Archive for the 'Book Reviews' Category
Friday, January 6th, 2006
The Number by Lee Eisenberg was generously provided to me by the book’s publisher. It sounded neat, so I agreed to read it and review it.
The Number, as you may have guessed, stands for the specific amount of money that people have in their mind that they need to retire on. For example, a person may say “Once I get $1 million saved up, that’s it. I’m off to the golf course forever.” You may think, as I did, that this book is about how to deduce your Number and how to invest to achieve it. We’d both be wrong. I kept reading and reading, looking for financial enlightenment, only to be left wanting.
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Thursday, January 5th, 2006
Some of you may have noticed that several blogs are reviewing the same books at the same time. No, we have not joined some Oprah book club. We are getting these books for free from the publisher’s PR firms. Does this mean you’ll get biased reviews? Nah. I’ve never gotten anything but a free book, which I hope is not enough to swing anyone. I’m pretty sure all those movie critics get to see movies for free too. Now, if they offered free trips to Hawaii…
My new bright idea is to give away every book I get for free to a reader. The only book I’ve gotten for free from the publisher so far is Free Gulliver - Six Swift Lessons in Life Planning. So just leave a comment with your e-mail if you want a chance at my copy of Free Gulliver sent to you for free! And be on the lookout for more free books!
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Tuesday, January 3rd, 2006
I’ve got several book reviews I plan to post up soon, so I’ve been feeling the need to come up with some sort of book rating system. I tried to think of something creative, but I stuck to a boring but simple 4-star system.
- Disappointing, don’t bother reading it.
- Some useful info, but not really worth the time reading it.
- The time and money spent reading it was worth it.
- I would recommend everyone to read this book, it is a permanent part of my library.
Please remember that all these reviews are my own personal opinion. I don’t expect everyone else to agree. I have my biases, which if you read my blog you’ll know. Anyhow, here are my retroactive ratings for previously reviewed books (click for my more detailed review):
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Monday, November 14th, 2005
Like I’ve mentioned, I’m a bit weary of personal finance/retirement books at the moment, and more in the business ideas mood. So when I came across this book I had to read it. Titled The eBay Millionare: Titanium PowerSeller Secrets for Building a Big Online Business, it profiles 25 of the biggest sellers on eBay. Titanium Powersellers are those than have more than $150,000 in gross sales each month (Example: GlacierBayDVD). Umm… I was a Silver Powerseller for about 3 months ($3k/mo)… As you can imagine, these guys are not just cleaning out their garages. They have 10,000 square foot warehouses, several employees, and multiple suppliers. But they virtually all started out with just one or two people and an idea.
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Saturday, September 17th, 2005
I grew weary of my real estate textbook, so I picked up Freakonomics at the obligatory overpriced airport bookstore. You may have heard of this book as the one that suggests that the legalization of abortion is the main cause of recent decreases in violent crime. In short, this books tries to apply the math of economics to issues like crime, cheating, and parenting. It’s is co-written by an Economics Ph.D., and a New York Times writer. The NYT writer imparts a very strong “dumbed-down” flavor to the book, and as such the book reads like a newspaper article with a lot of sensationalization.
Still, the book was a fast read and mostly entertaining. It boils down economics to it’s basic idea: what do people do to get what they want? But it goes beyond supply and demand. For example, the book talks about real estate agents. It’s commonly known that the commission on a house is 6%. So on a $300,000 house that’d be $18,000. Sounds like a lot of money right? You’d think it would be a good incentive for your agent to sell your house for as much as possible. But wait.
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Thursday, July 28th, 2005
First, let me say that I used to find the Suze Orman Show really annoying. I guess the main thing was her habit of asking a question, and then say “Now, you say XXX, but what you REALLY mean is XXX? Now let me guess, your husband/wife/lover actually does XXX”. Inevitably, the caller agrees with her, calls her a genius, and promises to do better. Yay Suze.
So, it took me a while to want to read The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous & Broke. Actually, it took the library a while to lend me this book. I was like #88 on the waiting list or something. Then two weeks ago I was notified that it was being held for me. Yay for libraries with online hold systems.
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Thursday, July 7th, 2005
I’ve been putting off reading Automatic Millionaire by David Bach, mainly because I wouldn’t have gotten it unless it was free since it struck me as a pretty simplified investment book. I wasn’t wrong. It’s pretty fluffy. That isn’t to say it’s not right for anyone, I just don’t think I was the target audience.
The basic premise is as I predicted: Pay yourself first (say, 10%), automatically. Do this via automatic payroll deductions for 401ks, IRAs, or regular taxable savings account, before you even get your paycheck. The idea is that you won’t be able to spend what you don’t get, and it’s too much trouble (or you’re too lazy) to write a check or make a transfer every month to a savings account. Okay. Fine. This is probably true for many people. So how is this book 200+ pages long?
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Sunday, June 19th, 2005
At first, this book sounded like another Rich Dad Poor Dad-style vague-finance-tips-rehash. But as I read more about it, it really intrigued me. As is mentioned directly in the title, Free Gulliver by Tripp Friedler is more life planning than necessarily financial planning. There is very little emphasis on how much you need to retire, or exactly what you should invest in. In fact, instead of trying to scare you into saving by talking about how destitute you might be when you retire, he suggests that if you are truly happy in what you are doing - why retire? I guess this is to suggest that some people are suffering and stressing out too much now, simply in order to retire to some magical place sometime in the future.
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Sunday, May 8th, 2005
Ok, so The Informed Investor by Frank Armstrong III has been sitting on my nightstand, often being overlooked for my Car & Driver magazine for a couple months now. Not because it is a bad book, but mostly because all the money I plan on investing for now in stocks and bonds is already invested, and because the book covers a lot of stuff that I’ve already read about in books like The Four Pillars of Investing and A Random Walk Down Walk Street. Accordingly, this book is aimed at the general non-financial public who is wondering on how to invest their retirement money.
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Friday, April 8th, 2005
I wasn’t the biggest fan of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, but I still decided to read this book, Rich Dad’s Guide to Investing by Robert Kiyosaki, for a couple of reasons. First, I have some friends that are real Rich Dad proponents and have bought their Cashflow 101 board game and actually own investment property now. Second, it was available at the library so I didn’t have to buy it. Rich Dad’s Guide to Investing is actually the third book in the series, Cashflow Quadrant was the second. But that was checked out, so oh well, maybe next time.
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Friday, March 11th, 2005
I’ve heard a lot of people recommending this book, so I picked up a copy of The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason at the library. It’s been out a while, so chances are there is a copy out there, or try getting a copy used. The book is compact, and my edition was only 144 pages long.
Overall, the book was more inspirational than educational, much in the same vein as Rich Dad, Poor Dad. It is told as a set of Babylonian short stories, with Old English writing style including phrases like “Which desirest thou the most?”. Truth be told, it got a bit annoying after a while. However, there were some good rules set out in the book, which include “start thy purse to fattening”, “control thy expenditures”, “make thy gold multiply”, and “make thy dwelling a profitable investment”.
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Thursday, January 20th, 2005
I just got this in the mail recently and finally got a chance to read through it. It’s titled “Investing Essentials”, by Kenneth Morris and Virginia Morris. It’s actually barely a book, more like a pamphlet (20 pages long including glossary). It looks like a condensed version of Wall Street Journal Guide to Understanding Money and Investing, by the same authors.
From the cover it is:
“An easy-to-understand, easy-to-use primer that helps to take the mystery out of mutual funds, stocks, diversification, risk/return, liquidity, and tracking performance.”
I’d say that pretty much sums it up. If you are already familiar with the basics, this won’t be of much interest. It would probably be great for the beginning investor or a teenager interested in the markets. Either way, it’s free from Fidelity, just click here and fill out the form. No purchase or account with Fidelity required. Give it as a gift? I’m not sure when I filled it out so I can’t say how fast it comes, but it does come.
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Tuesday, January 18th, 2005
It only took me two days to read Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki & Sharon Lechter, as it is relatively short and an easy read. And Kiyosaki likes to say things over and over… and over. This supposedly non-fiction book deals with the conflicting teachings of his “Poor Dad”, his real educated paycheck-to-paycheck father, and his “Rich Dad”, a middle-school drop-out who is a millionaire. There are two basic themes that I got out of the book, after wading through the hokey stories:
1) People need to learn “financial literacy” more than book learning taught at school. I can agree that money matters are not taught in school nearly enough, but I’m certainly glad I went to ninth grade.
2) You should buy assets, not liabilities. Assets, such as real estate (especially real estate), stocks, and bonds, make you money. Liabilities, such as your house, car, gadgets, take away your money. This is probably the one thing to get out of this book, perhaps minus the real estate focus.
He includes very many vague stories about buying real estate properties for cheap with little or no money down and flipping them for great profits. Or investing in start-ups with great results. Many of these stories have been investigated with little proof found to support them. Overall, I see the book is more of an inspirational book on entrepreneurialism (is that a word?). Basically, try to think outside the box, and invest your money in something that grow instead of letting it sit in a bank account or spending it on that nice car. He just makes it sound way too easy to become a millionaire, just like any infomercial you see at 2am in the morning. Also, the book plugs expensive ‘get-rich’ seminars and his Cashflow game way too much.
Still, if the book gets your off your ass and thinking about making yourself some money, it’ll be worth the ten bucks and two days of reading during football commercials.
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Wednesday, January 12th, 2005
It took me a bit longer than I thought, but I finally wrapped up Common Sense on Mutual Funds by John C. Bogle. Overall, I liked the book, but not as much as some of the others I have read. The first three Parts have to do with Investment Strategy, Choices, and Performance. Basically, costs are most important, you can’t beat the market on average, and Indexing is best. This part of the book was so-so, it wasn’t superbly organized. I felt like The Four Pillar of Investing did a much better job presenting Indexing as the best approach to long-term investing, with A Random Walk Down Wall Street a close second and a better overall primer.
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Sunday, December 26th, 2004
While A Random Walk Down Wall Street was more of a primer on investing in general, The Four Pillars of Investing by William Bernstein focuses on forming your portfolio. The four pillars are investment theory, history, psychology, and finally investment business.
The book uses statistics and research to support it’s conclusions, which are (briefly and in my opinion) that:
1) Markets go up and down, but timing it is hard if not impossible, and any success one may have is basically luck.
2) As risk increases, so does the return. (Ex. Small-cap stocks vs. Large-cap stocks.)
3) Yes, many actively-managed mutuals fund beat the market every year, but there is no way that you could pick them ahead of time. This year’s winners are just as likely to be next year’s losers. Stick with index funds with the risk-return profile that you desire.
4) The stockbroker makes most of his money on commissions and spreads. Mutual fund companies are similar.
5) Proper diversification in low-expense ratio products can bring you the best chance to keep your money and make it grow.
The book is pretty easy to read, with minimal math. I also briefly browsed Bernstein’s previous book, The Intelligent Asset Allocator, which has a similar focus but is very heavy in the math department. I’d read this book first and see if you thirst for the mathematical underpinnings. I didn’t. I’m forming my asset allocation now and will post it soon.
Overall Rating: (ratings explained)
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