Success Runs in Our Race: The Complete Guide to Effective Networking in the Black Community

Average customer rating:

Great Networking Resource

Quality business and professional guidance!

Connecting The Community

The book for the next millenium!

This is an invaluable how-to book for individuals & groups

Success Runs in Our Race: The Complete Guide to Effective Networking in the Black Community
George C. Fraser
Manufacturer: Amistad
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Guides | Job Hunting & Careers | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Motivational | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
African-American Studies | Special Groups | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Race for Success: The Ten Best Business Opportunities For Blacks In America

Think and Grow Rich

The Secret Language Of Business Cards

How to Succeed in Business Without Being White: Straight Talk on Making It in America

Daily Motivations for African-American Success: Including Inspirations from Famous African-American Achievers

ASIN: 0060578718
Release Date: 2004-03-30

Book Description

A completely updated and revised edition of a bestselling book that has helped tens of thousands of people learn how to network effectively, Success Runs in Our Race is more important than ever in this fluctuating economy. With scores of anecdotes taken from interviews with successful African Americans -- from Keith Clinkscales, founder and former CEO of Vanguarde Media, to Oprah Winfrey -- Fraser shows how to network for information, for influence, and for resources. Readers will learn, among other things, how to cultivate valuable listening skills, which conferences blacks are most likely to attend when looking to build their business network, and how to effectively circulate a résumé.

More than a guide for personal achievement, this is an information-packed bible of networking that also seeks to inspire a social movement and a rebirth of the "Underground Railroad," in which successful African Americans share the lessons of self-determination and empowerment with those still struggling to scale the ladder of success.

Customer Reviews:

Great Networking Resource.......2007-07-25

Networking is a significant part of my business. George C. Fraser's Book - "Success Runs in Our Race", provides many excellent and effective strategies for networking.

Quality business and professional guidance!.......2007-03-24

George Fraser knows what is required to be successful in business or in your professional life no matter what your career or profession. Many of the skills he talks about in his book can be applied to your work life or your personal endeavors. On the surface this might sound odd but the success characteristics are the same. What he talks about are the required behaviors that lead to your ultimate success. I will never forget how he emphasizes the importance of networking and how your networks must be cultivated in order to gain maximum benefit. He made the point very clear when I heard him talk to a group when he said, "networking is much more than meeting someone then calling them the next week to ask for a business favor." If everyone learns that networking is and must be created for win/win situations, everyone realizes benefits in the long run. This is a wonderful book and one that has value for anyone attempting to gain a competitive advantage in the business world. Relationships are how things get done in the business world and this book certainly provides the required tools for making that happen.

Connecting The Community.......2004-09-07

Networking as defined by the small business glossary is developing business contacts to form relationships, increase your knowledge, expand your business or serve the community. Author, George C. Fraser is adamant that networking is the key to uplifting and unifying the Black community.

SUCCESS RUNS IN OUR RACE is saturated with advice and information about being successful in all walks of life. Mr. Fraser's primary goal is to establish a "New Underground Railroad" of sorts, which basically would not only work for the success of an individual, but also for the Black population.

This book is a compilation of facts, personal stories and tips on improving life for all of us. A sense of community and caring is something that is missing in the world today, and the author hopes to make us more aware of that fact. While I found SUCCESS RUNS IN OUR RACE to be a very informative book,it is not a novel, it is more in the vein of a textbook.

Reviewed by Simone A. Hawks
of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

The book for the next millenium!.......2001-04-24

I would recommend reading this book, as well as giving this book as a gift to all college graduates. The chapter that tells how to create and do an awards ceremony in less than 2 hours alone is worth the price of the book! I particularly liked the way he defined "networking" vs. "neck-working"--and how to handle those who have mistaken one for the other. (Neck-working is misusing your opportunity to network by trying to hit on the opposite sex--a definite no-no!) Mr. Fraser's solid hints on connecting with like-minded individuals in the black community and giving back to the community, not abandoning it are fantastic--and doable. If you like commentary by people like Tavis Smiley, this is your book!

This is an invaluable how-to book for individuals & groups.......1997-10-09

George Fraser has written a common-sense guide for networking and getting ahead. It includes anecdotes, charts, graphs and folk wisdom. Every home should have this reference book.

Book Description

This practical investment tool contains a wealth of information you can use to enhance your profit potential. Organized on a calendar basis, the Almanac alerts you to little-known market patterns and tendencies useful in forecasting market trends. You'll learn:

How our presidential elections affect the economy and the stock market.
How the passage of the Twentieth Amendment to the Constitution fathered the January Barometer, which has a 90.7% accuracy ratio.
Why there is a significant market bias at certain times of the day, week, month, and year.

Even if you pay scant attention to cycles, indicators, and patterns, your investment survival could hinge on your interpretation on one of the recurring patterns found with these pages. Order your copy today!

Download Description

J.P. Morgan's classic retort "Stocks will fluctuate" is often quoted with a wink-of-the-eye implication that the only predication one can make about the stock market is that it will go up, down, or sideways. Many investors agree that no one ever really knows which way the market will move. Nothing could be farther from the truth. We discovered that while stocks do indeed fluctuate, the do so in well-defined, often predictable, patterns. These patterns recur too frequently to be the result of chance or coincidence. How else do we explain that since 1950 practically all the gains in the market were made during November thorough April compared to almost nothing May through October? (See page 50)

The Almanac is a practical investment tool. Its wealth of information is organized on a calendar basis. It alerts you to those little-know market patterns and tendencies on which shrewd professional enhance profit potential.

You will be able to forecast market trends with accuracy and confidence when you use the Almanac to help you understand:

How our presidential elections affect the economy and the stock market - just as the moon affects the tides. Many investors have made fortunes following the political cycle. You can be sure that money managers who control billions of millions of dollars are also political cycle watchers. Astute people do not ignore a pattern that has been working effectively throughout most of our economic history.
How the passage of the Twentieth Amendment to the Constitution fathered the January Barometer. This barometer has an outstanding record for predicting the general course of the stock market each year with only five major errors since 1950 for a 90.7% accuracy ratio.
Why there is a significant market bias at certain times of the day, week, month, and year.

Even if you are an investor who pays scant attention to cycles, indicators and patterns, your investment survival could hinge on your interpretation on one of the recurring patterns found with these pages. One of the most intriguing and important patterns is the symbiotic relationship between Washington and Wall Street. Aside from the potential profitability in seasonal patterns, there’s the pure joy of seeing the market very often do just what you expected.

Customer Reviews:

Beware of superbookdeals seller.......2006-06-19

If you want to buy the book, go ahead, just be careful of superbookdeals, they take your money but don't deliver and don't answer emails. Caveat Emptor.

An Amazing Stock Tool.......2006-04-20

The Stock Trader's Almanac has already helped me with my trades.

What does it do?

It tells you what has happened in the Dow and Nasdaq in the passt so that you can predict with fairly good accuracy what will happen in the future. It also tells you in very plain English what the seasonal trends have been and what trends have been in pre and post presidential elections.

I would highly recommend this book.

This book has already helped me with my trades.......2006-04-20

The Stock Trader's Almanac tells you what has happened historically in the market so that you can predict with fairly good accuracy what will happen in the future.

For example: The Day after most holidays are almost always great for the market. An exception is the day after Easter which is almost always a down day in the market but the Tuesday after Easter usually surges. I read that information, checked my charts, and placed my orders accordingly. Guess what? The market performed exactly as it's historical record predicted.

This book is a wonderful source of seasonal trends and historical data. After all to ignore the past is to go blindly into the future.

I would highly recommend this book.

Essential tool for any market historian........2005-12-15

I've been investing and trading for 24 years and it's just been recently (in the last 5 years) that I have discovered how well it pays to be a historian when it comes stocks. The almanac is an essential tool for any serious market historian and is packed full of useful information relevant to minor to major market trends and statistics that should be in the minds of anyone who wants to make money trading stocks. This book costs you nothing. It will pay for itself.

A Decent Book on Historical Stock Market Data.......2005-08-12

A reasonably good reference book on historical stock market data. It was never designed to teach derivatives trading, long/short executions or day trading. It is historical reference data to be taken and used as you wish.

Mr. Twain was far too harsh on the book and makes one wonder if he has ever invested serious money ( $ 500,000.00+ ) ,in the markets whether he was long, short or day trading. Crabel and Rashke advocate short term trading, not strategic or tactical investing. The Stock Trader's Almanac is better used as an investing tool for those that like to revisit historical perspectives, I have used it on occasion myself. The book is well worth $ 13.98 especially as an educational tool for the novice.

I am a professional stock investor / trader and average a net profit income of $ 250,000.00+ yearly from a total investment of $ 750,000.00 in the markets. I go long, short, equities, commodities, etc. I still refer to the Almanac on occasion and likely will continue to do so.

Stock Trader's Almanac 2005 with eGrade Plus Stand Alone Set (Stock Trader's Almanac)

Average customer rating:

Stock Trader's Almanac 2005 with eGrade Plus Stand Alone Set (Stock Trader's Almanac)
Jeffrey A. Hirsch
Manufacturer: John Wiley & Sons
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Stocks | Investing | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Book Description

America is the first society in history to make ethno-racial diversity an affirmative social ideal rather than viewing it as a fearful menace, as almost all other societies still do. Since the 1960s, America has pursued this ideal in many forms--not only to remedy past discrimination against minorities but also to increase diversity for its own sake.

It is high time for an accounting. How diverse are we now and what can we expect in the future? Why do we, unlike the rest of the world, think that diversity is desirable and that more of it is better? What risks does diversity pose? What are the roles of law, politics, and informal social controls in promoting diversity? How can we manage diversity better?

In this magisterial book, Peter H. Schuck explains how Americans have understood diversity, how we came to embrace it, how the government regulates it now, and how we can do better. He mobilizes a wealth of conceptual, historical, legal, political, and sociological analysis to argue that diversity is best managed not by the government but by families, ethnic groups, religious communities, employers, voluntary organizations, and other civil society institutions. Analyzing some of the most controversial policy arenas where politics and diversity intersect--immigration, multiculturalism, language, affirmative action, residential neighborhoods, religious practices, faith-based social services, and school choice--Schuck reveals the conflicts, trade-offs, and ironies entailed by our commitment to the diversity ideal. He concludes with recommendations to help us manage the challenge of diversity in the future.

Customer Reviews:

The definitive work, but as such a labor to read.......2003-07-16

Diversity is a vaporous concept, widely embraced because it sounds good, seldom defined and used as a stalking horse for a vast multitude of ends. Some such ends are achievable and others not. Many are not worth the financial and costs of achieving them, and some ends are not even honorable.

Schuck performs the great service of offering definitions of the diverse collection of societal objects that comprise diversity itself. From the top, there is observed diversity. America has always been a diverse country, made up of different peoples, languages, religions and customs. In our sometimes ignoble past we attempted to limit that diversity by immigration laws, Jim Crow and other means. Nevertheless, the founders recognized the diversity that existed and seemed to promote it as an antidote to any specific group's ability to amass excessive power.

The metric of diversity means different things to different groups. It most often means visible diversity by skin color, the "ethno-racial pentagon" of Caucasian, African, Native American, Asian and Latin American peoples. Crudely put, white, black, red, yellow and brown. Schuck points out that this photographically demonstrable diversity along the single axis of ethnic origins often hides a stunning uniformity of political liberalism and religious (un)belief. Diversity in schools has to be taken to mean a diversities in ability to learn and therefore the amount of resources needed to enable a student to realize a given level of achievement. And, for that matter, just to maintain order.

Diversity as a starry-eyed ideal is peculiar to 20th century America and Canada. That is to say, one never saw "Celebrate Diversity" bumper stickers on Conastoga wagons. As they dodged the arrows of diverse populations. The particulars of timing are different depending on whether one is talking about religious or racial diversity or multiculturalism. Since before the Revolution many elements of our diverse society had been revulsed by the exclusion of African Americans from education and mainstream society. With the civil rights movement diversity came to be seen not only as an indication of legal equity in society but as a desirable end in itself. A norm of society.

Our society has used many devices to advance the cause of racial diversity. Conscience is one. Universities and corporations adopted diversity programs because their leadership deemed it the right thing to do. Guilt is another, remedying past discrimination. A third is common business sense. A company that sells to a diverse clientele should present a diverse face to the public. Schuck gives greatest attention to a fourth, legislative and judicial efforts to force diversity in the realms of educational and corporate affirmative action, immigration, multiculturalism and housing. He follows the legal proceedings in exhaustive detail.

Schuck's bottom line is that "government... should use its bully pulpit to praise diversity in general and even particular diversities...But it should not try to create or promote any particular kind of diversity." His reasons are pragmatic. Forcing diversity goes against other widely held cultural values, such as the belief that people should achieve their place in society by merit and that they should be free to associate with people of their choosing. Court mandated residential integration, affirmative action and busing have created great resentment. The reactions, such as white flight and foot dragging, have had enormous costs and on balance have hurt rather than helped the minorities' cause. While it is easy to ascertain that segregation was enforced by the law, it is impossible to know whether the continued separation of races by neighborhoods is a matter of discrimination or simple personal preference. It was easy in the days of "separate but equal" to ascribe poor academic performance to poor schools. The reasons why minority students perform a full grade point beneath Asians and whites in elite universities are harder to fix. Even worse, when government is confronted by inconvenient questions, as the University of California was regarding the mechanics of its diversity program, it is inclined to dissimulate, as UC did.

If the government's attempts to force integration in education and housing are often tragic, immigration has been a comedy. "Diversity" is written into immigration law as a good to be achieved by admitting "new seed" from countries that have no history of immigration to the U.S. Ideals aside, however, immigration is shot full of pork-barrel politics. Most amusing are Ted Kennedy's labors to favor the Irish over all other Europeans. It is illogical that we take no advantage of the immense attractiveness of American residency to demand that immigrants bring with them any particular skills or education. The lottery -- and it is often just that -- is free and open to all.

This is a dense and difficult book for the layman to read. Unless your working vocabulary includes words like monism, anodyne, normative, and ex ante you will want to keep your dictionary at hand. I like it because Schuck is not afraid to write his own views in the first person. He is especially eloquent on the subject of the government's inability to find a focus or a common policy to unite its diverse and contradictory policies. His subtitle is "Keeping government at a safe distance." Despite the fact that he includes a section with just that title, Schuck is notably incurious about the "root causes" inequities in society, ascribing them all to past inequalities in social station and education even while acknowledging that different minorities have shown markedly different success in overcoming these handicaps that all had in common. His arguments have everything to do with law and politics, nothing to do with those threads of contemporary thought dealing with heredity.

Lastly, he offers an encyclopedic wealth of footnotes that will be very useful to scholars who succeed him. His publisher should only have done so well with the index.

The range and intergity of a great mind and a great person.......2003-05-18

Peter Schuck's remarkable book will become a classic. He gently, humbly, and with the intellectual penetration of a great mind approaches the delicate subject of our country's remarkable diversity (an historical anomaly, he notes.) Professor Schuck shows no fear or favor, and his book will contribute to our national conversation on diversity by asking many questions which have been unanswered by the many actors in American political life interested in affirmative action, religion, immigration and other diversity-related subjects. Hang on - something you took for granted will be questioned.

Diversity in America: Keeping Government at a Safe Distance

Average customer rating:

Diversity in America: Keeping Government at a Safe Distance
Peter H. Schuck
Manufacturer: NY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000MUBGI8

Book Description

Termites are of great interest to entomologists and all those concerned with pest management. Their complex social systems and nest building make them a fascinating subject for students of insect behavior and a serious problem for anyone responsible for crops or buildings, particularly in the tropics. This book provides a general scientific introduction to termites, covering their biology, behavior, pest status and control. The only current text of its kind, it fills a significant gap in the literature on termites. The material is aimed at advanced students of entomology and pest management, as well as professionals concerned with pest control.

Book Description

This book examines an important and growing issue among ecologists, conservation biologists, and archaeologists, namely recent extinction of species, and will focus on treatments of losses thought to have been caused by humans in some way over the past 40,000 years when Homo sapiens spread worldwide. There is an exemplary list of leading figures in this debate, and the book should have impact for the debate on current conservation issues and biodiversity.

Customer Reviews:

Chris OSU.......2005-03-24

The very much like the book. I thought it was very informative and coming from me (one who does not like to read factual books) that is saying something. I do not think everyone will react the same way to the book as i did. i like it because i am an animal enthusiast and any more information about conservation and extinction habits is music to my eyes (lol) anyway i would recommend this book to all who are interested in animals or want to have an informational book for projects. but many might not like it because it is written as die hard facts, it does not have a plot and would not be interesting to those who do not appreciate animals or science. ManPhee compiles a bunch of informtion based on the editors he gathered it from. it reads sort of like how u would find a history book, with graphs and charts to back up his info all in all it was very informative and i got lot out of it.

Customer Reviews:

The 'bible' of aeolian studies.......2002-12-12

If you speak to anyone in the small community that continues to study the behaviour of wind-blown material, there is always one book that is referred as 'the bible.' Although some of the physics is a bit out-of-date, Bagnold writes in such an accessible style that even 50 years from now his book will still be the first recommendation a scientist will give a PhD student to read as an introduction to the field. Recommended.

Average customer rating:

Physics of Blown Sand and Desert Dunes.
R.A. Bagnold
Manufacturer: See notes
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000V1ZR5G

Average customer rating:

Manditory Reading

Excellent book for the layman

Physics Without Math: A Descriptive Introduction
Gilbert Shapiro
Manufacturer: Prentice Hall College Div
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Physics | Science | Subjects | Books
General | Physics | Sciences | New & Used Textbooks | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

How Things Work: The Physics of Everyday Life

ASIN: 013674317X

Customer Reviews:

Manditory Reading.......2005-09-30

Physics without math is written at a mathematical level that a bright 11 year old could understand. The subject matter is in enough debth that even students that have taken college physics before will gain new insights. Shapiro has a gift for showing the big picture where you really do follow the thought process. Most importantly however, if the book was dull, you would not read it even if it was very educational. This book is the one that I have been reading at night for fun. Now when I find that a book ends up on the bedside stand, and next to me while cooking, and at the table at meals...that book needs a positive review. Get this book, then after this one if you havent already read it get Hewett conceptual physics. If you enjoy reading science, then this book is for you.

Excellent book for the layman.......1999-06-17

I am a musician, a classical guitarist,and have always had an interest in science. I have recently become obsessed with physics, but have always been weak in math. This book, (and author), obviously had the pedagogical acumen to see this need in the public, and has addressed it. In fact, I got it from the library, and am here looking for it, becuase I realize I need to own it, and read it over and over. I plan on strenghtening my mathmatical weakness, but until I do, this book is giving me an increased understanding of classical physics, with a minimum of math, and a focus on illustrative examples to convey concepts. I am using these new understanding in my approach to playing, as a matter of fact. I only wish it wasn't $59.95. That is a bit of a surprise. But worth it.

Physics without Math: A Descriptive Introduction

Average customer rating:

Physics without Math: A Descriptive Introduction
Gilbert Shapiro
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Companies
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OG18BK

Average customer rating:
Tono-Bungay (Penguin Classics)
H.G. Wells
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Literary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Ann Veronica (Penguin Classics)

The History of Mr. Polly

Glencoe Language Arts Vocabulary Power Workbook Grade 10

Complete Short Stories of H. G. Wells

The Return of the Soldier (Modern Library Classics)

ASIN: 0141441119

Book Description

Presented as a miraculous cure-all, Tono-Bungay is in fact nothing other than a pleasant-tasting liquid with no positive effects. Nonetheless, when the young George Ponderevo is employed by his uncle Edward to help market this ineffective medicine, he finds his life overwhelmed by its sudden success. Soon the worthless substance is turned into a formidable fortune as society becomes convinced of the merits of Tono-Bungay through a combination of skilled advertising and public credulity.

-Includes a newly established text, a full biographical essay on Wells, a list of further reading, and detailed notes
-Edward Mendelson's introduction explores the many ways in which Tono-Bungay satirizes the fictions and delusions that shape modern life

Average customer rating:

The Wells you should know
A novel for our time
Everything you want in Wells
Social-Fiction, not Science-Fiction

Tono-Bungay (Modern Library Classics)
H.G. Wells
Manufacturer: Modern Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Science Fiction | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 081296750X
Release Date: 2003-03-11

Book Description

The story of an apprentice chemist whose uncle’s worthless medicine becomes a spectacular marketing success, Tono-Bungay earned H. G. Wells immediate acclaim when it appeared in 1909. It remains a sparkling chronicle of chicanery and human credulity, and is today regarded by many as Wells’s greatest novel. As Andrea Barrett observes in her Introduction, “Through its detailed, often brilliant descriptions and powerful imagery, [Tono-Bungay] slyly satirizes British imperial policy as a whole. . . . The insights into class, money, advertising, public relations, and the power of the press still ring horrifyingly true.”

This Modern Library Paperback Classic is set from the text of the original 1909 edition.

Customer Reviews:

The Wells you should know.......2007-01-15

This book is completely modern, maybe because Wells always seemed to have
one foot in the future and one in the past. He had a good feel for the
scope of history past and history to be made. But it should also be pointed
out what a fine writer and stylist Wells was. The book is beautifully
written. The prose flows. I always loved this about his works of Science
Fiction, the ones most people know about, but it is even more apparent in
this mature work of literature. Read Tono Bungay for the music of his
words, as well as the truth of the emotions, and the intelligence of the
ideas. Like Jules Verne, who also wrote more than his well-known Science
Fiction works, Wells really needs to be re-discovered as a fine general
novelist. Reading Tono Bungay was my first step in that re-discovery.
Now I'm off to read others.

A novel for our time.......2005-08-14

This amazing novel could have been written today, except for the wonderful Edwardian style and language. The story of a rags-to-riches advertising fraud sounds quite the contemporary tone. Edward Ponderevo runs a chemist's shop in the Victorian equivalent of Vic and Sade's Dismal Seepage, Ohio. The idea strikes him to add coloring and flavor to a bottle of junk and market it as a miracle drug, Tono-Bungay. Before long, other quacks jump onto his bandwagon and he rises in society and prestige. Part of Wells' genius lay in foreseeing the future: he has the narrator, poor, "ruined" George, go out on a leaky sailing vessel to west Africa in search of radioactive "quap," some stuff that will turn the world on its head, as indeed uranium did, later. He even describes this "quap" as deriving from pitchblende, as uranium does! He also plays with aeronautical inventions such as gliders and balloons, and our anti-hero ends up designing destroyers for the Royal Navy. The love interest, Beatrice (pace, Dante), is unattainable, not because of the usual Victorian claptrap about class or modesty, but because she's addicted to "chloral," the hypnotic element of knockout drops, chloral hydrate. Some of the love interest may have arisen from Wells' romance with Rebecca West, quite a looker in her younger days; (their affair produced a son, Anthony West, who became an embittered old man hating both his parents).
Wells wrote some great stories: "The Shape of Things to Come," which predicted air warfare although it appeared in 1899, "The War of the Worlds," and my favorite, "The Man Who Could Work Miracles," filmed in 1935 with Roland Young ("Topper") as the innocent barfly who stops time. "Tono-Bungay" is among his finest.
Wells had no use for "the quality," that is, the idle rich who populated England's country houses in the 19th century. "The great houses stand in their parks still, the cottages cluster respectfully on their borders, touching their eaves with their creepers..." At tea, the great lady "acknowledged your poor tinkle of utterance with a voluminous, scornful 'Haw!' that made you want to burn her alive." She had "a small set of stereotyped remarks that constituted her entire mental range." The narrator sat uneasily on a hard chair "trying to exist, like a feeble seedling amidst great rocks." The house had a "great staircase that has never been properly descended since powder went out of fashion." When later he went to live at the home of young Beatrice and invited to play with her, he was "handed over as if I was some large variety of kitten."
George grew up in the 1880s, the era of "The Good Hard-Working Man." A point of honor "was to rise at or before dawn, and then laboriously muddle about." Religion was dispensed in a dingy chapel, "a little brick-built chapel equipped with a spavined roarer of a harmonium." The larger church, "the great pre-Reformation church, [was] a fine grey shell, like some empty skull from which the life has fled."
Uncle Edward is the finest character in the novel: a little fat, ("he'd look lovely with a stopper," chides his wife, who calls him "Old Sossidge"), breathing with audible "Zzzzzz" sounds, he could be found lying on a small wooden fold-up bed, wearing "an elderly but still cheerful pair of check pajamas." His contribution to the world was to be thinking up slogans and fancy adverts for his fake products. The "proper" shops of his day "had been but lightly touched by the American's profaning hand," and they did not cater to people "who in a once fashionable phrase, do not 'exist.'" He would change all that. He raised capital by going to each source in turn and saying the others had come in. Then he conquered England "province by province. Like sogers." "'You can GO for twenty-four hours,' we declared, 'on Tono-Bungay chocolate.' We didn't say whether you could return on the same commodity." His lovable, eccentric wife, Susan, is plain as salt. "She described the knights of the age of chivalry as 'kavorting about on the off-chance of a dragon.'" She offers her nephew a biscuit: "Have some squashed flies, George."
The narrator believes himself to be a "morally limited cad with a mind beyond his merits." He suffers through a long, horrible marriage and separation, and shares in the Tono-Bungay business. His uncle, meanwhile, discovers creative accounting 19th century style: "you wouldn't find the early figures so much wrong as strained." He also discovers what auditors call "y/e" items, year-end transactions. "Each of these companies ended its financial year solvent by selling great holdings of shares to one or other of its sisters, and paying a dividend out of the proceeds..." Nothing has changed in a century. Wells has his narrator comment, "I had some amazing perceptions of just how modern thought and the supply of fact to the general mind may be controlled by money." At the same time he notices the London unemployed, "a shambling, shameful stream they made, oozing along the street, the gutter waste of competitive civilisation." Unlike his uncle, they had not said "Snap" in the right place, or were too eager, or never said it at all. Uncle Edward develops a rich man's style of behavior, he would "Zzzzz" and fiddle with his glasses, and "rise slowly to his toes as a sentence unwound, jerkily like a clockwork snake, and drop back on his heels at the end." He was no longer a little man. He ends his career, like a Donald Trump, in real estate. "It is curious how many of these modern financiers of chance and bluff have ended their careers by building...try to make their fluid opulence coagulate out as bricks and mortar...Then the whole fabric of confidence and imagination totters--and down they come...."
And then comes the discovery of the great heap of quap in West Africa, "floating fragments of slum" available for the stealing. A nearby station is abandoned "because every man who stayed two months at the station stayed to die, eaten up mysteriously like a leper." "The only word that comes near it is cancerous." The sample produced for the narrator was "wrapped about with lead." What did H. G. Wells know? He studied science before becoming a writer, but the effects of radiation were still a mystery after his death, in the late 1940s, when soldiers were ordered into foxholes only 200 yards away from the site of the Nevada atomic test explosions.
Wells writes splendidly and succinctly. His aristocrats sit about in the summer house and in garden chairs, "very hatty and ruffley and sunshady." Croquet is played "with immense gravity." As the nouveau-riche begin to invade the upper levels of society, "with an immense, astonished zest they begin shopping,...a new life crowded and brilliant with things shopped...they talk, think, and dream possessions." They conceal their daughters (one is found wearing "a large gold cross and other aggressive ecclesiastical symbols.") Their chairs are covered with Union Jacks. The love interest in the novel plays the piano: "'Was that Wagner, Beatrice?' asked Lady Osprey, looking up from her cards. 'It sounded very confused.'" Uncle Edward's doctor is "a young man, plumply rococo, in bicycling dress, with fine waxen features, a little pointed beard, and the long black, frizzy hair and huge tie of a minor poet."
George concludes that the royal robes and ermine of English lords conceal the realities of "greedy trade, base profit-seeking, bold advertisement." Kingship and chivalry are dead and buried.
A spectacular find.

Everything you want in Wells.......1999-03-27

"Tono-Bungay" is an alleged tonic with dubious medical benefits; and the story is one of the brief fortunes of someone who manages to turn the worthless substance into a formidable fortune - for a while. By the time Wells wrote this novel he had already written books which might or might not be science fiction (witness "The War in the Air") and, all in all, "Ton-Bungay" probably isn't science fiction. But I should mention a substance called "quup" which is introduced towards the end of the book. (I'm not giving anything important away.) "Quup" is the first mention I know of of what we would now call radioactive waste, except that it's naturally occurring, and ... well, perhaps I should be discrete, but I can say that the scenes involving quup have a peculiar flavour which writers would find impossible to capture nowadays.

So you get an excellent double deal with this book: the best of Wells's social fiction of the 1910s, plus a dollop the fresh science fiction he wrote the previous century.

Social-Fiction, not Science-Fiction.......1998-07-31

Having read H.G. Wells' classics WAR OF THE WORLDS, THE INVISIBLE MAN, THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON, THE TIME MACHINE, and THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU, I looked forward to reading what is often claimed to be his "best" work. TONO-BUNGAY is completely different than any of his Sci-Fi classics. TONO-BUNGAY is more of a study of class structure and class struggle in England during the late 1800s and early 1900s. The story follows the life of a young man, George, and his Uncle Edward. Edward invents an elixir called TONO-BUNGAY and hires his nephew George to help build the company. As the book goes George and Edward become quite wealthy. Throughout the book George makes numerous comments on his varying places on the social ladder. It seems that no matter how wealthy George becomes, he will never be accepted in certain circles because he is newly rich and not "old money." The story is well written and is generally easy to follow. I would, however, recomm! end the World's Classics edition of this book (published by Oxford U. Press and available from Amazon.Com) because there are some instances in which Wells makes comments about European literature, art, languages, colleges and phrases that may be of little meaning to the average reader, but for the six pages of end notes provided in the World's Classics edition. The World's Classics edition also claims to be the most accurate edition of the story, taking into account all of Wells' revisions of the story, many of which were made after the book was initially published in 1909 (TONO-BUNGAY was revised by Wells and re-released in 1925).

Average customer rating:

TONO-BUNGAY IN SLIPCASE

Manufacturer: The Heritage Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000HF8QJA

The Birth of Liberal Guilt in the English Novel: Charles Dickens to H. G. Wells

Average customer rating:

The Birth of Liberal Guilt in the English Novel: Charles Dickens to H. G. Wells
Daniel Born
Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Book Description

Daniel Born explores the concept of liberal guilt as it first developed in British political and literary culture between the late Romantic period and World War I. Disturbed by the twin spectacle of urban poverty at home and imperialism abroad, major novelists—including Charles Dickens, George Eliot, George Gissing, Joseph Conrad, E. M. Forster, and H. G. Wells—offered a host of characters who reflect distinct moral responses and sensibilities.

Motivated by the belief that evil is a product of social and economic disparities rather than individual depravity, these characters exhibit guilty consciences in which the guilt is not at all like that envisioned by Victorian Christianity. But at the same time, they are premodern, in that they do not possess our therapeutic culture's notion of guilt as neurosis or pathology.

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books