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Old 06-21-2010, 07:28 PM   #521
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I am currently reading "Noah's Compass " . It is Anne Tyler's typical slightly weird book . Only read if you are a die hard Anne Tyler fan as I am .
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Old 06-21-2010, 07:45 PM   #522
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I am reading a little book called "the American frugal housewife". It was written in the early 1800's I believe, and it is loaded with pearls of wisdom that people around here could appreciate.

It is available in the iBook store.
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Old 06-22-2010, 06:05 AM   #523
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Just back from the beach. I read:

Game Change, John Heilemann and Mark Halperin - excellent read. You get to revisit all those fun moments from the 2008 campaign with all kinds of inside info about what was up with the candidates and the staffers.

The Tourist, Olin Steinhauer - another very good read. Follows a CIA agent tracking an international assassin gets while undergoing an existential crisis.

Currently reading The Big Short, Michael Lewis, author of Liar's Poker. The Big short is about several financial types who saw what was happening in the subprime fiasco and made billions shorting it. So far a good read. For some reason I can't get enough of these exposes of the insanity that is Wall Street.
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Old 06-22-2010, 07:55 AM   #524
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I am reading a little book called "the American frugal housewife". It was written in the early 1800's I believe, and it is loaded with pearls of wisdom that people around here could appreciate.

It is available in the iBook store.
Thanks for the tip. I just downloaded it to my favorite reading device.
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Old 06-22-2010, 10:18 AM   #525
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I just finished Lois Lowery's young adult series: The Giver, Gathering Blue, and Messenger. Absolutely amazing and if you are ever at a loss of what to give a young person, these are it! Future-set dystopian novels with mature concepts but simply presented. The Giver is a Newberry Award winner. I never read young adult fiction so these took me completely by surprise.

I can't wait to read again (for fun) now that I'm out of school! My library card is burning a hole in my pocket!

Don, several of our money managers have recommended the new Michael Lewis. I will request it at the library. Thanks!
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Old 06-23-2010, 03:07 PM   #526
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Just finished Grisham's The Associate. Pretty good, standard Grisham. I could just say "big N. Y. law firm bad, small town lawyer good" and be done with it, but Grisham always spins a good yarn.
A single smiley for this one.
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Old 06-23-2010, 04:47 PM   #527
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I finished The Big Short, by Michael Lewis, author of Liar's Poker and The Blind Side. Go to the library and put a hold on it. It is by far the most enjoyable read I have encountered on the sub-prime fiasco. Lewis is an engaging writer and he gets to the heart of the mess though the eyes of a handful of people who saw it for the horror show it was early on. Along the way he does a great and entertaining job of explaining in laymen's terms how tranches of asset based obligations, credit default swaps, collateralized debt obligations, synthetic CDOs, and other arcana worked (or failed to work).
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Old 06-23-2010, 05:38 PM   #528
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I finished The Big Short, by Michael Lewis, author of Liar's Poker and The Blind Side. Go to the library and put a hold on it.
After your first review I put a hold on it but unfortunately I'm #26 .
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Old 06-24-2010, 08:07 AM   #529
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Have never been a "reader" of books, but decided to load some "lite" ebook software on my iphone, for a test run. Not much of a selection, but borrowed "On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience" by Thoreau. Getting through that slowly...
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Old 06-24-2010, 08:17 AM   #530
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I just finished Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern. Very funny book that I really enjoyed. The Dad reminds me a little of my uncle and maybe some members of this forum. I downloaded the sample on my Kindle before buying it.
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Old 06-24-2010, 08:38 AM   #531
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After your first review I put a hold on it but unfortunately I'm #26 .
I was #17 and then it just popped up for me at the library. They have many copies in the county system and so turnover can be faster then you'd think. The main thing I got out of The Big Short was that there are things like the 2008 crisis that can blindside us in equities so it's really important to either buy-hold or have a well researched exit plan independent of one's knowledge of business events i.e. equity price based instead.
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Old 06-24-2010, 08:45 AM   #532
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I just finished Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern. Very funny book that I really enjoyed. The Dad reminds me a little of my uncle and maybe some members of this forum. I downloaded the sample on my Kindle before buying it.
I follow them on my iGoogle RSS feed. I love it! So hilarious and I hear they are doing some kind of TV program or something, according to the FB page.

In the same vein, I bought the Quotable Douchebag for a friend. It is awesome in the extreme! Totally recommend it for that quirky sense of humor!
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Old 06-24-2010, 12:18 PM   #533
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After your first review I put a hold on it but unfortunately I'm #26 .
I was initially #76 for the final Stieg Larsson book and #17 when I looked last week but I stopped by today to pick up another book and the Larsson had just come in.
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Old 06-25-2010, 04:13 PM   #534
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The Tourist, Olin Steinhauer - another very good read. Follows a CIA agent tracking an international assassin gets while undergoing an existential crisis.
Just finished The Tourist. Wow. Great stuff. Three smileys.
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Old 06-26-2010, 11:59 AM   #535
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I finished The Big Short, by Michael Lewis, author of Liar's Poker and The Blind Side. Go to the library and put a hold on it. It is by far the most enjoyable read I have encountered on the sub-prime fiasco. Lewis is an engaging writer and he gets to the heart of the mess though the eyes of a handful of people who saw it for the horror show it was early on. Along the way he does a great and entertaining job of explaining in laymen's terms how tranches of asset based obligations, credit default swaps, collateralized debt obligations, synthetic CDOs, and other arcana worked (or failed to work).
Thanks for the review, I just placed a hold on it at the library. Unfortunately, I'm #526 in the queue, so it may be a while!
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Old 06-26-2010, 12:02 PM   #536
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I just finished "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" by Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Barrows. A nice, easy read - the perfect kind of book to read on vacation or at the beach. I found it rather predictable, and I wasn't crazy about the format (the whole story is told through letters written back and forth amongst the characters), but it did make me want to see Guernsey/The Channel Islands.
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Old 06-26-2010, 06:04 PM   #537
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Paul Krugman's Return to Depression Economics. It was, well, depressing.
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Old 06-26-2010, 06:18 PM   #538
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I finished The Big Short, by Michael Lewis, author of Liar's Poker and The Blind Side. Go to the library and put a hold on it. It is by far the most enjoyable read I have encountered on the sub-prime fiasco. Lewis is an engaging writer and he gets to the heart of the mess though the eyes of a handful of people who saw it for the horror show it was early on. Along the way he does a great and entertaining job of explaining in laymen's terms how tranches of asset based obligations, credit default swaps, collateralized debt obligations, synthetic CDOs, and other arcana worked (or failed to work).
I just finished that one also. I second every thing you posted. A really good read.
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Old 06-27-2010, 01:09 PM   #539
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The IPCRESS File
I think this was pretty much contemporary with the James Bond novels, and it is similar. British spy story with offhand violence and effortless everything, but no gadgets.
Dated plot, but I enjoyed the style.
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Old 06-27-2010, 03:48 PM   #540
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I think William Boyd's Restless is one of the best WW2 spy novels I've read. A woman is recruited as a British spy in Europe. The story alternates between her WW2 experiences and the current (1976) period which includes her relationship with her grown daughter. DW said I might not like it because of the female heroine but I had no trouble with that. Women can be just as devious as men .

Also another one I don't think I've mentioned here is A Spy by Nature, Charles Cumming. A young man interviews for a job in MI5. A bit spotty but it really had me hooked and I generally don't go for the mere page turners.
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