Nothing so frightens a man as the announcement that he is expected to respond to a toast on some appallingly nearby occasion. All ideas he may ever have had on the subject melt away and like a drowning man he clutches furiously at the nearest solid object - this book is intended for such rescue purpose.
Let the frightened toaster turn first to the key word of his topic in this dictionary alphabet of selections and by chance he may find toast, story, definition or verse that may introduce his remarks. Then as he proceeds to outline his talk and to put it into sentences, he may find under one of the many subject headings a bit which will happily drive home the ideas he is unfolding.
While the larger part of the contents is humorous, there are inserted many quotations of a serious nature which may serve as appropriate literary ballast. The jokes and quotes gathered for the toaster have been placed under the subject headings where it seemed that they might be most useful, even at the risk of the joke turning on the compilers.
The Toaster's Handbook contains dozens upon dozens of jokes, quips, anecdotes and quotations to equip you with enough ideas to properly respond to a toast in any occasion.
Nattily packaged-the cover sports a Roy Lichtensteinesque image of an
economist in Dick Tracy garb-and cleverly written, this book applies
basic economic theory to such modern phenomena as Starbucks' pricing
system and Microsoft's stock values. While the concepts explored are
those encountered in Microeconomics 101, Harford gracefully explains
abstruse ideas like pricing along the demand curve and game theory
using real world examples without relying on graphs or jargon.
Added by: seawavena | Karma: 158.09 | Fiction literature | 26 November 2007
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The efficiency of a book is like that of a man, in one important respect: its attitude toward its subject is the first source of its power. A book may be full of good ideas well expressed, but if its writer views his subject from the wrong angle even his excellent advice may prove to be ineffective. This book stands or falls by its authors' attitude toward its subject. If the best way to teach oneself or others to speak effectively in public is to fill the mind with rules, and to set up fixed standards for the interpretation of thought, the utterance of language, the making of gestures, and all the rest, then this book will be limited in value to such stray ideas throughout its pages as may prove helpful to the reader−−as an effort to enforce a group of principles it must be reckoned a failure, because it is then untrue.
The Wealth of Ideas traces the history of economic thought, from its prehistory (the Bible, Classical antiquity) to the present day. In this eloquently written, scientifically rigorous and well documented book, chapters on William Petty, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Karl Marx, William Stanley Jevons, Carl Menger, Léon Walras, Alfred Marshall, John Maynard Keynes, Joseph Schumpeter and Piero Sraffa alternate with chapters on other important figures and on debates of the period. Economic thought is seen as developing between two opposite poles: a subjective one, based on the ideas of scarcity and utility, and an objective one based on the notions of physical costs and surplus. Professor Roncaglia focuses on the different views of the economy and society and on their evolution over time and critically evaluates the foundations of the scarcity-utility approach in comparison with the Classical/Keynesian approach.
Ideal for writing a short story, essay, review, or report, this guide provides beginning writers with the hands-on direction they need to improve their writing techniques and ability. Using a six-step approach to writing, this resource covers brainstorming ideas, choosing a topic, outlining, drafting, revising, and editing. The tone is casual, the advice is straightforward, and the whole approach makes writing a skill that anyone can learn. Illustrations reinforce the ideas visually and help to break up the text into bite-sized chunks. An example section with worked examples of two kinds of writing—a creative writing piece and an essay—takes readers through the six steps, so they can watch writing develop from a blank page to a finished piece. Ideal for high school students but also appropriate for writers of all ages, this book also includes tips on user-friendly grammar, a table of different types of text, and a quick night-before-the-exam summary.
Nattily packaged-the cover sports a Roy Lichtensteinesque image of an
economist in Dick Tracy garb-and cleverly written, this book applies
basic economic theory to such modern phenomena as Starbucks' pricing
system and Microsoft's stock values. While the concepts explored are
those encountered in Microeconomics 101, Harford gracefully explains
abstruse ideas like pricing along the demand curve and game theory
using real world examples without relying on graphs or jargon.
The Wealth of Ideas: 
