What have you read recently? 2009 -2020

Status
Not open for further replies.
sengsational said:
Have not read it yet, but requested it from the library (even though I'm already retired):

You can retire sooner than you think : the 5 money secrets of the happiest retirees

The first review on Amazon is a 5 star from Ernie Zelinski.
Click to expand...
Not a five star in my opinion. It's got some Zelinski-esque stuff in it about happiness (core pursuits), but many of the conclusions are based on a survey where I question the direction of causality. For instance, the author, Wes Moss (who has a radio show, but I've never heard of him), says that you should have more income streams because in his survey, people with more income streams self reported higher happiness level. But since it's not adjusted for total income, he's comparing unhappy "only Social Security" people with people who have investment income, rental propery income, plus SS. This isn't the only example like this...the book is filled with them. "Happy retirees take at least two vacations per year, and when they do vacation, they spend more than unhappy retirees." Ya think maybe the unhappy ones might be a little short of cash and so take shorter vacations and are less happy? !?! Because the people who self-reported as the happiest also say that they socialize a lot, Moss prescribes that retirees go out and socialize. Probably a good idea, but again, the causality: depressed people don't feel like going out, so they report "not happy" and "don't go out". That doesn't mean that going out will be the solution to their depression.

On the financial side, Moss tends to simplify stuff. That's good for people that don't concentrate on their finances, but rules like "you'll get $1000 per month for every $240,000 you have invested" don't seem very helpful to me. He's big into interest and dividend paying investments, saying that keeping money out of growth will smooth the bumps, which I think is probably true.

I'll end with the thing that he and I agree on. An interesting take on the whole "pay off the mortgage or not" thing. He says that if you can pay off your mortgage with less than 1/3 of your after tax savings, then do it. That seems like a reasonable rule of thumb. But even there, if doing so would take you from 3 years of ACA subsidies to 2 years of ACA subsidies, maybe it isn't such a great idea.

There are a lot of good and interesting things in this book, but not too many that were new or fresh to me. It is a quick read, and I'm glad I read it, but glad I just borrowed it from the library...not one for the personal bookshelf!
 
Chalk up another vote for The Martian by Andy Weir. I got it yesterday afternoon and didn't put it down until finishing it a bit after midnight last night.

I hadn't done that for about 30 years.
 
sengsational said:
Not a five star in my opinion. It's got some Zelinski-esque stuff in it about happiness (core pursuits), but many of the conclusions are based on a survey where I question the direction of causality. For instance, the author, Wes Moss (who has a radio show, but I've never heard of him), says that you should have more income streams because in his survey, people with more income streams self reported higher happiness level. But since it's not adjusted for total income, he's comparing unhappy "only Social Security" people with people who have investment income, rental propery income, plus SS. This isn't the only example like this...the book is filled with them. "Happy retirees take at least two vacations per year, and when they do vacation, they spend more than unhappy retirees." Ya think maybe the unhappy ones might be a little short of cash and so take shorter vacations and are less happy? !?! Because the people who self-reported as the happiest also say that they socialize a lot, Moss prescribes that retirees go out and socialize. Probably a good idea, but again, the causality: depressed people don't feel like going out, so they report "not happy" and "don't go out". That doesn't mean that going out will be the solution to their depression.

On the financial side, Moss tends to simplify stuff. That's good for people that don't concentrate on their finances, but rules like "you'll get $1000 per month for every $240,000 you have invested" don't seem very helpful to me. He's big into interest and dividend paying investments, saying that keeping money out of growth will smooth the bumps, which I think is probably true.

I'll end with the thing that he and I agree on. An interesting take on the whole "pay off the mortgage or not" thing. He says that if you can pay off your mortgage with less than 1/3 of your after tax savings, then do it. That seems like a reasonable rule of thumb. But even there, if doing so would take you from 3 years of ACA subsidies to 2 years of ACA subsidies, maybe it isn't such a great idea.

There are a lot of good and interesting things in this book, but not too many that were new or fresh to me. It is a quick read, and I'm glad I read it, but glad I just borrowed it from the library...not one for the personal bookshelf!
Click to expand...

I tried to finish Wes Mosses book but just couldn't do it. It was rudimentary at best and many assumptions that I just couldn't buy into. I hear him on the radio here in Atlanta (where he lives) and I'm not very impressed with his advice. I'll stick with Clark Howard for local financial advice.

Sent from my mobile device so please excuse grammatical errors. :)
 
Hard to see why people who can save up 100s of thousands or x millions of dollars would want to read personal finance books by people who are rarely as well off as the members here. It seems pretty simple. Make more than you spend, keep close a eye on your purse, and when you retire take it easy to be sure that you understand how your overhead can grow too fast. Oh, and love money more than you love your ego. This gives you a good shot at happy evermore.

I read investing books, but many of these authors are well off hedge fund guys chiefs and know a lot more than I do.

Ha
 
Last edited:
Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
Charming story of an Italian innkeeper and Hollywood starlet in 1962-told through a variety of devices with an ever changing time frame. I hear it is going to be a film next year, but it is hard to see how they capture the literary novelty that makes the lovely story really sparkle.


Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum
 
[FONT=&quot]"The Cancer Cure That Worked", by Barry Lynes. Esentially about Dr. Royal R. Rife, born in 1888. In "conspiracy" medicine Dr. Rife is credited with building an optical microscope that can show a live virus, and and building a variable RF frequency device. With the device, he is said to have experimented watching bacteria & virus until he found the RF frequency that killed the pathogen. [/FONT]
 
I just finished reading "Mystic River" man what a great book.
 
Reading, Before the First Shots are Fired by Tony Zinni.
 
Last edited:
urn2bfree said:
Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
Charming story of an Italian innkeeper and Hollywood starlet in 1962-told through a variety of devices with an ever changing time frame. I hear it is going to be a film next year, but it is hard to see how they capture the literary novelty that makes the lovely story really sparkle.


Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum
Click to expand...

I just spent the last two days engrossed in this book, thanks so much for recommending it. I'm going to hunt down all his other books, perfect for a curl up on the couch.
 
While I love the Kindle, one of the big disappointments when I got it was the lack of books by Salinger and Harper Lee.

I see they are now offering an "enhanced edition" of To Kill A Mockingbird, so I pre-ordered it. It's not free, but a book like that, in my opinion, is worth it.
 
Just finished the new book by Maeve Binchey, which is a compilation of related short stories. I really enjoyed it. Now I'm reading Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good by Jan Karon. I'm enjoying it so far.


Sent from my iPhone using Early Retirement Forum
 
Ally said:
Just finished the new book by Maeve Binchey, which is a compilation of related short stories. I really enjoyed it.
Click to expand...

Would that be "Chestnut Street"? It was her final book. She died in 2012.

Maeve Binchy
 
I just finished Ken Follett's "Edge of Eternity " .This is the third book in his trilogy and IMO the best .
 
'The First 20 Minutes: Surprising Science Reveals How We Can Exercise Better, Train Smarter, Live Longer' by Gretchen Reynolds. A good compilation of the latest science/research on fitness and exercise.
 
Talk in the travel forum made me want to reread this one: The Salzburg Connection by Helen Macinnes

It was originally published in 1968. It's a spy thriller with post-war Nazis coming out of the woodwork. They put a box in the alpine Lake Finstersee and a lot of people want to get at it. Helen Macinnes was a wonderful writer whose husband was in MI6.

Next I read her 1976 book: Agent in Place
This was a better read in my opinion. Another spy thriller involving Soviet spies and Nato documents. Well written and the suspense builds after a somewhat slow beginning. Mentions of using a typewriter to copy documents and an agent having to find a phone booth to make a vital call remind one we are back there in the good old days.
 
Dear Leader by Jang Jin-Sun (2014) is a fascinating memoir of an elite propaganda writer in the service of Kim Jong-Il in North Korea. He fled to China in 2004 and now lives in South Korea. His description of life in totalitarian North Korea is horrific, reminiscent of a George Orwell's 1984. I learnt a lot about the power structure and modus operandi of that hermit state. This dark story is illuminated with acts of human kindness and courage as people help the author in his quest for freedom. The English translation is very fluent and the book is unputdownable.

Here are some reviews in the press:

Jonathan Kay: A shocking exposé of the power behind North Korea’s Kim dictatorship, written by a real life Winston Smith | National Post

Dear Leader review – a telling account of the madness of North Korea | Books | The Observer

Book review: ‘Dear Leader,’ a look inside North Korea, by Jang Jin-sung - The Washington Post
 
tuixiu said:
I just finished reading "Mystic River" man what a great book.
Click to expand...

I did not read the book, but watched the movie. Mystic River was directed by Clint Eastwood, a box office hit that was also critically acclaimed, and won Sean Penn and Tim Robbins each an Academy Award.
 
zinger1457 said:
'The First 20 Minutes: Surprising Science Reveals How We Can Exercise Better, Train Smarter, Live Longer' by Gretchen Reynolds. A good compilation of the latest science/research on fitness and exercise.
Click to expand...
Thanks. I try to keep up with research on optimal exercise regimes. I downloaded this one from the library.
 
donheff said:
A big two thumbs up for The Martian, by Andy Weir. This self published novel is like Apollo 13 on steroids (albeit Apollo 13 actually happened). An astronaut is left on Mars, assumed dead, after an emergency evacuation. He has enough food for half a year and needs to survive several years, and traverse thousands of kilometers to the planned base for the next Mars mission. Luckily the astronaut is Matt Damon (in Ridley Scott's 2015 movie release) who is both a botanist and a McGiver-like engineer. Great page turner and must read for people who enjoy this sort of thing.
Click to expand...


I am about 1/3 of the way through the audiobook version of this. At first, I was a bit turned off as it was just his logs and somewhat geeky/technical stuff that only an engineer would appreciate. However, it is now getting much more interesting and captivating. Thanks for the rec.
 
zinger1457 said:
'The First 20 Minutes: Surprising Science Reveals How We Can Exercise Better, Train Smarter, Live Longer' by Gretchen Reynolds. A good compilation of the latest science/research on fitness and exercise.
Click to expand...
donheff said:
Thanks. I try to keep up with research on optimal exercise regimes. I downloaded this one from the library.
Click to expand...
It is a pretty good book. Some of it gets a little silly in tone but it covers a lot of history and recent research on a wide variety of health matters. Worth a read.

I am currently reading Atul Gwande's Being Mortal, which is the subject of it's own thread here. Excellent book.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

S
Scott Burns' own story
Replies
3
Views
3K
haha
haha

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom