The Sarbanes-Oxley Act: Analysis and Practice

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: A brilliant and beautifully written book. Tons of information presented in a great way. A must read.

Rating:
Summary: Too Theoretical and Fluffy: Not Worth Your Time or Money
Review: First, this book is too theoretical. You may as well download a free copy of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act from the web instead of buying this book. It contains almost nothing that would be useful from a practical compliance standpoint. If you have the patience to go through this book, then you might as well have the patience to interpret the Act itself.

Second, a third of this book is a copy of the Act! In addition, a lot of the material is repeated in various places. It appears to me that the book was written to meet a certain page count rather than provide information that would actually be useful to executives and professionals. Part of the reason seems to be that the authors had no specific target audience in mind, and they ended up making the book extremely generic. Unfortunately, that is no way to write an effective book.

Bottom line: Don't waste your money buying this book, or your time trying to read it. Its hard to read, relatively poorly organized, only provides a small glimpse into the Act (it is from the authors' narrow perspective only), and overall it will not provide much insight into what it actually takes to be compliant (or even why you need to be compliant!).

At the time of this feedback writing, I see that a couple of other Sarbanes-Oxley related books are "in the works". I highly recommend waiting to get one of them instead of this one. My guess is that almost any book on this topic would be better than this one. The few "nuggets of goodness" (which are like finding a needle in a haystack) in this book will likely be included in the upcoming books.

I guess sometimes trying to get the FIRST book out on a subject does not lend itself to getting a QUALITY book out there.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Resource
Review: Nice book with lots of practical advice. Summarizes the most important Sarbanes-Oxley stuff in a way that makes it easy to understand.