A toadying portrait of a colorful figure, already larger than life, likely to sell in record numbers to fans. To impartial...
Business biographer Slater (The New GE, 1992, etc.) appraises bloviating billionaire Trump and finds him quite sympathetic.
Slater reviews Trump’s background, personality and work habits, and makes notes of forays in Atlantic City and Chicago. Mostly, though, the author sets forth Trump’s reputation and fame, his skills at public relations and self-promotion, and his supposed conquest of TV in terms Trump must surely like. There’s much here about “his commanding presence and his dazzle” and “the resilient, creative titan he has turned out to be.” He’s a “charismatic billionaire.” Television’s Apprentice has “the charisma and the charm and the wit of Donald Trump.” This may not be an authorized or subsidized biography but, with this easy reader, The Donald will never need one. Like Mr. Peanut, he’s become a brand. He’s a major force in New York real estate and, perforce, a powerful negotiator. There are certainly the real achievements, though it’s difficult to detect the pertinent facts in this cream puff treatment. We may applaud the omission of conjugal high jinks, but surely there’s more to be said about the East Side rail yard project or the book arrangements. Slater surveys business deals, yet there’s the distinct feeling of untold stories. The writer did check facts with his subject (who may have the power to cloud men’s minds), but Trump has it his way, asserting, for example, that the troubled casino hotels represent less than 1 percent of the Trump net worth (they’re in the throes of bankruptcy). Trump practices what he calls “truthful hyperbole,” and credibility suffers in this fawning, rushed biography. Coming soon, we learn: Donald Trump, the Fragrance. (Warning: the sure-to-be ubiquitous book jacket may bear a truly menacing close-up of the squinting hero).
A toadying portrait of a colorful figure, already larger than life, likely to sell in record numbers to fans. To impartial readers, it’ll be shallow ephemera.Pub Date: April 8, 2005
ISBN: 0-13-149734-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Financial Times Prentice Hall
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2005
A suspenseful, user-friendly account of Microsoft's five-year effort to develop Windows NT (for new technology). Wall Street Journal correspondent Zachary delineates the blood, toil, tears, and sweat required to produce a breakthrough operating system that would not only work on all available personal computers but also allow customers to retain familiar applications programs. Throughout his accessible text, Zachary tries to keep readers in the loop. He provides illuminating reminders of how operating systems (which control a processor's basic functions) differ from applications software (the visible programs that retrieve information, maintain databases, prepare documents for printing, and otherwise satisfy human needs). While NT, which reached the marketplace last summer, has yet to achieve critical sales mass, the author leaves little doubt that the $150 million project yielded its creator a host of payoffs: by advancing the state of the networking art, defining the shape of software to come, and giving Microsoft (which last month settled potentially troublesome antitrust charges) an inside track on the interactive information highway. The bulk of the narrative is devoted to anecdotal reportage on how a consequential enterprise managed to harness its varied, volatile, very human resources (many of whom had become independently wealthy by cashing in options on the company's common stock) and meet the self-imposed schedule for NT's introduction. Covered as well are the time and technical tradeoffs made in the course of an undertaking whose final features included more compromises than indisputably correct answers. Nor does the author ignore the human costs of economic and scientific success in his reckoning of the NT balance sheet. An engrossing and instructive case history of programming under fire on the front lines of software technology. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Oct. 17, 1994
ISBN: 0-02-935671-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Useful, credible and smart.
A handy guide to personal finance and a convincing argument for improved financial literacy.
Secrets is a near-encyclopedic compilation of financial advice from Mincher, a self-made multimillionaire. (He made his first million by the age of 25.) And though much of his wisdom derives solely from his own experience, the seven-figure investment portfolio that backs it up is difficult to deny. In many ways, the story of how the author made his money is as interesting as the financial counsel he provides. A born businessman, he formed his first company in high school and won awards as a young entrepreneur. He earned his fortune as the owner of a charter-bus service and, later, as a regional telecom baron. Mincher offers brief chapters on just about every conceivable area of financial inquiry, from credit checks to buying a car to investing in the stock market. His volume works more effectively as a reference than a how-to to be read in a few sittings. But as such it is very valuable indeed; clearly organized and helpfully broken up into bite-size sections, the information is easy to digest. Underpinning it all is the author’s fervent belief that most people need to know more about their money. Mincher has an autodidact’s ambivalence toward traditional education; a college drop-out, he preaches “street smarts” and inveighs a bit too frequently against odd targets like high-school calculus in his introduction. Nonetheless, his call for more and better financial education rings true, especially as subprime lenders have recently wreaked havoc on world economic markets by preying on the financially non-savvy.
Useful, credible and smart.Pub Date: Nov. 26, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-9797003-0-9
Page Count: 426
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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