New Book Review: My First "One Bar" Rating

New Book Review: I hate to give bad reviews to a book, but you need to be warned. I added this, my first "one star" rating, to www.platinumyears.net today:

Leap!: What Will We Do with the Rest of Our Lives?, by Sara Davidson - When I first envisioned a book review section for this site, I thought it would be cool to give ratings from one to five, and use platinum bars rather than the usual stars. But then I started arguing with myself (don't you ever do that?), reasoning that I'd never use the "one bar" rating because I wouldn't waste the time reading such drivel.


Well I was wrong. Leap earns my very first, and I hope last, one bar rating. Do not waste time or money on this book. Where do I begin to tell you why? Well, for starters, the title itself is false advertising, for it doesn't even attempt to answer the question of "what will we do with the rest of our lives," which is what duped me into attempting to read it in the first place. The sub-sub-title, "Reflections from the Boomer Generation," is much more accurate.


As all the bios tell you, thirty years ago, Sara Davidson wrote the bestseller Loose Change, which tracked the travels of three '60s Berkeley radicals. It is apparent, from her interviews, that she has never really left either the Berkeley/Hollywood culture or the 60's mentality. Her chapter titles employ cute 60's song titles like "19th Nervous Breakdown," and "The Long and Winding Road." There are lots of interviews with Hollywood-types and hangers-on, some of whom by the way, liberally employ the "F-Bomb," which I can live with, I guess, when a person is saying something worthwhile... but they're not.


The other reason I'm including Leap among my book reviews is that it is a good example of how the Amazon "star" rating system can throw you off... because a lot of people looooved this book, giving it five stars, and if you don't read what they're saying, and go by the overall "star" rating, or the fact that it's being advertised through AARP publications, you might be enticed to buy it. At least promise me you'll read the "one star" reviews as well... they're very entertaining... and if you still buy it, don't say I didn't warn you.


Note to Self: When Platinum Living comes out, make sure to get a bunch of your friends to write five star reviews.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Benefits of Delaying Social Security

I occasionally plow through dreary assessments of how little we boomers are inclined to save and the risks that creates with our retirement prospects…. I do this reading for you, so you won’t have to :-) Occasionally a gem of wisdom will pop out, making it all worthwhile. And those, of course I will pass along. So from an Economic and Budget Issue Brief from the Congressional Budget Office, dated March 14, 2004, entitled “The Retirement Prospects of the Baby Boomers,” comes an excellent and concise summary from a section entitled “The Effects of Delaying Retirement”: "For households facing shortfalls in their retirement savings, relatively small changes in behavior can have surprisingly large effects. Because people who retire at 62 can expect to live another 20 years, each year they postpone retirement reduces their need for retirement savings by about 5 percent. An extra year of work also increases their Social Security benefits by several percent. Taken together, those effects
Read more

What if We SAVED Our "Stimulus Package" Checks?

Yesterday, I gave you a little Self Scoring "Financial Discipline Quiz" about what to do with your potential "Stimulus Package" check. Today, I'm feeling a little unpatriotic for that post, even though I'm convinced that my not so subtle nudge towards reducing your debt is solid advice. But obviously, if everyone with consumer debt took that advice, there wouldn't be much "economic stimulus," now, would there? Now I'm sure that if the President or members of Congress developed a scoring system for my quiz, the methodology would be the exact opposite, with credit going only to those who SPEND their checks. And realistically, I have no doubt that more Americans will follow their desires than my advice... but that doesn't make it right. America as a country has a miniscule savings rate - by some measures negative - especially when compared to other countries. I recently read the following on the Business Week website : "Americans
Read more

Pay Back Your Social Security
It Could Be the Best Annuity You Could Buy

The above title was the original title of yesterday's post , which later became " Social Security Decisions: Important But Not Irrevocable - You Have Much More Flexibility Than You May Think ." I actually posted it with the "Annuity" title above, but after sleeping on it overnight, I realized that yesterday's article was really about flexibility, an important issue in its own right. I have written before about flexibility. The general rule is, "Given two equally attractive decisions, always choose the one that is more "reversible," (i.e. allows you to change your mind later) Flexibilty is a key element in any personal financial decision, and retirement decisions are no exception. In fact, I think flexibility becomes MORE important as you get older, as youre "wiggle room" for creating alternatives diminishes the older you get. And I wrote on this before, in my original article, " Don't Do It ," as a major reason why
Read more