rapture us out of this mess."
The subtitle  of the book should be the title: How Theological Escapism and Cultural  Retreatism Has Led to the Demise of America!
511619
Has a great title, but the author produced a book with too many "fifty cent" words and not enough usable tips.
4713525
The title review pretty much says it all for me, and the title of the book is a bit misleading as to the content you're actually getting.  Not at all what I was hoping for.
2763635
The title and cover page of this book provided a great deal of promise, unfortunately the contents delivered very little pleasure.  Pierson waxes on way too much on the philosophy of life as opposed to just riding motorcycles for the love of them - like the rest of us.  The book drifts from the history of motorcycles to the complicated woes of her own personal life; two trains of thought that she trys to run parrallel throughout the book but fails. Sorry, I could only reccomend that you pass on this one.
1873993
The title was so brilliant I had to buy this book, but it disappointed me on many levels.

It is not a book about parenthood...It is a book about a Harvard-educated, whiny 40-something Manhattan liberal who made the ultimate sacrifice of giving up her photojournalism and network news careers to become an underemployed but well-connected freelance writer and sometimes parent of three children with little money in a cramped Manhattan apartment. The promised humor reeks of bitterness over life choices she made herself. Her poverty complaints wear a little thin intermixed with trips to LA movie lots and Paris vacations.

Instead of writing this book, the author should have gotten a salaried job, moved to the suburbs, or both.
1687411
I felt like the subtitle of this book should have been its main title: Migration and Violence in Early America. The author's insistence that the work was about the Shawnees felt like something personal and not reflective of the scholarship he actually had to work with. I would venture to say that the book mentions the Iroquois (who, afterall, had most of the areas described under their control) more often than the purported subjects of the book. My main complaint about the book is that the author bit off too much in an attempt to prove some sort of a thesis that he'd formed in his head and that frankly just isn't there. However, if you treat the chapters as loosely connected stories instead of one solid whole, there are some interesting things there about early Colonial America, namely the confusion and complexity in relationships between the Atlantic colonies and the Indians and among the Indians themselves
55109
I feel the title oversells the book which then disappoints. If the author substituted "The Working Guide..." for "An Introductory Guide to Traditional Small-Boat Sails", I would have no major complaints and would have rated far better. The subtitle "A How-to Handbook..." I also find misleading.

The book touches lightly on a number of rig and sail related subjects but goes into no real detail on any of them. For a complete novice it may be a reasonable primer, but it is a book I read once and cannot see myself returning to, except to lend to someone asking a lot of questions.

I read through expecting to find substance somewhere, but the slightly untidy style never went into any depth. I was expecting to find a basic introduction to sail design, cutting or making, as well as repair techniques. Perhaps I expected too much from the cover of a book calling itself a How-to Handbook.