Financial Accounting (Fourth Edition) with CD-Rom,   ISBN:9780072850536

Customer Rating: 

Purchased this book for some self-study when starting out my own business, and found it clear and easy to understand. So far I haven't come across any applications in my own business that I haven't been able to solve through referencing this book, aside from some tax consequences that are better solved by referencing a small business tax deduction book such as Deduct It! by Nolo.

Customer Rating: 

Libby et al try to sell this book to schools ranging from Harvard Business School down to undergraduates at West Texas A & M University, and unfortunately for students, they get their wish with the highest grossing accounting textbook on the market. What results is a text that is far too verbose, and yet simultaneously superficial on regulatory and finance issues, for an elite undergraduate or graduate school student's first go at the subject, as well as a text far too meandering for the attention span of less academically inclined pupils. The specific problems are manifold. First, the examples are less than clear. Second, the attempt to bring in real would cases adds a lot of volume to each chapter with little to no actual relation to the topic at hand (e.g. five pages about Papa John's Pizza to give one or two relevant lines about their operations). Third, redundancy occurs at times to the point of causing students to miss actual salient differences (e.g. and not appropriately denoting problems where they occur). Fourth, a color scheme / layout from hell!

The fundamental sales pitch behind this book is that it's, "a text students and teachers can agree on." Frankly, I would rather see more professors opting for a tax type text than might overwhelm brighter students in content, and force them to read actively to discern what is relevant, while simultaneously selecting a more outline oriented format for the majority of undergraduates using a single case for clarity throughout a chapter (and in the questions). Both texts exist already.

Customer Rating: 

This book uses a lot of "real companies' data" (including the boycotted clothing retailer and recently bankrupt airline). The real companies' data come with a lot of advertisements, which is kind of disturbing.

Customer Rating: 

I was expecting a hardcover book and got a softcover instead. It is already torn up pretty badly, transporting it back and forth to class.

Customer Rating: 

This book is very easy to understand, very well-written, great explanations, makes accounting a lot easier to grasp.