The 7 Strategies for a Successful Retirement: Planning to Win, Protecting What You Have, and Building What You Will Need

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Excellent Book

Saved Me Money !

Well worth my time

GREAT BOOK

johns@merrill.com

The 7 Strategies for a Successful Retirement: Planning to Win, Protecting What You Have, and Building What You Will Need
Scott Magnacca
Manufacturer: Authorhouse
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Job Hunting & Careers | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 1410773647

Customer Reviews:

Excellent Book.......2003-12-20

The author provides a series of simple, powerful ideas that will be of great value to investors that are saving for retirement.

His writing style is easy to read, the concepts covered are easy to follow and apply, and best of all, he provides specific advice on the investment strategies that you need to follow to succeed in today's stock market.

Buy the book. It will be the best $20 you have spent in a long time.

Saved Me Money !.......2003-12-19

I've read many books on investing in the last few years. Most of the books I have read (Suze Orman, Charles Schwab, Johanthon Pond etc.) provided good information -but lacked specific actionable steps that I could use and apply right away.

Scott Magnacca's book is straightforward and gave me a lot of common sense- but not obvious- tips and ideas that I have been able to quickly use and apply to more effectively manage my portfolio and save money.

I highly reccomend it. If your planning for a "Successful Retirement" this should be required reading.

Well worth my time.......2003-12-19

Anyone who owns a mutual fund or who is saving for a successful retirement should read this book.

The book was an easy read and shared a variety of 'real world' examples and case studies on how to apply each of the 7 strategies.

Unlike most financial books, this book wasn't filled with numbers and formulas. Just good, practical and easy to use advice.

I especially enjoyed the chapters on "tax-efficient investing" and how to evaluate and pick a financial advisor.

GREAT BOOK.......2003-12-16

This book delivered practical investment tips and advice in a straight forward easy to understand manner.

Despite the fact that the author works for Fidelity Investments and promotes Fidelity (and other financial services firms) in the book, he seems to have a genuine interest in helping average investors invest more successfully for retirement. I thoroughly enjoyed the book. If there is one book on investing that you read in the next 12 months, this should be it.

johns@merrill.com.......2003-12-16

This was one of the best investment books I have read in a long time. It contains dozens of practical straight forward ideas that you can use and apply in your portfolio right away. The strategies could save you hundreds--possibly thousands of dollars each year. By applying just one of the seven strategies in my portfolio I was able to immediately produce a hundred fold return on the investment I made in the book.

If your looking for a book that is full of simple, powerful investment ideas and strategies that you can use right away, this will be well worth your investment of time and money.

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Excellent first half, then falters

Soul Mates

The Rest of the Story....

Wonderful, insightful, & hard to put down!

Well written, well-researched, an intimate portrait.

Fanny and Joshua: The Enigmatic Lives of Frances Caroline Adams and Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain
Diane M. Smith , and Diane Monroe Smith
Manufacturer: Thomas Publications (PA)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Grand Old Man of Maine: Selected Letters of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, 1865-1914 (Civil War America)

From Ball's Bluff to Gettysburg... and Beyond: The Civil War Letters of Private Roland E. Bowen, 15th Massachusetts Infantry 1861-1864

Through Blood and Fire at Gettysburg

In the Hands of Providence: Joshua L. Chamberlain and the American Civil War

A People's Contest: The Union and Civil War 1861-1865 (Modern War Studies)

ASIN: 157747046X

Book Description

Few Civil War figures have received as much attention and achieved such lofty status in the last decade as the Maine college professor turned war hero, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. His story inspired Ken Burns to create his epic series for PBS The Civil War, and his primary role in Gettysburg, the movie adaptation of Michael Shaara's Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Killer Angels, has made him an American cult hero. Lost among the glow of his recent fame is some understanding of the relationship with his wife, the former Miss Frances Caroline Adams, known to family and friends as "Fanny." While numerous biographies of the legendary hero explain that Fanny had a profound, sometimes confounding effect on her husband, none have examined the relationship in enough depth to gain a better understanding of it, nor to learn more about Fanny the woman, not just the wife. After many years of intense research and analysis, Fanny and Joshua remedies these problems.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent first half, then falters.......2007-07-28

What appears at first to be a biography of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain mainly in terms of his relationship with his wife Frances "Fanny" Caroline Adams changes direction about halfway through, with Fanny almost falling by the wayside. Using family letters as her primary source, Diane Smith is very good at tracing the courtship and early marriage of Joshua and Fanny, but falters after the Civil War years when Chamberlain was elected governor of Maine. What might conceivably be the most interesting aspect of their relationship - Fanny's deep unhappiness with Joshua and their even contemplating divorce - is barely touched on by Smith. She quotes from a long letter Joshua wrote to his wife advising against her seeking a divorce and suggests that Chamberlain might have been an abusive husband. But what does that mean? Smith never says and seems very reluctant to wade in those waters. Apparently the couple spent a great deal of time apart, and most of this time Smith spends tracking Chamberlain's life, his political affairs in Maine, business ventures in Florida, Presidency of Bowdoin College, and Civil War reminiscences, and pays very little attention to Fanny. In the preface Smith claims that Fanny became Chamberlain's "love, helpmate, and confidante," but she doesn't illustrate much of this in the book. She also acknowledges that Fanny has been at the receiving end of much negativity in other biographies - something she implies might not be fair, but does little to dissuade her own readers from concluding as well. There is a great deal of information here on Chamberlain (though most of it is related in year-by-year list form), but if the purpose of the book was to be a dual perspective of husband and wife, Smith only met that purpose in the first half.

Soul Mates.......2002-01-21

Many biographers of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain have treated Fanny Adams as an after-thought. Some have even treated her as a subject of disdain. Ms. Smith effectively refutes those authors, using Adam's and Chamberlain's letters to one another as her primary source materials.

What emerges is the vision of a strong, educated, ambitious, self-directed, courageous, emotionally-stable and patient woman, who endured every hardship brought to her home by her husband's long career of service to his country.

What also emerges is a more complete picture of our nation's greatest hero. The same man who quietly endured the terrors of war, who courageously accepted an horrific wound, and who was so gracious with a defeated enemy, could become quaintly insecure when dealing with the woman he loved. The stellar academic, warrior and politician was as much of a quivering paramour as any other husband in love.

For Chamberlain fans, this book offers a more human image of the titan. For everyone else, this book offers a touching tribute to the power of love.

The Rest of the Story...........2000-04-11

A wonderful book that "fleshes" out the outlines of JLC and Fanny. For years, their lives were painted with a "light brushstroke" yet one felt that had to be more behind these very complex people and their relationship.

The author has painted a very complex picture of these two with all the dark and light hues of the palette. Fanny was not merely JLC's wife, or the Reverend's adopted daughter, but a much more complex individual who could be considered an early feminist.

JLC's inner feelings about service to country and greater good are reflected and help to answer that question of why a college professor in Maine would take it upon himself to defend the country he loved to the extent he did. It is easy to understand why nothing ever again measured up to his experience of leading those men at Gettysburg.

Wonderful, insightful, & hard to put down!.......1999-10-08

I developed an interest in Chamberlain after reading "The Killer Angels", and had been looking for a good biography of him. Last summer I visited the Chamberlain Museum in Brunswick, Me. and bought this book based on the recommendation of our tour guide. I can't begin to say how wonderful I think this book is. Smith has excellent insight into Victorian character and mores, and transmits that insight to her reader. I've always thought that JLC was about 50 years ahead of his time. After reading this book, I've come to realize that part of his forward thinking might have been a product of his relationship with his remarkable wife. Fannys self sufficient persona was NOT typical of the 19th century; through Smith, the reader comes to realize Fanny was in fact 20th century in much of her thinking. The marriage of such an independent soul with the soul of a such a fair minded, yet fierce, warrior makes for a fascinating read. I read this book into the wee hours of the morning until I finished it, in about 3 days. I never thought I'd read a history book that I just couldn't put down. I'd highly recommend it to anyone.

Well written, well-researched, an intimate portrait........1999-09-18

Diane Smith offers a more intimate portrait of the relationship between Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and Fannie Adams than previous writers have done. Using "love letters" and other family correspondence, Smith reveals not only the couple's penchant for teasing each other during courtship but also Lawrence's early bouts with depression and jealousy. Additionally she explores what might have been a budding romance between Lawrence and his cousin Hannah "Annie" Chamberlain. Smith interprets Fannie's sometimes independent behavior with kinder motives and gentler judgment than previous critics have offered. She insists that Fannie agreed with Lawrence's decision to join the Army and offered him her moral support during his years of service. Readers of previous Chamberlain biographies will enjoy seeing more of the Chamberlain's family life, smiling at the nicknames the couple chose for each other, sensing the heartbreak of the untimely deaths of their children and other family members, accompanying Lawrence on his several campaigns both during and after the War. Supplemented with photos (e.g., a rare snapshot of an aging Chamberlain sailing aboard his beloved Pinafore), setting the correspondence apart in italics, replete with insights and incidents previously unpublished, Smith's "Fanny & Joshua" is a perfect supplement to Alice Trulock's great work and is surely destined to be a treasured account for all who want to know more about "the hero of Little Round Top" and the exemplary life and service that make him a popular and worthy hero today.

Book Description

Renowned poet William Carlos Williams and literary innovator Louis Zukofsky maintained a relationship through correspondence as both collaborators and friends between 1928 and 1963. Their letters have remained largely unpublished until now. Edited by Barry Ahearn, The Correspondence of William Carlos Williams and Louis Zukofsky chronicles the professional and personal relationship between Williams and Zukofsky as they present one another with criticism, suggestions and confidences that are at turns touching and astonishingly candid. In addition to delving into the creative processes of the two men, this exciting and extensive collection provides insight into such literary icons as Ezra Pound, E.E. Cummings, T.S. Eliot and Conrad Aiken. The analytical voice of Zukofsky and the experimental style of Williams radiate in these letters, creating a vivid and invaluable document of American literature. "This is quite simply an indispensable collection for anyone who cares about the daily life as well as the ethos of Modernist American poetics in the middle years of the century."-Marjorie Perloff, author of Wittgenstein's Ladder "The correspondence provides a cross section or X-ray of American culture in action during one of its most creative eras. Ahearn is a thorough and conscientious scholar, with an excellent knowledge of the period."-Hugh Witemeyer, Professor of English, University of New Mexico

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Creative Ideas to Inspire a Board

The Essence of the Nonprofit

Maximum Dollars : The Twelve Rules of Fundraising
Robert M. Zimmerman
Manufacturer: Zimmerman Lehman
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Spiral-bound

Nonprofit Organizations & Charities | Industries & Professions | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0966525930

Book Description

Maximum Dollars is intended to alert nonprofit organizations of all shapes and sizes to the rules that guarantee fundraising success. While the techniques available to nonprofits to raise funds are quite well-known, the rules that should underpin every fundraising effort are rarely understood. Far too much fundraising is poorly conceived, episodic and unimaginative. Even worse, nonprofit administrators shoot themselves in the foot time and again by viewing fundraising as genteel begging. As explained in Maximum Dollars, fundraising means something very different: the creation of opportunities for citizens to "invest" in successful nonprofit enterprises through philanthropic contributions.

For those familiar with Bob Zimmerman's witty and insightful e-newsletter, ZimNotes, the book is an expansion of the newsletter's previous ZIMMERMAN's 12 RULES, which many readers asked for in one complete format. Best of all, each rule in Maximum Dollars is followed by an interactive exercise designed to teach your staff, board and volunteers why the rule is important and how to implement it effectively and painlessly. We promise that if your organization reads these twelve rules and does the exercise you will be well on the way to creating a successful fundraising program and raising significantly more dollars for you programs and mission

Customer Reviews:

Creative Ideas to Inspire a Board.......2001-11-24

This book gives a board great ideas and a pep-talk for how to get in shape for fundraising well. I particularly liked the several creative exercises to inspire board members to do their job with a positive attitude and a grounding in the basic strategies of fundraising. For a beginning nonprofit, this book is essential in getting a good start; for a more established nonprofit, it serves as a good "check-up" to note areas for improvement -- and how to go about making those improvements.

The Essence of the Nonprofit.......2001-02-10

Robert Zimmerman's "Maximum Dollars: The 12 Rules of Fundraising" is written in a simple and entertaining style. Maximum Dollars addresses a fundamental component of all nonprofit organizattions: fundraising. This is an area that many find boring and difficult; Mr. Zimmerman makes it seem fun and exciting. He challenges many commonly held views. Rule 12, for example, states that people love to give money away! Each rule addresses an aspect of fundraising and provides key tips that a nonprofit can follow to fundraise successfully. Each rule is followed by an exercise that can be done by volunteers and staff to help learn to fundraise successfully. This book can help both new nonprofits that may not know how to go about fundraising correctly and established nonprofits to hone their fundraising skills, especially if they have board members and volunteers who are resistant. Maximum Dollars is one book that all nonprofit organizations should have.

Book Description

Only half of a home inspector's challenge is technical--the other half is effective communication with clients. This text is designed both for beginners who need an in-depth introduction and more advanced practitioners looking for tips, sample dialogue and documents, and an understanding of the scope and ethical aspects of a home inspection.

The text includes Inspection Checklists that summarize the important components and problems home inspectors will encounter, and can be used for actual inspections.

Book Description

On August 25, 1980, the curtain fell on the first night of the original production of 42nd St. David Merrick, the shows megalomaniacal producer, stepped to the footlights and told the audience that the shows director, Gower Champion, had died that afternoon. Some believe he took the classic Broadway musical with him. Starting his career as one-half of a song and dance team with his wife, Gower and Marge Champion first wowed audiences in nightclubs around the world and then moved to Hollywood where they starred in many films, most notably the 1951 MGM remake of Showboat. But the stage always called to Gower and in 1960, he was hired to direct Bye, Bye Birdie. It was a smash and Champions career was off and running. John Gilvey had extensive access to all of his archives as well as to everyone associated with Champion, including Marge Champion, Carol Channing, Jerry Hermann, Jerry Orbach, Chita Rivera and others. This is one of the great theater biographies that every Broadway devotee will want.

Customer Reviews:

Before the Parade passes by Gower Champion.......2007-03-28

Having a preference for biograhies of Show People I thought I would buy this particular book and have found it very interesting from the point of view that it does not appear to be a "warts and all" biography but it hones in on the various Broadway shows which Gower Champion directed. It gives a good insight as to how these shows are put together and the time and effort taken to do so. I have only ever seen Gower Champion on film and I always thought he was an excellent dancer and obviously a perfectionest. The story comes over as having him rather selfish and dominant, maybe self centred. His mother appears to have been a bit of a problem during his childhood and later years which affected his outlook. Despite all this he seemed to get the best out of the many stars he worked with except for leaving Jane Powell in the lurch with "Irene".
All in all a good read and far more interesting than some biographies I have read. One annoying point in the book is the continual use of the tiny numbers relating to notes. When one looks these up in the back of the book the majority of them are meaningless.
Rex Shields

Behind the Lights.......2007-03-06

I completely enjoyed this book because it managed to show the joys and sorrows and just plain hard work that it takes to become someone so successful in the world of entertainment. So many times you simply get a lurid expose or shoddy manipulation of facts to justify a preconceived idea by the author. In Gilvey's work I was allowed to discover the theater and the man, as we traveled through Mr. Champion's life. The book gave me information which allowed me to grow in appreciation of what it takes to even attempt to produce shows which look magical. When I see any well done production, I am made to feel as if what I am seeing is effortless. I am transported into the world of dancing, singing or feeling with the actors on stage. This behind the lights history reveals the price of that art. It shows the real work of real people, without being overly technical. Consequently anyone can understand and appreciate Mr. Champion's life, and the struggle it takes to put on the magic we so deliciously take for granted as we leave the theater. Kudos to Gilvey for being able to share his love of the theater through the life's journey of an artist who could do it all. This biography illuminates the man and reveals the heart and soul of the artist. A must read for anyone who is contemplating entering the theater.

"Mack and Maybe".......2006-10-09

Gower Champion! Forgotten name as the parade passes by. His greatest achievements on the stage failed to make it onto the screen, though shreds of his glory can perhaps be glimpsed through George Sidney's sensible restaging in his film of BYE BYE BIRDIE. And something of his flagwaving spirit makes it through Gene Kelly's otherwise terrible treatment of HELLO DOLLY. But alas, MGM never did make CARNIVAL the way Champion envisioned it. And actually, who would really want to see a movie of I DO, I DO, or SUGAR? (I would have enjoyed, however, seeing the film he planned of THE FANTASTICKS.) He threw away a lot of his pearls in front of a lot of swine. And Gilvey was there for all of it, or so it seems. Could he have been? He doesn't seem that old in the jacket photo.

You wind up not really liking Champion very much. His sense of self makes even Michael Bennett, Bob Fosse and George Balanchine seem well-adjusted socially, even a bit on the wallflower side. After reading this book, I admire Marge Champion more and am eager to seek out some of the work she did with Gower in the derided MGM musicals they danced in.

His career seems like an odd amalgam of hard work, talent, and a hell of a lot of luck. The appearance on Ed Sullivan--a whole Ed Sullivan show devoted to the Champions, just when MGM had dropped them and they were really facing Hasbeen House--seems nothing short of a miracle.

The book gets repetitive and it always takes Gower's side, but the amount of research is prodigious and even a seasoned theatergoer will find something of interest on nearly every page. It's a book of monsters, but fascinating monsters at that.

Gower Champion.......2006-07-03

Enjoyed this book very much! It is a detailed and fascinating look at the life and work of Gower Champion, a name not as well remembered today as some of the other notable B'way directors from B'way's "golden era" such as Hal Prince, Bob Fosse, and Jerome Robbins.

The Glorious Parade.......2006-05-27

When thinking of the "Golden Era" of Broadway and some of its "glorious musicals," it is likely that Bye Bye Birdie, Hello, Dolly! or 42nd Street will come to mind. With these, as with many of Broadway's finest musicals, the name Gower Champion is closely related. In John Anthony Gilvey's Before the Parade Passes By, the life and works of Gower Champion are chronicled and brought to the public eye for the first time, allowing readers to experience the story of the man behind the musicals.

The book encompasses his whole life, both on and off stage, providing an intimate portrait of who he was and how his personal life affected him and his work. It also does not skip a single major work that Gower was part of. Not only are all of his creative endeavors mentioned (including his nightclub and films with partner/wife Marge Champion), but they are discussed in such detail that even if you had not seen the productions (as was the case with this reader for the majority of them), it feels as though you have because costumes, sets, choreography and casting are described so vividly.

This well researched and detailed book is written with a passion and respect for Gower Champion and a love for the classical, elegant "Golden Era" in which he was a prominent driving force. Those who lived through that time will enjoy this "behind-the-scenes" look at how Gower shaped and molded some of Broadway's biggest successes as well as works that should have been laid to rest. For those unfamiliar with this time, Parade is an opportunity to gain knowledge of where present-day musicals find their roots: in the heartfelt, extravagant days of the "glorious American musical."

Gower Champion: Dance and American Musical Theatre (Contributions in Drama and Theatre Studies)

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Gower Champion: Dance and American Musical Theatre (Contributions in Drama and Theatre Studies)
David Payne-Carter
Manufacturer: Greenwood Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Book Description

Gower Champion's career spanned the years during which American musical theatre was transformed from a crude popular entertainment into a sophisticated art form. As the director and choreographer of Hello, Dolly!, 42nd Street, and other Broadway musicals, he was central to that transformation. He came of age during the zenith of American musical theatre production and made his mark on both sides of the curtain. As a dancer, he gained notoriety through his work with Jeanne Tyler and Marjorie Belcher, and his experience as a performer gave him a solid foundation for his later success as an organizer of memorable productions. As a choreographer and director, he became known for spectacular numbers that blended dance, staging, and elaborate scenography. More than anyone else, he seemed to realize that the achievement of a musical depended on those spots where music, dance, lighting, costumes, and staging created a sustained narrative and emotional flow through sound and motion rather than words. This book provides the first extensive treatment of Champion's life and legendary career. The book falls neatly into two main sections. The first discusses Champion's career as a performer, with chapters on his early Broadway appearances and his work for MGM Special attention is given to how his experiences as a dancer prepared him for the later half of his career. The second examines his work as a choreographer and director and is organized around the musicals with which he was involved. Each chapter consists of a history of one or more of those productions, from original concept to opening night and sometimes beyond, as Champion, ever the perfectionist, sought to improve on what everyone else thought was already perfect. The volume is fully documented, with basic historical research conducted at several special collections. In addition, the book is based on a careful analysis of Champion's scripts, which include numerous revisions and thus illuminate how he crafted his productions. Finally, the study depends on interviews conducted with various individuals who knew and worked with Champion throughout his impressive career.

Book Description

The Cold-and-Hunger Dance is an imaginative and honest account of Diane Glancy's journeys to and from the margins of memory, everyday life, and different cultural worlds that combine her Cherokee heritage and her Christian faith. Along the way, familiar images and concepts are juxtaposed to create a literary terrain that is both engaging and unsettling: the Bible and Black Elk Speaks converse; Glancy's dispute with a local bakery is played out as if on a world stage of warring nations; eggs and cultural identity implicate each other; and lost Native languages speak powerfully through their silences to modern Native writers. The creative twists and darting metaphoric excursions engendered by this journey provide an intimate glimpse into the process and problematics of language for modern Native authors.

Customer Reviews:

Quite a Surprise.......2003-11-13

Diane Glancy did a reading at my college (Abilene Christian University) two years ago, and I wasn't very impressed. Subsequently, I wasn't thrilled when this book was assigned to me during a course this semester. I put it off until the last minute. But then, I read it. And it blew me away. It's left me wondering who I was two years ago and trying to remember what I didn't like about her (I can't remember).

The Cole-And-Hunger Dance is a beautiful collection of essays, poems, narratives, and things that don't really fit into any category. Each page glistens with a gorgeous prose style, with the author's wit and compassion, and with her shocking and profound ideas. Glancy is capturing the essense of the journey of her life, her attempts to fit in a world when she is half Cherokee and half white. It captures her attempt to come to terms with her Christian faith and Cherokee heritage (which she does with profound insight). And above all, this book glistens with her love for the healing power of language. Her image of "Christ as spirit, as story" runs through the book and really encompasses it. The Cold-And-Hunger Dance is a powerful and beautiful book, particularly for those trying to find some hope and healing in a chaotic mess of a world.

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The Cold And Hunger Dance -
Diane Glancy -
Manufacturer: University Of Nebraska Press -
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000O6JYEI

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