All-inclusive yet jargon-free and easy-to-navigate investment advice.
An encyclopedic financial reference offers tips for the common investor.
Authoritative information about stocks, bonds, and other investments is not necessarily hard to come by. But it is challenging to find in-depth details about virtually every investment vehicle in one place. This third paperback edition is exhaustive, containing current material about stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and other investments, including life insurance, annuities, unit trusts, and commodities. That is merely the contents of Section I; Section II covers IRAs, 401(k)s, employee stock options, rental real estate, and more, including a review of such areas as gift and estate taxes, living trusts, and wills. There are several aspects of the book that make it valuable, not the least of which is the credentialed author. As an “Enrolled Agent,” a designation licensed directly by the Internal Revenue Service, and someone who has 40 years of experience with tax returns and audits, Chute is uniquely qualified. The 400-plus pages are intelligently organized into two sections (“Investments” and “Life Planning”) and seven parts (“Equities,” “Bonds,” “Mutual Funds,” “Other Investments,” “Financial Planning,” “Death & Taxes,” and “Other Important Financial Considerations”). Just as helpful is the organizational scheme employed for investments; for each type, the author includes a clear, nontechnical description followed by short but illuminating discussions of specific areas: Planning Tips, Taxes, Legal Compliance, Successful Strategies, and Pros and Cons. To these, he adds a section that may represent what sets this book apart from similar reference works: “Horror Stories.” These anecdotes, mostly of a buyer beware nature, are sometimes sad, sometimes amusing, and always engaging. Whether it’s about a “Reckless Internet Trader,” a fraudulent real estate deal, the hidden risks of high-yield mutual funds, or securities fraud, Chute’s tales are cautionary, enlightening, and entertaining. In addition, he provides helpful information, such as bond ratings, and financial examples along the way. The book’s material has been updated to account for the most recent tax act, which went into effect in 2018. While the appendices of stock and bond certificate photographs are only mildly intriguing, a “Glossary of Investment Terms” is quite useful.
All-inclusive yet jargon-free and easy-to-navigate investment advice. (appendices, glossary)Pub Date: June 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73288-553-0
Page Count: 508
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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A passionate and accessible guide to humanizing the workplace.
Helbig and Norman present a game plan for making leadership more responsively human.
In this expanded update to The Psychological Safety Playbook: Lead More Powerfully by Being More Human (2023), the authors provide “practical strategies for responding to resistance, sparking change, embodying the change we want to see, and moving forward deliberately,” specifically in a business setting. They suggest ways to encourage what they call “changemakers” through the use of five key “plays” from their playbook: Communicate Courageously, Master the Art of Listening, Manage Your Reactions (“shift from automatic reaction to conscious response to stay better connected to yourself and others”), Embrace Risk and Failure, and Design Inclusive Rituals. The goal is to ensure that organizational cultures promote psychological safety, guided by leaders who “walk the talk” by emphasizing their own humanity at every turn. (“We must be the first to share our own failures with our teams, which will start to make it possible for others to do the same.”) This call for example-setting is sounded throughout the book as Helbig and Norman urge their target audience (leaders and would-be leaders) to go beyond mere instruction and instead embody the qualities they want to see in their subordinates, such as continuous learning, active curiosity, and self-reflection. Each chapter includes a detailed “Recommended Reading” section and text with extensive numbered and bulleted points formatted to make the core concepts more immediately digestible. The authors effectively employ clear and empathetic prose to assure readers that psychological safety is slow to build and quick to break, observing that such safety requires steady attention and delivers outsize payoffs as a result. They refreshingly ground a great deal of the material in psychology and neuroscience, pointing out, for instance, that research has demonstrated that the parasympathetic nervous system responds to honest appreciation, which improves creative thinking. Some wistful readers might consider some of the authors’ suggestions beyond the reach of their own organizations, as when group facilitators are advised to “gently intervene when someone dominates the conversation,” but hope springs eternal.
A passionate and accessible guide to humanizing the workplace.Pub Date: May 19, 2026
ISBN: 9798993550503
Page Count: 170
Publisher: Crazy Idea Press
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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