The Miracle at Speedy Motors

The Miracle at Speedy Motors: The New Novel in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Series
by Alexander Mccall Smith (Author)

In the latest installment of this infinitely enjoyable and best-selling series, Precious Ramotswe is doing what she does best--helping people with their problems and enjoying the simple pleasures of life.

Mma Ramotswe is busy investigating her latest case: a woman who is looking for her family. The problem is, the woman doesn't know her real name of whether any members of her family are now living. Meanwhile, Phuti Radiphuti has bought Mma Makutsi a glorious new bed. Unfortunately, it will inadvertently cause her several sleepless nights. And life is no less complicated at Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, where Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni--Mma Ramotswe's estimable husband--has fallen under the sway of a doctor who has promised a miracle cure for his daughter's medical condition, which Mma Ramotswe finds hard to believe. But Precious Ramotswe deals with these difficulties with her usual grace and good humor, and in the end discovers that the biggest miracles in life are often the small ones.

Unconventional Success

Unconventional Success: A Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment
by David F. Swensen (Author)

"Unconventional success" should be convential. The concepts of it, that is. But, with greedy mutual fund companies soaking millions of dollars out of millions of pockets, it isn't the case, and it won't be the case in the future.

I do agree that the far majority of mutual funds are not good.

This book will be most helpful to folks who understand the basics of mutual funds already. David Swenson has beaten the market consistently over the long-term. This gives him credibility that many others in finance lack. Also applicable is his lack of conflicting interests. This said, I still read everything with extreme caution. The Layman Effect.

Today there are over 12,000 mutual funds. Many cannot even beat the S & P 500. David Swenson has beaten it for twenty years. Swenson notes the mutual fund industry and its false advertising, hidden fees, and skewed statistics on past performance, which is often the primary pitch for present buyers.

Some points Swenson noted was that mutual fund companies are accountable - surprise - to shareholders. It's also a fact that funds with higher costs are highly correlated to poorer performance.

Mutual funds run by managers charge high fees. The Funds sold by stockbrokers charge even more. Add managers buying and selling stocks at a rapid turnover, which runs up the fund's brokerage expenses, and cost to investors. The median cost to investors in 2002 was 2.35 percent. What is forgotten? The upfront commission a broker may charge. These costs significantly eat into investment returns.

Sticking to the ole' fundamentals, the most important and easiest step, is to obtain info. and stats compared to a fund's index.

Swenson's major point of advice is to invest through non-profit companies. He mentions a well-known and consistent one.

These funds that are non-profit companies that focus on index funds consistently beat out other funds. This is obvious for tax reasons also, but Swenson also advises to put deferred (retirement) investments into these funds, allocating a particular percentage to U.S. stock, total international, real estate
and Treasury Bonds.

Important to note is that Swenson has so much experience and knowledge that us "laymen" can just cover the basics of his advice, especially when looking at the ways to hedge, yet also gain. The concept of "rebalancing" may make many laymen nervous.

This book can help people. With so many people in mutuals and 401Ks, people need all the help and education they can get.

The Spontaneous Healing of Belief

The Spontaneous Healing of Belief: Shattering the Paradigm of False Limits
by Gregg Braden (Author)

What would it mean to discover that everything from the DNA of life, to the future of our world, is based upon a simple Reality Code—one that we can change and upgrade by choice? New revelations in physics and biology suggest that we’re about to find out!

A growing body of scientific evidence suggests that our universe works like a Consciousness Computer. Rather than the number codes of typical software, our Consciousness Computer uses a language that we all have, yet are only beginning to understand. Life’s reality code is based in the language of human emotion and focused belief. Knowing that belief is our reality-maker, the way we think of ourselves and our world is now more important than ever!
For us to change the beliefs that have led to war, disease, and the failed careers and relationships of our past we need a reason to see things differently. Our ancestors used miracles to change what they believed. Today we use science.

The Spontaneous Healing of Belief offers us both: the miracles that open the door to a powerful new way of seeing the world, and the science that tells us why the miracles are possible, revealing: why we are not limited by the “laws” of physics and biology as we know them today
Once we become aware of the paradigm-shattering discoveries and true-life miracles, we must think of ourselves differently. And that difference is where the spontaneous healing of belief begins.

Home

Home: A Memoir of My Early Years
by Julie Andrews (Author)

Since her first appearance on screen in Mary Poppins, Julie Andrews has played a series of memorable roles that have endeared her to generations. But she has never told the story of her life before fame. Until now.

In Home: A Memoir of My Early Years, Julie takes her readers on a warm, moving, and often humorous journey from a difficult upbringing in war-torn Britain to the brink of international stardom in America. Her memoir begins in 1935, when Julie was born to an aspiring vaudevillian mother and a teacher father, and takes readers to 1962, when Walt Disney himself saw her on Broadway and cast her as the world's most famous nanny.

Along the way, she weathered the London Blitz of World War II; her parents' painful divorce; her mother's turbulent second marriage to Canadian tenor Ted Andrews, and a childhood spent on radio, in music halls, and giving concert performances all over England. Julie's professional career began at the age of twelve, and in 1948 she became the youngest solo performer ever to participate in a Royal Command Performance before the Queen. When only eighteen, she left home for the United States to make her Broadway debut in The Boy Friend, and thus began her meteoric rise to stardom.

Home is filled with numerous anecdotes, including stories of performing in My Fair Lady with Rex Harrison on Broadway and in the West End, and in Camelot with Richard Burton on Broadway; her first marriage to famed set and costume designer Tony Walton, culminating with the birth of their daughter, Emma; and the call from Hollywood and what lay beyond.

Julie Andrews' career has flourished over seven decades. From her legendary Broadway performances, to her roles in such iconic films as The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Hawaii, 10, and The Princess Diaries, to her award-winning television appearances, multiple album releases, concert tours, international humanitarian work, best-selling children's books, and championship of literacy, Julie's influence spans generations. Today, she lives with her husband of thirty-eight years, the acclaimed writer/director Blake Edwards; they have five children and seven grandchildren.

Featuring over fifty personal photos, many never before seen, this is the personal memoir Julie Andrews' audiences have been waiting for.

The Bin Ladens

The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century
by Steve Coll (Author)

n While America Aged, bestselling author Roger Lowenstein explains how corporations and governments ran up ruinous pension and health-care promises to workers—promises that are now coming due and that will hit America like a tsunami if nothing is done.

Negotiating high benefits means gambling with future finances—and when the farm gets sold out from underneath major corporations or public institutions, it affects all of us, and in ways we might not imagine. With his trademark narrative panache, Lowenstein unravels the truth about how pensions work in America and illuminates the impending crisis. While America Aged is comprised of three fascinating case studies— each an object lesson and a compelling historical saga. The first goes back to the early days of the United Auto Workers and its crusading leader, Walter Reuther, to tell the story of how pensions and health-care obligations destroyed the American auto industry, in particular General Motors.

The Bin ladens, Lowenstein then shifts the scene to New York City to tell the story of the rise of public pensions and public sector unions through the vehicle of the Communist-led Transport Workers Union. Once again, justifiable benefits were followed by outrageous ones, such as the right to retire at age fifty. The saga reached a dramatic climax in 2005, when workers responded to proposed pension cutbacks with a massive strike that brought New York’s subways and buses to a screeching halt days before Christmas.

In the concluding episode, Lowenstein visits a metropolis even more reckless in doling out benefits—San Diego. Desperate not to impose higher taxes, city officials in this highly conservative enclave cut a series of deals with unions to short-change the retirement system and use pension funds to run the city. A massive scandal ensued—two mayors resigned, officials were indicted, and San Diego lost its bond rating. Lowenstein warns that the pension wars that erupted in Detroit, New York City, and San Diego are only the first. But he also recognizes that workers are entitled to decent security in their retirement—a critical problem as the country ages. While America Aged explains how we came to this crisis, and it also proposes a way out. Arming readers with knowledge of the consequences of doing nothing, While America Aged, first and foremost, a call to action.

Beautiful Boy

Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Meth Addiction
by David Sheff (Author)

A father's description of his son's battle with drug addiction. It is so well written that it is a page-turning narrative even if you are not involved, personally or professionally, with drug addiction. It is moving and insightful and will be helpful to many.
I feel bad about making any reservations about such a magnificent book, and I wouldn't want to be construed as advocating legalization or minimizing the problems addressed but some comments are in order.

Beautiful Boy's the introduction includes poignant stories of parents whose children have lost their lives to drugs. The lethality, the danger of death, does vary with different drugs. (Naltrexone is not mentioned). In most cases this is a chronic rather than an acutely life-threatening disease. There is some disconnect between the danger to life and the adverse effects on behavior and character. Nick's drug of choice was methamphetamine but he was a multiple user, including shooting heroin.

Detox regimes for different drugs differ markedly. There are accepted medical detox regimes for alcohol and heroin, whereas with cocaine and crystal meth and club drugs the withdrawal is just cold turkey. Paradoxically we have a lot of scientific knowledge about the action of these drugs but little in the way of treatment has come out of the neuroscience.
The book places some emphasis on marihuana as a gateway drug. No mention is made of the use of amphetamines (disguised as Ritalin, Cnncerta, Focalin, Adderall etc) to treat ADHD.

As regards the moral issue, I think Sally Satin's logic is impeccable; the brain imaging studies show results not causes. On the other hand there is clinical evidence for a disease concept. Some people get jittery and have an unpleasant sensation if they take amphetamines; some get nauseated and cannot even tolerate taking Percocet for a toothache. Such people are not likely to become addicts, but that seems to be due to some chemical factor, perhaps inherited, not because they are nicer or wiser than anyone else.

A New Earth

A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose
by Eckhart Tolle (Author)

The highly anticipated follow-up to the 2,000,000 copy bestselling inspirational book, The Power of Now
With his bestselling spiritual guide The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle inspired millions of readers to discover the freedom and joy of a life lived "in the now." In A New Earth, Tolle expands on these powerful ideas to show how transcending our ego-based state of consciousness is not only essential to personal happiness, but also the key to ending conflict and suffering throughout the world. Tolle describes how our attachment to the ego creates the dysfunction that leads to anger, jealousy, and unhappiness, and shows readers how to awaken to a new state of consciousness and follow the path to a truly fulfilling existence.

The Power of Now was a question-and-answer handbook. A New Earth has been written as a traditional narrative, offering anecdotes and philosophies in a way that is accessible to all. Illuminating, enlightening, and uplifting, A New Earth is a profoundly spiritual manifesto for a better way of life—and for building a better world.

Within about 5 minutes of opening A New Earth (at the pain-body chapter) I was in ecstasy. Why? I already know all this stuff. I even teach it. What is it about Eckhart and his writing style that is so unusual?

I first read the Power of Now when it came out. I dismissed it as another fairly good book, but not such a big deal. In retrospect, I didn't really want it to be as good, or him to be as successful, as it was and he was. Some kind of sibling rivalry.

Then I went through something in my life that was so difficult that I found myself grabbing the book off the shelf, and taking it everywhere with me for quite a while. The only other book that I suddenly "knew" I MUST read was Byron Katie's book Loving What Is, toward which I had projected a similar kind of attitude. Now these two books were my saving grace, not just because of what they say, but because of the authenticity of the voice of the people saying it.

There is something about Eckhart that is very powerful and beautiful -- at least when you are looking for a connection to higher consciousness. I have found this book to be very clear and in many ways better than The Power of Now, because it goes into greater detail about the emotional ramifications of both enlightenment and identification with the ego, and also explains and unravels the pain-body more deeply. Most books about enlightenment consider all this just something to transcend, which makes the whole process very dualistic.