Sam Walton: The Inside Story of America's Richest Man

This well-written Horatio Alger-like tale of 72-year-old, Arkansas-born Walton is refreshingly upbeat, in contrast to the life stories of some other contemporary entrepreneurs. Walton is a publicity-shy, multibillionaire businessman who, despite an arrested case of leukemia--and, more recently, myeloma--still heads the Wal-Mart discount chain he founded in 1962. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Trimble, editor of the Kentucky Post , bases the biography on interviews with hundreds of ``associates,'' as their boss calls his employees, all testifying to the hard work, integrity, business acumen and common-touch gift for human relations to which they attribute his success. Walton is also a passionate quail hunter and tennis player, drives an old pickup and pilots his own Cessna. As he plans new ventures, the author warns, K martstet lc and Sears had better watch out. (Nov.)