Useful Concept - books

24 HR Reading Marathon

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:50:00 -0400

A friend of mine has created a fun event to promote reading. It is a read-a-thon!

Independent bookstores across the country are invited to have a 24-hour reading marathon this October. It started last year at a local bookstore and has taken off this year to include many other bookstores across the country. In fact they are now getting some media attention, which is pretty darn cool.

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An American Hedge Fund Review

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 19:06:00 -0400

A few months back Timothy Sykes contacted me about a new book he was writing. An American Hedge Fund: How I made $2 Million as a Stock Operator & Created a Hedge Fund. It was on the Hedge Fund industry and his experiences making lots of money in the stock market. I got a chance to read the book, though I honestly wasn't expecting much. He is a new author and usually these kinds of books are self serving and repetitive. See my other book reviews for best sellers that I consider trash. Instead this book read quite well. And every book is just a bit self serving. :-)

What I thought was going to be an instruction manual on how you too can make millions of dollars with scheme xyz turned out to be a story about a young man still in High School learning about trading stocks, doing it at the right time with the right attitude (sometimes) and doing quite well. It chronicles his life in college, his silly mistakes, ego trips, and experiences with the media.

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Why we want you to be Rich - Review

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 12:19:00 -0400

Why We Want You to Be Rich is a book written by Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki. Most people know Donald Trump by now, either from his TrumpTowers or the Apprentice TV show. Robert Kiyosaki has other books out in a series called Rich Dad Poor Dad.

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Freakonomics Review

Wed, 22 Feb 2006 22:47:00 -0400

My Freakonomics Review:

On a trip to NYC for a conference I picked up a potentially interesting book called Freakonomics. It is subtitled "A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything". How can you go wrong with that?

The good points:

It was quick read. Perfect for a short trip.
It has some interesting things to say.
It has a fun name

Bad points:

Authored by two people, and it reads like it
EVERY chapter has a page dedicated to telling us about how popular and smart the authors are. Name dropping, school dropping, interviews, etc. It was as if they needed to convince me they were smart and worthy. It was distasteful and I just ignored it about 1/3 of the way through.
There are many assumptions made, which detracts from any kind of point they were making.
they never made any kind of point beyond some fun stories.
The stories were repeated.
The book is really a couple essays. They then added lots of filler to make it a short book.
The entire last chapter had been put in for no reason that I can disern. What the hell does a persons name have to do with anything? There was nothing to be gained from any of that chapter at all. Except that the obvious isn't realy always obviously obvious, but ultimatly still obvious. Sigh.

The bottom line... it is worth borrowing from a friend for an hour while traveling, and skipping the repeated parts just for some parts that are in fact thought provoking or entertaining. Don't take it seriously. And don't pay $25 for it. Don't even pay $10.

This book isn't quite as bad as other so called best sellers such as Who Moved my Cheese. I can't tell you how angry and used I felt after reading that book in under an hour and feeling like I had read a book to a 3 year old on a basic basic principle. Summary: adapt your way of thinking when you need to.

Update: Who the hell buys these books? How can they be best sellers? I want to shake my fist at someone but am at a loss as to who. I for one will not buy another book like this without reading the first, middle and last chapter. If they are exactly the same, then move on. If i cna read all three faster than I wrote this blog entry, move along.