Progress, or lack thereof, and some new personal finance books

Not a lot of time for reading/blogging this week. I was putting together The Mercury's annual Progress section spotlighting area business accomplishments. Look for it online at www.pottsmerc.com/business or in print this Sunday, Feb. 28.

Stories for the 12-page section were written by each of the Merc's three in-house reporters, me, and one stringer. Their four stories are all great reads, but I'm gonna tell you about mine:

I wrote about Limerick residents Doug and Deb Campbell. They faced the challenge of their professional and personal lives in September 2008, when their Pottstown properties burned to the ground after an accidental fire was set (kids playing with matches was the unofficial ruling). Luckily, none of their 54 tenants were killed in the fire. A few were injured jumping off the roof of the three-story structures to safety, as were some area firefighters hurt in the line of duty.

The Campbells decided to rebuild; their new buildings literally rose from the ashes. Once they went through the often frustrating process of getting all the necessary permits lined up, they started to rebuild in August 2009. This March, they will open up the newly rebuilt High Street Rentals at 538 and 540 E. High St.

Their story is just one of those to be featured in our special section. Please check it out.

But if, in the meantime, you were just itching for some personal finance book news, below is the AP's personal finance Bookshelf feature. Enjoy.

Date: 2/26/2010 10:33 AM
New titles cover personal finance from all angles

By The Associated Press

Financial well-being can be reached from a variety of paths. Several are charted out by money experts in new personal finance books.

In "One Year to an Organized Financial Life," the message to readers is to get off your assets and put your financial life in order, month by month, topic by topic. Organization, then, is the way to success.
The second title, "Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is," follows a more inspirational strategy en route to "portfolio peace of mind."
An alternative way of approaching things gets explored in "The Money Book for Freelancers, Part-Timers, and the Self-Employed." Its target audience may have no choice but to march to a different personal finance drummer in what the authors characterize as a world of mass layoffs and ever-shrinking benefits.

Here's a look at the new titles:

TITLE: One Year to an Organized Financial Life
AUTHOR: Regina Leeds with Russell Wild
PRICE: $16.95 (paperback)

SUMMARY: The Los Angeles-based Leeds, who dubs herself the "Zen Organizer," takes on finances in her third "One Year" book. Her overarching premise is that when things are in order, you'll feel calmer and more inspired.
To help put readers' financial lives in order, Leeds brings in Wild, a financial adviser with a few books of his own. But this book isn't about how to invest or where to stash cash; it's about taking control.

Leeds offers a month-by-month approach written in simple, straightforward language that begins with understanding your relationship with money and moves to decluttering your wallet, briefcase and office space. She offers a schedule for making sense of different topics, from bills to spending, taxes, credit cards and retirement accounts.
There's a chapter for kids and money, and one on controlling holiday spending. And while the book is set up like the calendar, Leeds notes you can start the 12-month plan at any time.

QUOTE: "Your budget is the foundation of your financial life. Without it you might be robbing Peter — say your 401(k) — to pay Paul — perhaps that four-star vacation you just put on a credit card."

PUBLISHER: Lifelong Books (Da Capo Press)
— Eileen AJ Connelly

TITLE: Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is
AUTHOR: Sue Stevens
PRICE: $15.99 (paperback)
SUMMARY: Some personal finance books are checklists summarizing all the things you need to do to be financially sound. Others are inspirational, focusing on a right-brained approach to your money. This one is a mixture of both, as underscored by the title.
The author, a former professional cellist turned financial planner at Vanguard, Morningstar and now her own firm, takes the reader through the basics in this 168-page book. Key points about budgeting, determining net worth, retirement planning, health care concerns and estate planning all are addressed.

But her primary message throughout concerns finding financial happiness and using money to support your highest intentions — employing a personal, conversational writing style and drawing on real-life stories to make her points. Underscoring her theme, she outlines a six-step process to achieve what she calls "portfolio peace of mind."

QUOTE: "By paying attention to a few key areas, you can transform your everyday relationship with money from frustrating to inspiring. Instead of endless worry, you can create a life that you look forward to living because it reflects who you are and what is important to you."
PUBLISHER: CreateSpace
— Dave Carpenter

TITLE: The Money Book for Freelancers, Part-Timers, and the Self-Employed
AUTHOR: Joseph D'Agnese and Denise Kiernan
PRICE: $15.00 (paperback)

SUMMARY: Salaried workers often take a lot for granted when it comes to their personal finances. Taxes are automatically withheld, and insurance and retirement plans are at their disposal. For freelancers and other independent contractors the lack of a financial plan can cause tremendous problems.

Just consider the unpredictability of their income from month to month, or working with clients who pay late. "The Money Book" lays out the key issues for workers who don't have benefits. It hits on the major themes of saving regularly, planning for retirement, and managing your taxes when you, the worker, are ultimately responsible. Its conversational tone makes it easily accessible for readers who aren't inclined to read about how to crunch numbers and budget.

QUOTE: "This is a book for anyone with a job that doesn't provide benefits. It's for anyone who is trying to plan for the future on an income that varies from month to month. It's also a book for the hardworking individuals who, by no choice of their own, find themselves juggling temporary jobs to make ends meet, none of which provide the kinds of benefits that most Americans rely upon."

PUBLISHER: Three Rivers Press
— Trevor Delaney

Book-related blogs I've admired lately

1) Awful Library Books

This site takes a look at outdated library volumes and pokes fun at them. At right is their pick of the day for Wednesay, Feb. 17: "Going for it: How to Succeed as an Entrepreneur" (Victor Kiam, aka "The man who bought the company," 1986). Funny to browse through the titles they unearth, from a time when there actually was a physical card catalog.

http://awfullibrarybooks.wordpress.com/

2) Book Club Girl
Fun and quite comprehensive blog about female-friendly book club reads. Lots of book and gift cert. giveaways. Impressive event calendar. Hooked up w/ all the social media. "Book Club Girl" herself is an anonymous book reviewer.

http://www.bookclubgirl.com/book_club_girl/

3) 26 Books

This blog was started in 2006 by one guy, Shane Richmond, to help him be self-motivate to read 26 books in a year (one every other week, give or take). Richmond said he made his goal with time to spare and decided that the following year, he'd ask some friends to join him on the blog, which continues as a group effort. So one or another of these folks always has a book to write about.

(Hmmm. I guess I never counted my number of books read for the year. Right now am stuck on my book 2 for 2010, "Ghostwalk" by Rebecca Stott. Keeps putting me to sleep.)

http://www.26books.com/

4) Paper Cuts

Written by the editors of the New York Times Book Review. Good stuff by our friends at the best paper in the country, 'nuf said.

http://papercuts.blogs.nytimes.com/

5) The Book Lady's Blog

An anonymous bibliophile shares her informed and interesting book picks and offers lots of fun book giveaways.

http://thebookladysblog.com/

6) Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

I'm not really a romance novel fan, I just really like the title of this book blog.

http://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/

7) Jossey-Bass on Leadership

Wiley Books imprint delves out info on their stable of business writers, including Patrick Lencioni (whose work has been reviewed on my blog twice: "The Three Signs of a Miserable Job" and "The Three Big Questions for a Frantic Family") and who just released his latest "Getting Naked: A Business Fable About Shedding the Three Fears That Sabotage Client Loyalty."

http://josseybassonleadership.typepad.com/josseybass_on_leadership/

8) 800-CEO-READ
Another site by a company promoting its books. Well-organized, with contests in which you can win books and stuff. But yes, they are trying to get you to buy books.

http://800ceoread.com/

And last but not least:

9) The Astonishing Blog

Written by Carolyn Turgeon, author of "Rain Village" and "Godmother: The Secret Cinderella Story" (which I reviewed here). Very talented and imaginative storyteller who just happened to graduate from my high school.

http://carolynturgeon.blogspot.com/

Publisher seeks information on former Pottstown sports teams

Global Sports (www.sportsbooksempire.com), a sports reference book publisher based in Enumclaw, Wash., is seeking information on and memorabilia from the Pottstown Firebirds semi-pro football club and the Eastern Basketball League.

"What we are looking for are any original photos, programs, schedules, stickers, etc. that we can use in a project," said Global Sports Publisher Ed Kobak. "We also need any team photos and other team memorabilia such as programs, pennants, etc. and any official records that were kept. For photos and records, etc., we can accept images and would gladly offer (to pay) for any original memorabilia."

Anyone with information to share is asked to call Kobak at 310-454-9480 or e-mail him at globalnw@earthlink.net.

The latest Lisa Montgomery book signings in the area

Raw food enthusiasts/fans of Lisa Montgomery, take note:

Below is an updated book-signing schedule from Royersford resident Lisa Montgomery, author of "Raw Inspiration: Living Dynamically with Raw Food" (2009, Martin Pearl Publishing, $20, 184 pp.):

*Saturday, February 20, 2010 11 - 2, book signing/tasting - Kimberton Whole Foods, Downingtown, PA

*Saturday, March 13, 2010 - 12 - 2 Book Signing/tasting - Barnes & Noble - North Wales, PA

*Saturday, March 20 -11 - 2, Book signing, tasting - Kimberton Whole Foods - Kimberton, PA

*Saturday March 27, a.m. West Chester University - Montgomery will be a vendor (book signings/tastings) at the Integrative health Conference featuring Olivia Newton John

*Saturday, April 10 9 to 5 , Full Day Workshop - Pure Body - Douglassville

*Saturday, April 17, 11 to 2 - book signing/tasting - Kimberton Whole Foods - Kimberton, PA

To learn more, visit Montgomery's Web site,
http://www.livingdynamically.com/

Stories Yann Martel wrote before 'Life of Pi'

I listened to the audiobook version of Yann Martel's novel "Life of Pi" last summer on a 5-hour road trip to one of my favorite places to golf and swim in PA, Treasure Lake.

The story started off slow but picked up momentum as the story focused on a boy who is trapped on a small boat adrift at sea with a big tiger for many months. (Tough for that scenario not to be interesting.) Both survive, and without a doubt Martel's power of imagination is revealed through twists and unexpected turns of the suspenseful tale.

"The Facts Behind the HELSINKI ROCCAMATIOS" (1993, Harcourt Inc, 209 pp., $13 - paperback) is a collection of three stories and a novella that pre-date his Pi adventure. Curious to see what Martel would do with the short-fiction genre, I picked it up at my fave used bookstore (Gently Used Books of Douglassville).

The novella (of the same name as the collection) details a friendship between two young male college students in Toronto, one of whom learns at the tender age of 19 that he is dying of AIDS. He contracted the illness via a blood transfusion after a car wreck in a foreign country when he was 15 and doesn't start to get sick until he gets to college.

So the non-sick friend invents this epic tale for the two to create while the sick friend is convalescing. It involves an Italian family in Finland and what happens to them over the course of a century. The two friends take turns with the years.

I was curious about this fictional family, however, the novella is constructed so that we never read about the Roccomatios - only about a sort of made-up timeline that goes along with the Roccomatios' tale. That timeline's events vary by what's going on with Paul, the sick boy's, health. As his health gets worse, so do his and his friend's depictions of the events of that fictional world.

It's a couple of stories within a story, with the larger tale being the surviving friend's reaction to Paul's dying and death. The Roccomatios' story I could care less about. It was a construct for this larger, overall story. The overall effect, I think, was kind of brilliant. The novella itself, a little dull.

As for the short stories in this collection, they are memorable and also imaginative. It's clear that Martel of 17 years ago was trying out his writing chops here, before he went on to win the Booker Prize with "Pi."

One of the stories is a collection of letters from a prison warden to a mother after her son is executed. Each one is nearly identical, always about a prisoner named Kevin Barlow, detailing what he ate before being put to death, and his demeanor. Every Kevin Barlow wants something different to eat and every Kevin Barlow reacts to his impending death differently. As does the warden. Weird - and dark - story, but interesting.

Another is about an old woman who has a machine that can make mirrors using sand, silver, and a stream of memories.

The stories zipped along for me quicker than the novella. Interesting to read even if not the greatest short fiction ever (that might just be Raymond Carver, in my humble opinion).

Pictorial history book features DVD of interviews with 16 Boyertown folks

If you're interested in learning more about this Berks County town or simply want to remember it as it once was, you may want to check out "Coming Together—Interviews with Special People from a Very Special Kind of Place—Boyertown, PA," a two-hour DVD included with Boyertown’s second pictorial history book.

The DVD compiles interviews of 16 men and women of Boyertown’s past and present.

In addition to taking a look at the lay of the land and the town's civic and service organizations, the book and DVD focus on the town leaders and community volunteers who have devoted their time to Boyertown since it was chartered in 1866.

The book includes a look at Main Street businesses, everyday life, and scenes of the area.

Each chapter of the 169-page volume has a differenc author, providing a variety of "voices" to the effort.

Copies of the pictorial history book and DVD are available at the following Boyertown area locations: Bause’s Super Drug Store, 42 E. Philadelphia Ave.; Crown Card and Gift, Gilbertsville Shopping Center; Twin Turrets Inn, 11 E. Philadelphia Ave.; Gracefully Framed, 135 E. Philadelphia Ave.; Studio B, 39A E. Philadelphia Ave.; and the office of Building a Better Boyertown, 12 N. Reading Ave.

Contact Building A Better Boyertown’s Main Street Manager Heather Oxenford at manager@boyertownpa.org or 610-369-3054 to order a copy of the book and DVD through the mail. Cost for soft-cover and DVD is $31.79; Hardcover with DVD, $52.99 (prices include tax, please add $10.35 for shipping and handling).

Boyertown native offers free e-book

Marshall E. Wren, a 1965 graduate of Boyertown Area High School and current adjunct professor at Colorado Technical University, has announced that he has published "Simeon’s Witness: Volume I of The Origins, History and Purpose of Mankind, Revisited Series," a novel in E-book format.

Wren's brief description of the work, eight years in the making, is as follows:

"A family in a future world, a father preparing his son for a destiny which lies ahead, with the primary textbook for this preparation being the history of a world known as Earth."

Read the book for free on his Web site, http://webpages.charger.net/mewren.

Per his Web site, Wren is a graduate of Ursinus College, with a bachelor of arts in philosophy and religion, and of Colorado Technical University with an MBA in health care management. He is currently positioning to pursue a doctorate of theology in christology and neurotheology.

Wren worked for 16 years as an underwriter and vice president of marketing in the property and casualty insurance industry. He later worked 17 years as a computer software developer, and subsequently as a manager of an assisted living facility.

He is currently an adjunct faculty professor, as well as a faculty mentor and coach, with Colorado Technical University in their Health Science College teaching a healthcare management associated course of instruction via the university’s online virtual campus.

Wren was recently recognized by his students and peers as CTU On-line’s 2009-2010 Educator of the Year in the Category of Leadership.

He describes Simeon's Witness as the culmination of years of amateur ancient history research, archeological readings, religious and philosophical study, along with a passion for science, technology, and theoretical physics.

Miles from Nowhere

I am so addicted to bookstores. I love to leisurely browse the shelves and see what speaks to me.

On a recent trip to a major book retailer, Christmas giftcard in hand, I did just that and came away with "Miles From Nowhere" by Nami Mun, Riverhead Books, 2009, 286 pages, $14.00 (paperback).

I opened the book an read the first paragraph, which begins: "I'd been at the shelter for two weeks and there was nothing to do but go to counseling or lie on my cot and count the rows of empty cots nailed to the floor or watch TV in the rec room, where the girls cornrowed each other's hair and went on about pulling a date with Reggie the counselor because he looked like Billy Dee Williams and had a rump-roast ass. I didn't see a way to join in, but I didn't feel like being alone, either."

I was intrigued and wanted to stay with this lonely narrator, 13-year-old Joon, and find out where she was going from that point.

Cursed by parents obsessed with their own dramas who don't care if she lives or dies, Joon takes to the streets and survives - sometimes barely - on her own wits. We go along for the ride with her as she spirals into addiction, is beaten, used, taken advantage of in so many ways. But she survives, and on the streets that is success of a sort.

It's the way the story is written that is captivating. It's spare and wise, unemotional and blunt, bold and painful. The tone doesn't apologize, it simply reveals.

During the course of the novel, which is set in 1980s New York City, the young Korean girl finds work as a dancer/hostess, newspaper hawker, drug dealer, makeshift hooker, Avon lady in the ghetto, nursing home activities assistant, and as a delivery girl for a sandwich joint. She quickly - very quickly - becomes addicted to heroin and will gladly try any drink or drug she can get her hands on, just to escape for a moment the brutality of the life she's chosen.

Joon knows the street life is no good for her, but she can't find a way to climb out of it (when she does, someone is always there to show her the way back down). She's often homeless, sleeping on a ferry some nights, the subway on others.

"At night I used to ride the ferry back and forth, from the city to Staten Island. I'd watch the diamond lights smearing the wet window glass or stand out on the windy deck as the regulars sat crooked, drinking their pints and shouting about different kinds of loss."

At one point, she's sharing an apartment with 20 people taking turns on the one mattress. If it's not your "night," you're on the floor or in the bathtub. But if you do favors for the person who has the mattress for the night, well, then, you may just get so sleep a few inches off the flor.

The apartness Joon feels from her own situation, from the street life, is apparent and compelling. She does make friends along the way: Knowledge, her protector from the shelter; Benny, the bad-news boyfriend who keeps her on the needle; Tati, her crazy asian drinking buddy.

It turns out the novel is somewhat autobiographical. Like Joon, Mun is Korean, grew up in the Bronx, and, according to the book jacket, has in her lifetime worked as an Avon lady and activities coordinator for a nursing home.

This is her debut novel. A bestseller, it was shortlisted for the Orange Award for New Writers.

It's no-holds-barred glimpse into the netherworld of every American city. We are invited into Joon's bleak world and are treated to beautiful descriptive passages at times when it seems all hope is lost.

I was rooting for Joon to not only survive, but find her place in the world. A worthwhile read, if bleak and brutally honest. The glimpses of hope and beauty are enough to sustain you through this short, readable novel.