NASCAR's Most Wanted(TM): The Top 10 Book of Outrageous Drivers, Wild Wrecks and Other Oddities

Tim Flock once raced with a monkey in his car. When the 1961 Western North Carolina 500 was declared over after only 250 miles because of a deteriorating track surface, 4,000 fans held the drivers hostage. Driver Lloyd Seay was shot and killed by a cousin in a dispute over payment for a load of sugar used in their moonshining operation. One of NASCAR’s earliest tracks, in Daytona, Florida, used a beach for one straightaway and a public highway for the other.

Containing fifty lists of the top-ten drivers, tracks, finishes, technological innovations, and so on, NASCAR's Most Wanted™ will inform and amuse diehard fans and newcomers to the fast-growing, always exciting world of stock car racing.

Let me give a nod of thanks to Ron Meining of Meining Automotive for schlepping some of his real problem photographs from his fambly album onto me. Geeze, now I got more hours into retouching than they have on my car. One would think of Nevada as the portrait's origin But I suspect that it was Colorado, according to Ron's family background. This displays the finished piece as if it were an exploded view of the sandwiched facsimile of the real card. The elements include the card stock. I like to use acid-free art board. Next is the photo print of the separated mount. Glued on top would be the photo print of the actual studio portrait. This can look so much more real when it includes all the elements that were in the original. Weathering and clear matte spray provides a good finish. Maybe I'll finish off a couple examples off fully to stash them with my others.

I love this blue velvet stocking with silver swirls all over. I have used a white silky nylon for the top.

One Hundred New Ways to Make Your Money Work Harder
Countless foreign stocks routinely outperform the S&P 500, but sending your money halfway around the world can feel risky -- unless you know which stocks to invest in. How can you make informed decisions on the international market? How can you find the Microsoft of Germany or Wal-Mart of France? What stocks should you buy in emerging markets such as Asia and Latin America? The Top 100 International Growth Stocks highlights the best opportunities for creating a diversified portfolio of stable, quality investments. Here are:
Detailed company profiles of 100 overseas performers
Invaluable ?grading boxes? that rate growth, management quality, and risk factors
Share-price performance charts
Tips on how and when to purchase foreign stocks and track your investments
Scott and Peggy Kalb analyzed more than 10,000 companies before they arrived at their top 100. Their selections have survived and prospered despite recessions, political upheaval, difficult mergers, and tough competition -- because the focus here is on long-term, blue-chip investments.

Serious international investors able to choose their own stocks will find a useful reference in The Top 100 International Growth Stocks. Coauthor Peggy Edersheim Kalb is a financial journalist and former Smith Barney money manager. Scott E. Kalb manages the Smith Barney International Equity Fund. From a universe of 10,000 non-U.S. companies, the authors selected 100 relatively large ones (minimum market capitalization $500 million) that have long demonstrated "an exceptional ability to grow their businesses at superior rates in all kinds of conditions, climates, and political environments." The book offers a three-page report on each of the 100 companies, most of which trade on U.S. markets. Among the top 100 are many household names, from Heineken to Sony. But the list also includes dozens of companies that U.S. investors should know but probably don't, such as Cifra, Mexico's largest food retailer; Astra of Sweden, one of the world's largest drug companies; and Hutchison Whampoa, Hong Kong's preeminent conglomerate. Aside from providing investment leads, the book is a fascinating tour of companies that are shaping the world's economic future. --Barry Mitzman