Reading “inspirational” books from the pre-war era tends to be a dicey proposition. The interceding 70 years, especially the 60s and 70s, pushed self-help into a whole new level, making these early books  foundations and therefore relatively simple. Think and Grow Rich has some concrete specifics and does a fairly good job of presenting the idea of subjective reality. At the time same time, you have to get through the “remarkable” anecdotes of men who put the author’s vision into action and became successful and wealthy.

8 more books to go, but only a few more weeks in the year. not sure im going to make it though i am certainly going to keep on reading.

This book arrived at the office and sat quietly on a shelf as I ignored it for glossier reading over the summer. I could read this or I could read blissfully short Animal Farm. I could read this or I could read InStyle. I could read this or I could read that sign on the Metro on how to get a degree by mail. Again. See where I’m going with this?

 

Fall came, though, and Fall is a time of serious books. (And often legwarmers, which I do not recommend for anyone over the age of 12 not in a ballerina outfit, much less erudite and academic authors.) It was time to dust Beyond the J-Curve: Managing a Portfolio of Venture Capital and Private Equity off and plow through chapters with graphs and charts and suspicious-looking formulas. Lo and behold, it was readable! And occasionally entertaining! And very enlightening about the mysterious “institutional investor” portion of the private equity triangle.

Your standard “for Dummies” book on how to buy a house. Clear, easy to read, not too detailed but I never felt like anything was underexplained either. I already knew a little about preparing for buying a house, but this laid out exactly how much work it really is.

me: i have to stop reading books that self-describe as “tragic” and “epic”
me: because it really means “depressing” and “long”
[smash]: you should watch full metal jacket instead!
db: (giggles)
bug: stick to short stories
bug: while sometimes tragic, they are rarely epic

Acts of Faith. The complaints against this book–it’s depressing (tragic) and long (epic). As noted in a number of reviews, it drones on and on and on in places. The women, as a whole, are poorly written and the dialogue is wrong/overdone/caricaturized. The plusses, however, outweigh the minuses and the book is a fairly definitive book on the complexity of morality on a continent that for so long has had to choose between what is necessary and what is not, rather than between what is right and what is wrong. A worthy read from A Rumor of War author Philip Caputo, though, as many have pointed out, would have been better as a non-fiction from the same author.

I have to admit that I’m profoundly embarrassed to have succumbed to the book publisher’s ploy of appealing to my financially-focused (ed. originally said greedy, but see traits #5 & 6 below) side and bought Secrets of Six-Figure Women. This, however, speaks to the book’s topic–how financially successful women approach money in a way that financially unsuccessful women do not. (Hint: They aren’t embarrassed to admit they occasionally need help, support, and guidance when it comes to the fruits of their labor.)

The book is an interesting mix of self-help, interviews with successful women, and personal disclosure from author Barbara Stanny, an EF Hutton heiress who lost her trust fund at the hands of an unscrupulous husband and managed to become a six-figure author. Stanny points out that it’s not, in fact, the amount that you are paid, but rather the determination to be paid what you’re worth that matters. While I gained a lot of intangible benefit from attending business school, I probably would have gained even more just by reading this book before I went. Or before that even.

Not only had I shortchanged myself financially based on a myth I held as fact, but even worse, I denied myself the satisfaction of seeing tangible rewards from personal achievement and the deep sense of security that you can only get from being genuinely self-reliant.

If you think, suspect, or know you’re an underearner (yo! represent!) and you’re not quite ready to totally ‘fess up, you should at least read through the descriptions of the Nine Traits of Underearning on page 52 before you put the book back on the shelf:

1. High tolerance for low pay
2. Underestimating your worth
3. Willing to work for free
4. Are a lousy negotiator
5. Practice reverse snobbery
6. Believe in the nobility of poverty
7. Be a self-saboteur*
8. Be unequivocally codependent
9. Live in financial chaos

*This is my biggest fault–the constant moving? Check. Switching jobs frequently? Check. Stopping short before reaching important goals? Check.

While the book’s editors could have been a bit more heavy-handed and the financial investment information in the back isn’t particularly helpful, I’m glad I read this.

As one the books in Penguin’s (very pretty) Great Ideas series, Henry David Thoreau’s Where I Lived, and What I Lived For was a refreshing philosophical treat at a time when I was contemplating how I am choosing to go about my life. The book contains three essays that are a part of Thoreau’s Walden, an exploration of “his solitary and self-sufficient home in the New England woods”. While I liked being able to read the book while waiting for the bus or on the Metro, the three essays contained in the book are also widely available online:

1. Economy
2. Where I Lived, and What I Lived For
3. Winter Animals

Some pertinent quotes:

Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.

While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them.

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.

I am reading Henry David Thoreau’s essay on Economy, which serves as the first chapter of Walden. Given its old-timeyness and Thoreau’s way with words, there is some new vocabulary for the modern reader:

obtrude: push out: push to thrust outward

fain: disposed(p): having made preparations; “prepared to take risks”

integument: A natural outer covering or coat, such as the skin of an animal or the membrane enclosing an organ.

consanguinity: Genetic relationship. Consanguineous individuals have at least one common ancestor in the preceding few generations.

suent: Uniformly or evenly distributed or spread; even; smooth.

dissipated: debauched: unrestrained by convention or morality. Intemperate in the pursuit of pleasure; dissolute. Wasted or squandered. Irreversibly lost. “Congreve draws a debauched aristocratic society”; “deplorably dissipated and degraded”; “riotous living”; “fast women”

publicans: Chiefly British. The keeper of a public house or tavern. A collector of public taxes or tolls in the ancient Roman Empire.

Sardanapalus: Ashurbanipal, or Assurbanipal, (reigned 668 – 627 BCE), the son of Esarhaddon and Naqi’a-Zakutu, was the last great king of ancient Assyria. He is famous as one of the few kings who could himself read and write, noted for his luxury and voluptuousness. A Sardanapalus is any luxurious, extravagant, self-willed tyrant.

tenon: A projection on the end of a piece of wood shaped for insertion into a mortise to make a joint.

aguish: affected by ague (ague: a fit of shivering or shaking)