A book entitled “Les Golden” has been written by biographer Jordan Naoum and published by Duc Publishing. The book was published in July, 2011, according to its listing on Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/Golden-Jordan-Naoum/dp/6136849941/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1327941857&sr=1-1). Golden, who splits his time between Oak Park, Illinois, and Reno, Nevada, was not aware of the preparation nor publication of the book.
“I received an email from a friend in New York that a biography of me had been written,” said Golden. “It’s pretty cool, although I haven’t seen the book.”
Golden apparently was not interviewed for the book nor contacted about its preparation. The material could have been gleaned from the internet or the Oak Park Historical Society, among other sources. Dr. Leslie M. Golden, an astronomer, professor, writer, trumpet player, vocalist, band leader, actor, stand-up comedian, editorial cartoonist, cruise ship lecturer, political activist, animal welfare advocate, and environmentalist certainly has a large presence on the internet. His astrophysics textbook, published by the prestigious Springer Verlag publishing house, is slated for a May, 2012, release. He is renowned internationally as a gambling writer. Indeed, the attractive cover of the book features a photo of a casino gambling table on which are gambling chips, cards, and dice. Golden has a listing at both IllinoisAuthors.org and WorldCat.org.
The Amazon.com listing provides a description of the subject of the biography: “Les Golden is an American gambling writer who writes extensively on various casino games. He became aware of card counting systems for blackjack by reading Beat the Dealer, the seminal work of mathematician Edward O. Thorp. As a graduate student in astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley, Golden made monthly trips to Reno, Nevada and played blackjack using Thorp's systems. He is the developer of the Golden Diagram technique for countering casino countermeasures at blackjack and the Magic Circle system for winning at biased roulette wheels.”
The book is available at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Better World Books, and http://www.whsmith.co.uk, among other sources (Les Golden, by Jordan Naoum, Duc Publishing, ISBN 978-6-1368-4994-2, $57 at Amazon.com).
Professor Golden’s Renaissance Man attributes made him a likely subject for a biography. His numerous wiki profiles quote editors and magazines. Chris Lines, his editor at GamblingOnline print magazine, writes, "Where to start in introducing the complete one-off individual that is Les Golden? Actor, stand-up comedian, humorist UFO lecturer, singer, astronomer, cartoonist, playwright, trumpet player, voiceover artist, political activist . . . we could go on. You can probably tell that Les is a bit of a character. Luckily for readers, he's also a great blackjack player,"
Compuserve Magazine wrote, “His interests form a list so long as to stagger the imagination. He is a stand-up comic who has performed all over the United States and Mexico, a professional actor in more than 100 plays, films and commercials; and he is the author of Basic Composer, PC-compatible software that is used to compose, play back, and print music and lyrics. (As an astronomer), in 1986 he went on a Halley’s Comet cruise, following the comet from Acapulco to Greece and transmitting reports to the Syndicated Writers’ Group.”
You can count on one hand the Oak Park, Illinois, residents who have had books written about them. You can now put Les Golden in that category.
Bookmarks
Share
Print
Save