Edward

I am guessing the book and reader were maybe aimed at a children's audience. While I did learn a good deal and am glad I listened, the reader has a very dull monotone that was difficult to enjoy.

Having been unjustly stripped of his Navy commission, Jack was now doomed to be ship-less until his good friend Dr. Matchurin buys Jack's beloved schooner Surprise at a Naval auction and makes Jack the skipper. They have some most extraordinary and profitable adventures ridding Jack of his huge debts and making him a public hero because of the enemy chips he captures in a very daring night raid. For me, this is one of the best books of the series and I particularly enjoyed seeing the navy now from the privateer perspective.

While the middle section of the book seemed to drag I throughly enjoyed most of the book. I was left feeling very sympathetic for some of the people who were naively sucked into commiting felonies that at the time they thought were harmless pranks. It was stricking and un-nereving to see how easy these people can disrupt internet commerce or hack into private information.

I love well written stories that keep me guessing. I enjoyed each character and came to know them well and found this book hard to put down. As long as it is, it never felt long. Instead of just one reader there were 15 readers so it was more like a radio performance. I highly recommend this book.

Early in this book he cleverly refers to America as the "Land of Failure". But he means this in a VERY positive way. He says it is the only place he knows where you can fail over and over again until you finally get it right and succeed. He sure did. Due to severe alcohol and drug problems he actually plotted his own suicide and almost pulled it off. But friends helped him find treatment and recovery. As of the book's writing he has been sober for 17 years.

I loved the stories of his family, his Uncle who is so dear to him, and his comedy and acting friends. As for his marriage failures he blames no one but himself and he sure seems to have it all together now. After reading this I enjoy his late night TV show even more.

If you really wish to know how hard life was for these guys, I highly recommend this book. They would fly for 6 to 12 hours in 20 degree below air with little heat and only hard steel seats to sit on. On many days "at the office" 30% of their co-workers would not return home. The stories are deeply moving mixed with some good humor. I could not put it down.

Michael Lewis travels much of Europe, especially the PIIGS countries - Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain - researching the problems leading up to the financial crash and the aftermath. He is both serious and witty. I highly recommend this book. He also travels up into Scandinavia and then into Germany. Lastly he travels into the "next Greek-like economy" - California. Do you know there are a number of cities in CA that spend 50 or 60 percent of the annual budgets on retirement expenses? This cannot be sustained. And as sympathetic as I want to be for the Greeks, Lewis points out serious problems such as massive cheating on taxes and entitlement to retirement at 55 by so many. Your eyes will be opened!

He starts with his 13 rules and tells motivating stories of leadership that have served him well. They are inspirational and funny stories. Too bad this man did not become president. Do you know what year he graduated for West Point? He did not! He is not only the first African American Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he is the first ROTC man to reach that lofty status. He attended CCNY - City College of New York. He is an amazing story of hard work and attitude leading to great success.

Besides learning the details of the life of this fascinating man, there are so many great stories of the industry he helped to create. Yes, the book is long and a few parts may drag a bit but overall I found the stories to be fascinating and well told. The stories of his adoptive parents and then his eventually meeting his biological mother were so emotional. And then the tech stories such as the process of developing the first iPOD and struggling because the technology wasn't able to do these things at that time. And Jobs did not censure the book - it has the good and the bad.

This book is written first hand by one of the key people who had to valiantly work behind the scenes to save the US and the World from total financial collapse. I found it very engaging and very well read. I highly recommend it to people who want to know how close the world came to total financial turmoil and how this was averted. Certainly this is one man's perspective but it is a man who was right there for the entire mess.

I am so glad that Carol reads this herself. I do not think anyone else could tell these stories as well. I did so enjoy the humorous and the very sensitive stories. I am very glad I took the time to listen to these stories from behind the scenes. It includes stories of Cary Grant, Beverly Sills, Harvey Kroman and on and on.