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Show BaUaSalaNaESS FalaNvAsNaOBBa The parables of David and Goliath BY SHARON SECOR When David met Goliath on the battlegrounds of the Philistines, a young man with no armor slew the huge Philistine with a small rock. In todays business world, a few special leaders are challenging the status quo, trying to slay Made E-- Products showcases a host of best-selliguides and books that help successfully shape the careers of people entering the workplace for the first time and seasoned professionals. books and guides, One of Americas leading publishers of self-hel-p Made E-- features more than 40 popular titles. Z Z r Successful Resumes Money t Provides the tools and strategies to prepare a professional resume and cover letter that will impress any employer 144 pgs. Winning Business Plans for College Shows you how to obtain grants andor frdfe scholarships, plus how and when to apply to increase your chance of acceptance. 156382-432-- 4 312 pg low-co- st A complete step-by-ste- p planning system for any size or type business. Covers everything from setting start-u- p goals to expansion capital. 120 pga. V'-4A"- GID CIS? EES CZOIDIjEEBCmaD ... ..r' the behemoth and become king, and a slate of new business books tells their stories. family whose fortunes were built, as were many great American fortunes, on and sly the backs of Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary by Linus deceptions. This history follows Times Mirror chairman Otis Chandler from youth through the sale last year of his familys media conglomerate, the Times Mirror Corporation. We meet Chandler in his youth as the country entered World War II and he experienced the attack on Pearl Harbor, a day that marked the beginning of his personal cynicism toward government. We follow his career as a newsman where he came to believe that the newsroom was the heartbeat of the business, a sentiment neither his father nor grandfather, the papers founder, shared. McDougal, who wrote the The Last Mogul, links the best L.A. families to the early West Coast mob and chronicles the family infighting that led to the demise of Chandler family control of the newspaper. He details the expansion of Los Angeles Tunes news coverage to include bureaus around the world and notes that curiously the further away it moved from its core audience, the less the Times power and might translated into automatic success. Also curious, McDougal credits the LA. Times with challenging other California papers to pump up the volume in their papers in order to compete with the LA. Times behemoth. In this captivating story, Goliath slays himself. The Cheating of America: How Tax Torvalds and David Diamond (HarperBusiness, $26, ISBN 0066620724; audio, $25.95, ISBN 0694525391) is a jaunty book about the early, dysfunctional days and brilliant (albeit still young) career of Linux developer Linus Torvalds. Almost anyone who has heard of computers has heard of Linux, the computer operating system that is the closest rival to Microsofts Windows and, get this, is free. Not only free, but the code used to adapt Linux for different situations is widely available. Linux even requires users to share innovations under its General Public License an anticopyright, Torvalds calls it. Why would Torvalds do something to benefit thousands of companies and millions of users and expect little in return? Just for Fun takes a look at his somewhat radical procedures and explains that Torvalds created Linux with an Open Source philosophy, which he says illustrates the limitless benefits of allowing anyone and everyone to participate in a projects development or commercial exploitation. The theory says proprietary notions of commerce are wrong. Instead, the strongest products will be developed when the largest numbers of people are working on product development an operating system (or Imagine it a product) that gets stronger and works better as time goes on. The description of Torvalds futuristic outlook and scientific philosophy is like a roller coaster ride inside a 21st century mind. Peppered with personal anecdotes about his kids and musings on the fate of Microsoft and others, this book is a real kick, brilliant, bold and net to be missed. Its a book about how David plans to slay Goliath, and tells him about it first. At the other end of the spectrum, Privileged Son: Otis Chandler and the Rise and Fall of the L.A. Times Dynasty by Dennis McDougal (Perseus, $35, ISBN 0738202703) is the sad history of a great newspaper and the family who built it and tore it apart. A true epic. Privileged Son shares the story of the Chandler ... Finally, A a field report from the front lines of women who have made it In d war business, full of their d advice. stories and their hard-earne- hard-earne- - Nancy Evans, cofouedter, Milage $ V .dJL, '' ? , t wssssr . r i Tirf-T'- 1'-' vf f , - , a 20 MAY 2001 m best-selli- Avoidance and Evasion by the Super Rich Are Costing the Country Billions and What You Can Do About It by Charles Lewis and Bill Allison and the Center for Public Integrity (Morrow, $25, ISBN 038097682X) pits you and me, the taxpaying public, as David against the Goliath of industry whose tax evasion schemes rob billions each year from federal and state coffers. Whether you agree or disagree with the premise of this informative and eyeopening book, its catalog of offshore money havens, influence schemes of the rich and powerful and corporate provide an amazing primer on completely legal tax evasion by many large, influential corporations each year. (continued on next page) BookPagc.com |