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Rating: 
Summary: A recommended corporate guide to accounting fraud
Review: Cookin' the Book$: Say Pasta la Vista to Corporate Accounting Tricks and Fraud by Don Silver is an invaluable and very strongly recommended corporate guide to accounting fraud which takes the form of an advice guide on how to spot and avoid typical fraud secrets in corporate accounting. This primer on deceptive accounting practices will prove an easy read, and an important eye-opener for many, with its specific examples and insights.
Rating: 
Summary: A Gem
Review: Don Silver has cooked up a little gem. I plan to give copies to recently hired auditors charged with finding where deadbeat companies have hidden the money. Written at about the level of the Sunday funnies, a couple of hours with Cookin' the Book$ will give you the basics of Enron and WorldCom style techniques. Sections include a Brief History of Cookin', Four Corporate Recipes for Cookin' the Books, 10 Ways Corporations Cook Revenues, 10 Ways Corporations Cook Expenses and A Financial Self-Defense 'Menual.' Chapters are a bite sized 2-5 pages. Silver's storyline for this work of fiction is a corporate chef''s gift of advice to his son. I'll have to admit, I was initially turned off by a presentation that seemed too basic to even skim. However, I soon found myself reading every page and picking up bits of spoon fed knowledge with no effort. With Silver's examples, I can now explain the fundamental techniques of modern corporate fraud to novices.
Rating:
Summary: A Gem
Review: Don Silver has cooked up a little gem. I plan to give copies to recently hired auditors charged with finding where deadbeat companies have hidden the money. Written at about the level of the Sunday funnies, a couple of hours with Cookin' the Book$ will give you the basics of Enron and WordCom style techniques. Sections include a Brief History of Cookin', Four Copoprate Recipes for Cookin' the Books, 10 Ways Corporations Cook Revenues, Ways Corporations Cook Expenses and A Financial Defense 'Menual.' Chapters are a bite sized 2-5 pages. Silver's storeyline for this work of fiction is a corporate chef''s gift of advice to his son. I'll have to admit, I was initially turned off by a presentation that seemed too basic to even skim. However, I soon found myself reading every page and picking up bits of spoonfed knowledge with no effort. With Silver's examples, I can now explain the fundamental techniques of modern corporate fraud to novices.
Rating: 
Summary: '...Here comes the choo choo'
Review: Financial writer Don Silver has penned a kind of Socratic dialogue (fictional, of course) about how accountants cook the books to make corporations seem more successful than they really are. Instead of writing a text for Accounting Fraud 101 (which he could do very well), Silver imagines that he is walking the beach with his dad who is both a gourmet chef and an expert on corporate financials. Basically the dad talks "cookin' the books" and the son listens and asks questions. The son, who is eighteen-years-old, is about to go away to college. Dad thinks it's time he learned to protect himself from investing in the wrong companies. While I think Silver's advice is timely and clearly expressed, I think the metaphor wears a little thin after awhile. I also think a more appropriate occasion for the old dad to wax Socratic on accounting tricks and fraud would be when the son is thinking of investing. Maybe have the wise old dad visit the son on his thirty-third birthday as he's reallocating his portfolio and wants to know how to separate the Enrons from the Exxon-Mobils. Or better yet maybe the son ought to come home after a couple of years in college after taking a particularly vivid course in accounting and advise the dad on how to protect HIS retirement nest egg from rapacious portfolio managers and brokers who wouldn't know a bottom line from a line-up. Or better yet, just write the advice out straight. The problem with the method chosen by Silver is its artificiality. For centuries writers have tried to emulate Plato by arguing a philosophic point through an imaginary dialogue. The idea is to make the wisdom dispensed as easy to take as Jell-O sliding down. It looks easy to do but actually it's an extremely difficult art to master mainly because to write veracious dialogue one has to have the skills of a playwright, and to argue effectively for both sides, one has to know and believe to one's core the arguments of both sides. Usually what happens is the dialogue is artificial (as it is in Silver's book) and the argument one-side. Here Silver has the son becoming enlightened as he asks questions that the dad easily answers. More realism would have the son trying to trip up the dad or contradict him or get him to change the subject or to complain, "Dad, you've told me that a hundred times." Maybe they could have a true philosophical diagreement about how to evaluate risk or whether executives should be jailed for accounting fraud. Silver's book is 176 pages and reads fast, mainly because a lot of the text is there just to lend veracity and color to the imaginary dialogue, and also because there's a lot of air on every page. Reduce the text to its essentials and the book would make a nice chapter in a larger tome. On the positive side the book is very well and attractively presented, well-edited and proofread and might be just the ticket to send to somebody wanting an introduction to fundamental analysis or someone just wanting to know how to read a corporation's financial statement. The book works very well as an introduction to corporate accounting for investors. It's a shame that Silver tried to fancy up his "menual" (yes, that's quote, unquote) when all he's done is dilute the soup.
Rating: 
Summary: Stretching a metaphor
Review: Financial writer Don Silver has penned a kind of Socratic dialogue (fictional, of course) about how accountants cook the books to make corporations seem more successful than they really are. Instead of writing a text for Accounting Fraud 101 (which he could do very well), Silver imagines that he is walking the beach with his dad who is both a gourmet chef and an expert on corporate financials. Basically the dad talks "cookin' the books" and the son listens and asks questions. The son, who is eighteen-years-old, is about to go away to college. Dad thinks it's time he learned to protect himself from investing in the wrong companies. While I think Silver's advice is timely and clearly expressed, I think the metaphor wears a little thin after awhile. I also think a more appropriate occasion for the old dad to wax Socratic on accounting tricks and fraud would be when the son is thinking of investing. Maybe have the wise old dad visit the son on his thirty-third birthday as he's reallocating his portfolio and wants to know how to separate the Enrons from the Exxon-Mobils. Or better yet maybe the son ought to come home after a couple of years in college after taking a particularly vivid course in accounting and advise the dad on how to protect HIS retirement nest egg from rapacious portfolio managers and brokers who wouldn't know a bottom line from a line-up. Or better yet, just write the advice out straight. The problem with the method chosen by Silver is its artificiality. For centuries writers have tried to emulate Plato by arguing a philosophic point through an imaginary dialogue. The idea is to make the wisdom dispensed as easy to take as Jell-O sliding down. It looks easy to do but actually it's an extremely difficult art to master mainly because to write veracious dialogue one has to have the skills of a playwright, and to argue effectively for both sides, one has to know and believe to one's core the arguments of both sides. Usually what happens is the dialogue is artificial (as it is in Silver's book) and the argument one-side. Here Silver has the son becoming enlightened as he asks questions that the dad easily answers. More realism would have the son trying to trip up the dad or contradict him or get him to change the subject or to complain, "Dad, you've told me that a hundred times." Maybe they could have a true philosophical diagreement about how to evaluate risk or whether executives should be jailed for accounting fraud. Silver's book is 176 pages and reads fast, mainly because a lot of the text is there just to lend veracity and color to the imaginary dialogue, and also because there's a lot of air on every page. Reduce the text to its essentials and the book would make a nice chapter in a larger tome. On the positive side the book is very well and attractively presented, well-edited and proofread and might be just the ticket to send to somebody wanting an introduction to fundamental analysis or someone just wanting to know how to read a corporation's financial statement. The book works very well as an introduction to corporate accounting for investors. It's a shame that Silver tried to fancy up his "menual" (yes, that's quote, unquote) when all he's done is dilute the soup.
Rating:
Summary: '...Here comes the choo choo'
Review: This book attempts to combine a 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' type storyline with cooking metaphors to explain accounting shenanigans. If an investor requires this sort of dumbed-down, story-book style to learn about the various methods companies employ to mislead investors, he would be better served letting a pro invest his money via a mutual fund. In order to analyze the financial statements of companies, it's necessary to read SEC filings which are aimed well above the fifth grade level where this book appears targeted. If an investor is not uncomfortable reading complex material, he would be better served by books from Charles Mulford or Howard Schilit.
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