The Samurai's Wife

The Samurai's Wife
by Laura Joh Rowland

Sano Ichiro, the Shogun's Most Honorable Investigator of Events, Situations, and People, has his doubts about the partnership that he and his spirited new wife, Reiko, have forged: While he can't help recognizing that her help on his cases can be invaluable, he sometimes longs for a more traditional wife. Still, when a botched case and the resulting loss of face send Sano to the Imperial city to find a killer whose methods are as terrifying as they are elusive, Sano needs the talents of his wife more than ever to inflitrate the emperor's inner circle. Rowland's series "positively smokes with historical atmospherics" (Publishers Weekly), and THE SAMURAI'S WIFE is her most intricate and compelling novel to date.

Entrepreneurial Finance
By J. Chris Leach and Ronald W. Melicher

Learn to master today's most effective corporate finance tools and techniques for successful entrepreneurial ventures with Leach/Melicher's ENTREPRENEURIAL FINANCE, 4E. This reader-friendly edition closely follows a "life cycle of the firm" as it introduces the theories, knowledge, and financial tools any entrepreneur needs to start, build, and eventually harvest a successful business venture. Readers focus on sound financial management practices, such as how and where to obtain financial capital, the stages of financing, business cash flow models, and strategic positioning. Readers even gain important insights into effectively interacting with the financial institutions and regulatory agencies that are central to financing ventures. Trust ENTREPRENEURIAL FINANCE, 4E to provide the knowledge and insights needed for entrepreneurial success.

A Bend in the River

A Bend in the River
by V.S. Naipaul

A Bend in the River is the story of Salim, an Indian born and raised on the east coast of Africa. He buys a shop in a river town in the interior,  in the aftermath of a post-colonial rebellion. The novel tells the story of Salim’s slow rise and fall in business, alongside the story of the town’s slow rise and fall. The town’s fortunes, along with those of Salim and the rest of the characters in the town, slowly scrape toward prosperity after the rebellion. A president’s interest creates a boon, and then paranoia and rebellion and destruction. Fortunes rise and fall, again and again.

Salim offers a fascinating perspective. I’ve read books voiced by Africans about Africa, and books voiced by Westerners about Africa, but Salim is an Indian writing about Africa—the citizen of one colony living in another colony, and writing about post-colonial life. Author Naipaul shared this perspective, being of Indian descent but born and raised in Trinidad. Throughout the book, Salim remains an outsider, an observer to the conflicts and customs of Africa. The other characters that he befriends are also outsiders—his house-servant Metty, a boy-turned-man without a tribe named Ferdinand, fellow Indian merchants Mahesh and Shoba, childhood friend from a wealthier background Indar, and Brits Raymond and Yvette. All of them live in this African world without being of it. They appreciate it in different ways, and their own fortunes are tied up in this town at the bend in the river, or in the political powers at work.