Monday, September 10, 2012

Financial Institutions Management

Financial Institutions Management: A Risk Management Approach
by Anthony Saunders and Marcia Millon Cornett

Saunders and Cornett's "Financial Institutions Management: A Risk Management Approach," 6th edition focuses on managing return and risk in modern financial institutions. The central theme is that the risks faced by financial institutions managers and the methods and markets through which these risks are managed are becoming increasingly similar whether an institution is chartered as a commercial bank, a savings bank, an investment bank, or an insurance company. Although the traditional nature of each sector's product activity is analyzed, a greater emphasis is placed on new areas of activities such as asset securitization, off-balance-sheet banking, and international banking.

The Feathered Serpent

The Feathered Serpent 
by Colin Falconer

 The triumphant, controversial life of the Aztec woman Malinali is one of the great and enduring legends of Mexico. A high-born Mexica heiress, she was sold into slavery as a child, and it was as a slave of the Maya that she met the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés. To her, and many of the Mexica, Cortés, with his ?owing beard and pale skin, was Feathered Serpent, the god whose return to earth foretold the end of Montezuma’s fabled empire. The daughter of a prophet, Malinali knew her fate lay with Feathered Serpent and his invaders. To this day she is reviled as a traitor by Mexico’s native people, but is also honored as a heroine and symbolic mother of a mixed-race nation. This is her story—and the story of the Spanish conquest of Mexico, which for better or worse changed the Americas forever. In Feathered Serpent, Colin Falconer brings the Aztec empire to life in blazing color and gives voice to the incomparable Malinali, who transcended her role as Cortés’s translator and consort to become a fiery agent of history against all odds.

The Time Machine

The Time Machine
by H.G. Wells

The Time Machine is a science fiction novella by H. G. Wells, published in 1895 and later adapted into two feature films of the same name, as well as two television versions, and a large number of comic book adaptations. It indirectly inspired many more works of fiction in many media. This story is generally credited with the popularisation of the concept of time travel using a vehicle that allows an operator to travel purposefully and selectively. The term "time machine", coined by Wells, is now universally used to refer to such a vehicle. This work is an early example of the Dying Earth subgenre.