Rating: 
Summary: Oddly fascinating, like Zen and the Art of Selling Dreams
Review: This is one of those books you just can't put down once you start reading it. It takes you on a wonderful journey, gives very practical business advice, and just plain makes you feel good. Mr. Peterman has my highest admiration as a business person and a human being. You go Cowboy! We are all rooting for ya!
Rating: 
Summary: Not just for old times's sake
Review: You remember Peterman, don't you?The "Owner's Manual" that read like literature? Open it, and you found yourself sipping martinis on the veranda at Raffles (you know, don't you, that gin was invented so the British could choke down their quinine tablets). Or sharing a tent with the Tuareg under the endless stars. Or watching an entrancing -- and very well dressed -- young woman glide through the Gare de l'Est, the crowds parting effortlessly before her. How many catalogs made you want to run a bath and settle in to read about luggage and clothes? This book is like that. But different. Different? Different. It has some of that same flair. Some of the same locales. Even some of the same copy, printed in excerpts (and a name to go with it, copywriter Don Staley, my new hero). But it's not escapist. It's valuable, real-world information ... like what to do when you find yourself stranded up the Yangtze River with nothing but a toothbrush and silver cuff links, the kind an archduke would have worn to a Vienna ball. Okay, not that. But it does take an honest look at the rise and fall of a company that many people loved. A catalog that countless people waited anxiously -- really! -- to receive. So many people wanted it to work. "Clearly, people want things that make their lives the way they wish they were." In some ways, it was a classic tale. Entrepreneur with a vision, a passion, a soul, creates a company with a soul too. The business catches fire. It gets huge. Too huge. Too much time crunching numbers. Soul gets crowded out. "Classic cases" become classic because people keep making the same mistakes. For years, the business looked like nothing could stop it. But then the bottom fell out. Peterman knows why. And he tells you why. Some of it was his fault, and he doesn't pull punches, even when they're directed at himself. I like that in a man. I like that in a book, too.
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