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OWNING MAIN STREET

Name: OWNING MAIN STREET
Author: Patrick Pappano
ISBN: 978-0988912700

A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO THE STOCK MARKET

by Patrick Pappano ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2013

A long but impressively meticulous guide for novice investors looking for a bird’s-eye view of the market.

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A comprehensive beginner’s guide to investment.

Debut author Pappano aims to arm “curious investors” with the information they need to succeed in the stock market. He also seeks to “inoculate” them against more exotic investment options that often cause enthusiastic novices to abandon common sense. Pappano writes that financial professionals have perpetuated a self-serving fiction that market success requires a rarified mastery of esoteric strategies and products. However, he argues that these same professionals are often woefully unqualified and often motivated by interests that may conflict with those of their clients’. He makes the unconventional claim that in most cases, “avoiding a broker is the beginning of a sound investment program.” This practical guide is wide-ranging and ambitiously thorough, covering an extraordinary array of financial products and approaches. It discusses stocks, bonds, real estate investment trusts, mortgages and much more in painstaking detail. This isn’t your average investor’s guide, however, as it also provides a macroeconomic context in which to understand the fundamental principles of investment. For example, it treats readers to broad discussions of political economy, including the philosophical theories of economists John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich Hayek, the true nature of inflation and the impact of different tax regimes. Few introductions to the stock market compare the corporate governances of Japan and Sweden, as this one does. The book’s grand sweep is both its principal virtue and its vice, however, as it provides beginning investors with a sounder theoretical grounding than average introductions do, but it also tends to wander too far afield. For example, most readers could profitably skip Pappano’s digressions on organized labor or executive compensation in the United States, but his section on the difference between 401(k) retirement accounts and pension plans is invaluable. Overall, there’s a lot of actionable wisdom within these pages but quite a few negligible tangents as well.

A long but impressively meticulous guide for novice investors looking for a bird’s-eye view of the market.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2013

ISBN: 978-0988912700

Page Count: 646

Publisher: CARDYF COMPANY

Review Posted Online: Jan. 13, 2014

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.