From the Publisher

By Robert L. Miller

What leads a writer to choose his specialty? For Andrew Tobias, it was his experience as a part-time entrepreneur at Harvard in the late 1960s. Joining in several college-run ventures, he rented refrigerators to dorm dwellers and helped write the popular Let's Go: The Student Guide to Europe. Says Tobias: "I learned a lot in a short time, but I decided that I have more fun writing about business than trying to run one."

By the time he earned his M.B.A. at Harvard Business School in 1972, Tobias had published the first of his seven books. Among them: Fire and Ice, a biography of Revlon co-founder Charles Revson; The Invisible Bankers, a critique of the insurance industry; and The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need, all big sellers. A prolific contributor to New York, Esquire and other magazines, Tobias has also written a computer program, Managing Your Money, which since 1984 has sold more than 250,000 copies.

Starting this week, Tobias will write a regular column for TIME called "Money Angles," which will appear in the Business section every two or three weeks. Tobias will write primarily about personal investing but will occasionally comment on wider economic and financial issues. Says Business editor Stephen Koepp: "Andy brings a rare combination of irreverence and expertise to these topics. Whenever he troops through the jungles of financial arcana, he always emerges with pithy, practical advice for his readers and unusual insights into the latest financial trends. He skewers the bad deals and scouts out the good ones."

Twenty summers ago, millions of Americans heard the words "the Eagle has landed" as astronaut Neil Armstrong prepared to take man's first steps on the moon. During the next three weeks, 174 local TV stations in the U.S. will broadcast Man in Space, a one-hour video history of space exploration. Produced by TIME Magazine Television and California-based GGP, the program will feature footage from the archives of NASA, U.P.I. and other sources. The show will also include interviews with U.S. and Soviet space pioneers, who now dream of the next goal: manned exploration of Mars.