Average customer rating:
- Very good light reading.
- I'm not going to summarize!
- Read the first in the series--skip this one
- Buddhist young soul coming of age
- Thoroughly loved this!
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The Pearl Diver: A Novel
Sujata Massey
Manufacturer: Harper Paperbacks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 General
| Asian American
| United States
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Mystery
| Mystery & Thrillers
| Subjects
| Books
Series
| Mystery
| Mystery & Thrillers
| Subjects
| Books
Women Sleuths
| Mystery
| Mystery & Thrillers
| Subjects
| Books
Massey, Sujata
| ( M )
| Authors, A-Z
| Mystery & Thrillers
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Mystery & Thrillers
| Subjects
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The Typhoon Lover
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The Samurai's Daughter
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Bride's Kimono, The
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The Floating Girl
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The Flower Master
ASIN: 0060597909
Release Date: 2005-07-26 |
Book Description
The seventh book in Sujata Massey's Agatha and Macavity Award–winning mystery series is a witty, suspenseful story that takes its young sleuth into the Washington DC restaurant world.
A dazzling engagement ring and the promise of a fresh start bring antiques dealer and sometime sleuth Rei Shimura to Washington, DC. But just as she's starting to settle down –catching up with a long–lost cousin and undertaking a lucrative commission furnishing a trendy Japanese restaurant nearby – things begin to go haywire. First, her cousin vanishes from the restaurant's opening–night party, and then Rei is drafted to help find a Japanese war bride who disappeared 30 years earlier.
The search for both missing women becomes suspiciously linked, and along the way, Rei faces truths about herself that may change her destiny – if she lives long enough.
Customer Reviews:
Very good light reading........2007-03-27
Rei is such a delightful character that this is a joyful book. Of course, it does not hurt that her Aunt is a delightful character also, and that it has a happy ending. Rei has her career and relationship problems, but she is positive, enterprising, brave, and loyal to her friends. Some aspects of the plot are not entirely plausible, but it is suspenseful. "Pearl Diver" is very good light reading, and I would recommend it over the other Massey I book I read, "Girl in the Box", which is also good. As examples of plot details which bother me: Akiko's step mother apparently does not mind being blackmailed by her own brother; and would her father really be threatened by an admitted perjurer changing his story after so many years?
I'm not going to summarize!.......2006-12-30
I can't stand when reviewers summarize the plot. Anyway, I am fairly new to the series and unfortunately have read most of them out of order. I enjoy them but there are some things I can't stand and they really came out in this book. Rei is supposed to be American raised with a stint in Japan. She is in her late 20's, early 30's throughout the series. Massey really needs to do her research. At times she has her acting like an old lady and then she has her acting like a 15 year old. Navel piercings are so 10 years ago, yet Rei was shocked about it (by the way it's not done with a gun like at the mall). She has crazy bondage sex but freaks about telling her aunt Norie about living with Hugh. How does this make sense? And does Massey just do a search on Amazon for indie bands to throw in that Rei listens too? Does she even know who these bands are (Rilo Kiley, Death Cab)? And what cool girl would wear vintage Talbots? Why would Rei own a Walkman (hello iPOD)! I can't stand that someone raised in the age of technology would be so computer illiterate and not even now about Ebay. I know, I'm talking about all the books now but Rei's character is so disjointed. I can't relate (and she's my age). Overall though I like the series. I find them hard to put down even with all the annoyances about Rei. Maybe Massey just needs to hang out with people that are actually Rei's age.
Read the first in the series--skip this one.......2006-12-18
I'm not moved often to write reviews pro or con but this book was so terrible I had to act. I gave it one star because the writing is literate.
I will only say that I have read all the other books in this series except the one immediately before this one. I missed it and was excited to see a new one! Alas, moving to the U.S. seems to have completely changed her personality. She has become tedious, whiny, and tentative. The plot of this novel is uninvolving and very slow to get started. The other characters, except Aunt Norie, are pedestrian.
If you want exciting books about Japan, read the Isaac Adamson series with Billy Chaka or, for a slower pace and intriguing characters, the early Banana Yoshimoto. Check out Haruki Murakami. There's good stuff out there. This isn't it.
Lose Hugh and send Rei back to Tokyo. Let's have some fun.
Buddhist young soul coming of age.......2006-05-18
Rei Shimura's introduction to readers at age 25 in The Salaryman's Wife is now entering her adolescence at age 29 in the Pearl Diver 7th book in the series.
Rei's loving parentage is half American interior decorator wearer of designer clothes handed down to her daughter, and half Japanese psychiatrist whose own ancestor deeds drive his work helping others. Rei's loving fiance Hugh Glendinning is certain of his love for Rei, but Rei is uncertain of herself. Auntie Norie just arrived from Japan to prepare and plan for their wedding.
Living in America but yearning for Japan, Rei perceives rebuff from both sides of her family but the origin of all her distanced relationships is Rei herself. Being unsure of herself makes it difficult to commit to anything or anyone (movie Family Stone). Like all tragic heroes, Rei insecurity drives her toward independence which does not permit close attachment (NBC Monday Night movie Jill Eikenberry, Judith Light, Sandy Duncan My Boyfriend's Back) instead grants constant excuses for distraction, withdrawal (murder, abduction, abortion).
Rei meets a half black half Japanese girl Akiko who pleads for Rei's help finding her Japanese mother, her father having rejected her for 30 years (movie Made in America with Whoopie Goldberg, daughter in movie "I wanted a dad, I needed a dad, he was my dad").
Rei's cousin Kendall Howard Norton a society political fundraiser for the movers and shakers in Washington DC is kidnapped and Rei tries to help her cousin and Akiko out of their dilemmas.
Some you meet project the feeling of very old souls, having successfully traversed a few Buddhist lives and been reborn slightly awakened to themselves. With Rei one has the feeling she is yet a young soul undergoing transition.
One can experience the arc of more than one lifetime in a single existence by choice, through unsought epiphany (Buddha), religious spiritual rebirth (born again fundamentalists Islamic, Christian, Hindu), meditative insight, therapy or a life so traumatic that one undergoes complete transformation as Akiko's father and mother do in Pearl Diver.
We cannot know what we are capable of until we act and war sometimes brings out our best and worst actions. There are some things which we do not really want to know we could do, but having done them, bear the memory forever (movie Capote) sometimes as Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.
This series repeatedly exposes PTSD in Rei, those she encounters, and in "Pearl Diver" combatants of the Viet Nam War. PTSD overwhelms some, scars others whose antisocial tendencies are fanned into xenophobic loathing (self hatred); for the fortunate, denial works well (movie Match Point) and they negotiate with their conscience in whatever way seems palatable.
Throughout the book series Rei interacts with mixed races: Puerto Rican, Muslim, Scot, a multicultural blend. Most do not know who they are, all are seeking; the use of alcohol and recreational drugs for self medication may have it's own sequelae in future installments (cognitive impairment,pancreatitis, broken relationships, fatty liver, addictive lifestyle) we will see.
All these twenty and thirty somethings are undergoing transition, and Rei's adventures are food for thought and delicious reading.
Would recommend starting at the beginning and reading in sequence: Salaryman's Wife, Zen Attitude, Flower Master, Floating Girl, Bride's Kimono, Pearl Diver, Typhoon Lover.
Thoroughly loved this!.......2006-05-15
I continue to be a fan of this series and this may be one of my favorites. The combination of history, cultural details, mystery and the DC restaurant scene all make for engrossing reading. Massey creates some very compelling characters and develops some nice, nuanced relationships (with the exception of Rei and Hugh being clunky at times--hard to believe that they are so inept in communicating with each other when they are so otherwise insightful, etc). I loved the storyline--great for new readers and fans of the series alike!
Amazon.com
A first novel of rare beauty and sensitivity, Jeff Talarigo's The Pearl Diver follows the harsh fate of a 19-year-old Japanese pearl diver who is diagnosed with leprosy. It is 1948. There are trial medications for her condition, but a weight of prejudice against her. Her name is erased from the family register, and she is rowed to a lifelong exile at the island leprosarium on Nagashima. Ordered to give herself a new name, she decides on Miss Fuji, for the mountain she loves. The balance of the novel is delivered in poignant fragments that appear as notes to a modern-day anthropological study of the leprosarium. Numbered artifacts like "An old map of Honshu" and "A blank white urn" spark stories of the patients Miss Fuji has known and cared for, most of whom were much sicker than she: crippled, blinded, deformed, but all the more human for their suffering. The cruelties inflicted on the patients at Nagashima almost rival the cruelties of the disease itself. Talarigo's novel could easily succumb to sentimentality, but he maintains the poise of Miss Fuji: one who watches, who does not forgive, but who will not be lowered by vengeance or despair. --Regina Marler
Book Description
In 1948, a nineteen-year-old Japanese pearl diver is in her fourth season of perfecting the techniques of her age-old occupation. But her dreams of spending her life diving in the waters of the Inland Sea are shattered when she discovers that she has leprosy. She knows that the shame attached to the disease is inescapable: rejection by her family is imminent, exile unavoidable. No more than two months elapse before authorities send her off to a leprosarium on the island of Nagashima, and although it is only seven miles from her home, it is a world away from all that is familiar to her. At once, she is instructed to forget her past, to strike her name from the koseki, the family register, and ordered to choose a new name.
As “Miss Fuji” looks around her, she sees her own future in the debilitated bodies and the lives of the more than two thousand other patients. But her “future” never comes; her own case of leprosy remains a mild one owing to the discovery of a medicine that impedes the disease’s progression in its victims. Yet she is not permitted to leave Nagashima, and over time, she wonders whether she could even survive back on the mainland. In the end, it is her constant connection to the sea and her moving encounters with those around her—a writer, a Korean storyteller, a gardener, a tanka poet, an urn painter—that give her insight into her own true nature and the deep wellspring of courage she needs to reclaim her freedom.
Written with precision and eloquence, The Pearl Diver is an unforgettable and compassionate tale of one woman’s search for wisdom, beauty, and self-worth; an extraordinary literary debut by Jeff Talarigo.
Customer Reviews:
Haunting.......2007-08-28
This Book Has Haunted Me and I can't wait until his next book comes out. This was a great Book! Beautifully written. Memorizing, Haunting, Beautiful!
Tamie
Enjoyed this book very much........2007-04-27
Beautifully written. The story is a little slow in a few places, but Talarigo's style is amazing. Worth a second read to catch things you might miss the first time through. A nice, quick read that you won't want to end as you approach the finish.
I had to force myself to finish this.......2006-08-23
This book can be summed up in a few short sentences. A Japanese girl who works as a pearl diver (a difficult job, but she loves it) contracts leprosy and is sent to a sanitorium on an island. Conditions are bad there and she is not allowed to leave. She works as a nurse for other patients and becomes friendly with some of them. Over time, some conditions improve, but she dies on the island. That's it, there really isn't much more to the story than that. We hardly get to know the protagonist, and she doesn't develop realationships with others that we really care about as readers. This novel seems to rely completly on the fact that it is exposing the stomach-turning details of leprosly, as if that alone is enough to keep the plot going. And sometimes the logic of the plot suffers so that more gruesome details can be exploited. For instance, people who marry are forced to undergo sterilization, but a newly married couple's baby is aborted at 8 1/2 months. Why didn't that couple get sterilized, too? I found the descriptions of rat-eaten fingers and late-term abortions too gruesome and would have stopped reading the book in the first third if I hadn't wanted to finish it for my book group. Overall, this is the worst novel I have read in a long time. If you want to learn about leprosy, read a non-fiction book. The story in this one is just not good enough to waste your time on.
Independent spirit, with hope.......2006-06-01
Talarigo has captured both the horrendous pain of the enslaved leprosy patients (try googling "Japan +leprosy" for historical context) and the will to overcome oppression in this story of a pearl diver with leprosy. The protagonist has a streak of rebellious independence, which combined with her hope for life outside the leprosorium, guides her through decades of abuse. A must read!
Haunting.......2006-05-26
It has been two years since I read this book, but it has stayed with me, so I decided to write a review. The story is sad, but inspiring. Having been completely cut off from everyone she knew, she remained strong and made a life for herself as much as possible under terrible circumstances.She made new friends and a new family and all worked together to survive the ordeal.
Average customer rating:
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The Pearl
Manufacturer: bantam books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Steinbeck, John
| Classics
| United States
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: B000CQCP6E |
Product Description
Reprints the EC comic from may/june 1953
Average customer rating:
- Has a special spot in my bookcase
- Can't go wrong here...
- I have held it
- An inventive, fast-paced blend of sci-fi and fantasy
- Dream Park with a Heart
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In the Net of Dreams
Wm. Mark Simmons , and
Wm. Mark Simmons
Manufacturer: Questar
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Simmons, Wm. Mark | ( S ) | Authors, A-Z | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Subjects | Books
General | Fantasy | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0445210168 |
Customer Reviews:
Has a special spot in my bookcase.......2005-08-03
A well-written, fast-paced adventure novel, one part fun, one part danger, one part wit and one part naughtiness. Simmons uses a dash of science fiction to justify putting a modern-day character into a fantasy world - his own literary creation, now programmed into a game world by a large corporation bent on giving users the 'ultimate fantasy experience'. But something goes wrong and now they want the man best suited to the task to find out what! It's a fun, rollicking adventure that is still uplifting each time I read it. It makes a nice light read with a satisfying ending (although it has a sequel). Be warned: there are puns, although they're not too bad.
Can't go wrong here..........2003-07-02
This book was quite a trip through fantasy. To be able to step out of this world, even for a short time, and experience the world of knights and wizards we read about in other fantasy novels would be a treat. Mr. Simmons has given us a way to at least imagine exactly that to be possible. The mix of the silly/familiar characters found here and there through out adds a perfect humor to keep you guessing from page to page. In short; of the dozens of books I read while trying to stay cool in 130 degree heat (in the shade), dodging sand storms, and hoping a SCUD wasn't about to land on my head, THIS book was the only one I brought home with me. I can't wait to get into the "Chronicles." Thanx a TON Mark.!!
I have held it.......2002-08-08
Alright gang, I have held the hard bound copy of Dreamland Chronicles in my hands. Then Mark took it back. It was for the reviewers to write about. But it is real I have seen it. It does exist. It is coming so be patient. Also read everything in it including the footnotes and the footnotes to the footnotes. They are hysterical. This man is a wonderful and witty writer. Very clever and subtle. He is just so darn witty.
Also He has a wonderful speaking voice but that is beside the point. Wait and the Book will soon be in your hands too, and for keeps.
An inventive, fast-paced blend of sci-fi and fantasy.......2002-07-01
Take a dash of The Matrix, a pinch of Grimm Fairy Tales, a smattering of Dungeons and Dragons, as well as a heavy dose of humor, and you have something approaching 'In the Net of Dreams'.
It's filled with memorable characters and settings, all viewed through the cynical eye of it's hero, Robert Remington Ripley III, who lets you know he's aware how ridiculous the situations he keeps getting dropped into are. It's a book that's more entertaining, funnier, and smarter than it's component parts.
It's a shame Wm. Mark Simmons has never gotten wider recognition for this series.
Dream Park with a Heart.......2001-04-10
Wm. Mark Simmons' "In the Net of Dreams" has been a favorite of mine for years. I picked up a copy of the book when it was first released, mainly because I liked the cover art. (I'd never heard of Simmons, but that was because "In the Net..." was his first novel.) Once I got into the book, however, I couldn't put it down. An almost perfect crossover idea, "In the Net..." is filled with Gnomes and Goblins, Sorcerers and Spells, Witches, Warlocks and Werewolves (actually, it's a Werebear and boy, does it hate fire) and some off-the-wall Science Fiction, all of which comes to life on the pages of the book. When I read the book back in the '90's, I told my friends to go out and get the novel that was "Dream Park" with Heart. I haven't changed my opinion with subsequent re-readings. Simmons has an uncanny ability to grab the reader's emotions and then hold on for dear life. His protagonist Ripley knows love and heartache, fear and triumph, lust and revenge, and half a dozen other emotions that will jump off the page to become real to the reader (Did you cry when Misty Dawn died?). More than anything else, however, Simmons knows how to make the reader laugh. The book is riddled with humorous allusions and a plethora of horrid puns that the tosses about with seeming impunity. For a fascinating blend of Fantasy and Science Fiction (you can't get to Fantasyworld without going through the very hi-tech suspension tanks) with a liberal dose of Freudian psychology thrown in.
Average customer rating:
- Not your typical Shoah book
- I'd give it 3.5 Stars ... A Moving Family History
- amazing account of a family and it's history!
- Net of Wonders
- Moving story of inspiring Holocaust survivors
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The Net of Dreams: A Family's Search for a Rightful Place
Julie Salamon
Manufacturer: Random House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Holocaust | Historical | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Women | Specific Groups | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
General | World | History | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0812991699
Release Date: 1996-03-12 |
Amazon.com
A book that is as distinct as it is complex,
The Net of Dreams follows the author's parents' journey from the camps of Auschwitz to the streets of a small town in Ohio. As she tries to piece together the elements of her family's history and their reinvented and rediscovered life in America, she uncovers and honors hidden stories, providing an unforgettable portrait of an American family.
Book Description
The author of The Devil's Candy and White Lies--herself the daughter of Holocaust survivors--shares her family's stories: her mother's memory of Josef Mengele; her father's relocation to Ohio after the war; and her own Jewish upbringing in the heartland of America.
From the Hardcover edition.
Customer Reviews:
Not your typical Shoah book.......2007-06-03
This book begins in 1993, when the author travels to Poland and to her parents' hometown of Huszt, Hungary (now Khust, Ukraine), together with her mother and stepfather, to rediscover her family's past and how it has shaped them and continues to influence them. Originally just Ms. Salamon was going to go to Poland, where Steven Spielberg was filming 'Schindler's List,' but her mother insisted she come along too, and that her stepfather, who had been a partisan, would come too. During their visit to Auschwitz and Huszt, Ms. Salamon began discovering a lot of things about her parents' past that she hadn't known before, or hadn't known about in such detail.
Her parents were from Carpathian Rus, a region that had changed hands numerous times between Hungary, Russia, Ukraine, and Czechoslovakia over the years. They had always thought of themselves as cultured Czechs and therefore superior to the shtetl Jews in places like Poland, Russia, and the Ukraine. The area they lived in, however, was eventually annexed to Hungary during the course of the war, and they found themselves suffering the same fate as Hungarian Jewry when the Nazis invaded in March of 1944 and herded them all into ghettoes. Ms. Salamon's mother Szimi (Lilly), twenty-one at the time of deportation, managed to survive through her friendship with two sisters and an amazing belief that this wasn't really so bad, that she was going to get through it and was never in any real danger in spite of what a deadly dangerous place she was in. Her father Sanyi (Alexander), who was significantly older than her mother (about thirteen and a half years), lost his first wife and child in one of the deportations, but survived first with the partisans and then in Dachau, due to his privileged position as a respected talented doctor. After the war they reconnected and began a new life together, together with their surviving friends and relatives, first in Prague, then in New York, where some of their relatives had been living for a long time, and finally in the small town of Seaman, Ohio. Through this journey through her family's past, Ms. Salamon discovered how a lot of these events had significantly shaped their lives as she grew up, without even realising it. And unlike some books about the Shoah, this one has a much longer timeframe; it covers their lives before, during, and after the war, not just shortly before the war, during the war, and for a short period afterwards. It takes the journey into 1971, when her father died.
My only complaint about the book is that it does somewhat feel as though it ends in media res. Perhaps there could have been a few more chapters to give more of a feeling of closure, covering such things as how the family dealt with Dr. Salamon's death in the immediate aftermath, how her mother met her stepfather Arthur, and whatever happened to her maternal aunts who had immigrated to Israel before it was too late. But overall it provides a fascinating portrait of one family's bittersweet history and how for many people, the war wasn't really over in 1945.
I'd give it 3.5 Stars ... A Moving Family History.......2007-04-04
There is so much in this book...the history of Julie Salamon's parents Szimi and Sanyi Salamon, Jewish Holocaust survivors, it is the story of their lives before the war, what they endured and lost during the war, how they survived and met and ended up creating a nice 'American' family.
Julie Salamon's personal journey includes many interesting anecdotes, a detailed family tree and insight in to her mother's seemingly neurotic ideas about life. Her mother possessed this amazing insanity, where she was able to think the wonderful while enduring the unspeakable.
I thought it was so interesting to hear how Jews who survived the Holocaust would express distain for other surviving Jews because they were Polish or Hungarian or Russian. It seems that this pecking order that we endure and perpetrate against others is sometimes what gets us through our lot in life.
Julie, her mother and step-father take a trip to Poland to visit in Huszt and tour Auschwitz. During their travels her mother tells her many stories of her experience during her imprisonment in the concentration camp, things she never spoke of before. I thought it so insightful to describe the time after liberation as Genesis Day One, a vast re-creation.
I thought this was a very well told and well written history. My only criticism is that I felt this story was unfinished. Of course it's her life and she living so to a certain extent I certainly expected her story to continue after the book was done. But I was left to wonder how did her mother cope with the death of her father. How did she find her second husband Arthur? Did her mother find any peace in going back to Poland and Auschwitz?
Perhaps she will write another book so I can find out!
amazing account of a family and it's history!.......2002-06-20
I have been searching for this book for several years and I have finally found it(I forgot the title so it's been a long search)!I read it years ago and was moved to tears many times. Ms. Salamon describes her mothers history in such a way that you feel like you were right there with her. You can feel her joy and her pain. You get to know her before the war touched her life and all the way through her move to America and the start of her family. This was the only book I have ever read that I could not put down! It's unbelievably good!
Net of Wonders.......2000-05-26
Julie Salamon is a friend and a person I respect mightily, so I am not exactly objective. Nevertheless, I found her discovery of her family's history--and her trip to the death camps with her mother--remarkable and so compelling that I was unable to put it down. I read the book in 1996 and though I buy, read and donate hundreds of books a year, this one remains in our library. It will be a good resource for our children as they learn of the effects of the Holocaust on us all--and of human ability to overcome horrors. Alyssa A. Lappen
Moving story of inspiring Holocaust survivors.......1996-06-08
This is the most moving story of Holocaust survivors that I have ever read. While it does a great job describing author's parents' experiences in concentration camps, what makes it unique is its ability to also show how victims of that horror were able to put their lives back together and not be defeated by it. I also was moved by the author's own journey of discovery about her parents and who they were, aside from their identity as Survivors. All of us, I think, would relish the opportunity to really know who their parents are
Book Description
Conventional wisdom is clear about what you should be doing at this juncture in your life.Well, guess what?
Conventional wisdom isn't so wise at all any more. If you're going to survive with your peace of mind intact, you need to forget about that nest egg and adopt a new goal:
Die Broke!
And don't worry, Die Broke, the audiobook by Stephen Pollan is here to help.
Die Broke turns conventional wisdom on its head. It says wealth is to be spent while you're alive, either on yourself or your loved ones, and that every penny left after you die is a failing.
Die Broke preaches a radically new approach to career and personal finance. In a nutshell, it says :
Quit Today. Accept that from this day you're a free agent whose number one workplace priority is your own personal bottom line.
Pay Cash. Saving, not spending, must become reflexive, and credit should be a rarely used tool for those few times (homes, cars) when paying cash is impossible.
Don't Retire. Your worklife should be a journey up and down hills, rather than a climb up a sheer cliff that ends with a jump into the abyss.
Die Broke offers a comprehensive and practical message for financial happiness at the millennium's end. It's a cry for sanity, a signpost to security, a refreshing new point of view. Now, there's a way out of worry, a lifetime plan that actually delivers not just peace of mind, but the lifestyle of your dreams.
Customer Reviews:
Financial Planning for Stunt Pilots.......2003-12-02
Die Broke is an extremely seductive book. Stephen Pollan's idea is that you'd be a fool to save your money for a rainy day. He says spend it now, which is contrary to what evey other personal finance expert advises. Take a round-the-world cruise, buy that new Mercedes, or better yet, lease it. This advice goes against the grain, and I found myself fascinated by such an original approach. It's tempting to adopt his methods and live for the present, but my advice is listen to the book, but don't take it too seriously.
Redundant, repetitive, and sometimes he even repeats himself.......2001-07-06
My opinion of this book changed a few times while I was reading it.
First, I thought that this book was pretty good in that it gives a "radical" new approach to personal finance. I enjoyed this book because of this. It takes a topic that can be very vanilla in its ways, and gives a brand new thought process. I guarantee you that you will see some ideas that totally contradict what other personal finance consultants would say. For example, the author actually makes an argument for leasing instead of buying a car. Seeing that argument was a first for me, especially in this type of book.
Then, the author became very repetitive, and actually started to use examples and paragraphs that were previously used in this book. This was quite annoying.
Finally, the book finished it's 4 part radical plan, and began to add commentary about various topics in personal finance. After being annoyed, this section kind of got me back on track. Again, it was interesting to read opinions that were not necessarily mainstream, on topics that have been discussed to death in other books.
Overall, I would say that people should give this book a try. Beware of the redundancy, and go in with an open mind.
You won't read about having to live under your means, or about how accumulate the most wealth to give to your heirs. Instead, you will see how to make the most of you money, live at your means, die broke, and leave people a minimal estate. Through the use of annuities, insurance, and reverse mortgages, one can have money till the day they die. However, the book does come up short when it talks about actually implementing this program. For example, there was no mention on the typical price of an annuity, nor how one would actually purchase these annuities with a minimal savings account. If it was mentioned, it was given the justice it deserved.
Enjoy!
Stereotypes lead to illogic.......1998-04-13
This is the ultimate demonstration of GIGO (garbage in; garbage out). They start with defining all readers as a stereotypical babyboomer husband and wife team who are so work driven they get nothing out of life. Authors as lawyer-savior-savant advise them to quit their jobs, or at least think as if they quit, tear up their credit cards and work the rest of their lives while spending all they have and dying broke. Not every baby boomer, much less average American, is what they describe as the party to whom they are giving advice. While there is good advice in some of the book, the idea of proceeding from a stereotypical description of a person leads to a conclusion that might be of value only to that stereotypical person. The conclusions and advice given cannot apply to most people, much less all people. There remain in the society hard workers and slackers; brain surgeons and dullards; computer programmers and ditch diggers; driven producers and fourth generation welfare recipients. Ovbiously, this book is not for food stamp recipients or clients of the welfare system. Never the less there is good advice that is worth taking and understanding. The credit card system, whereby one obligates himself to pay without the pain of shelling out hard earned cash, allows one to build debt without feeling it. This book is really for those much too busy to read it.
Financial Planning for Stunt Pilots.......1998-03-30
Die Broke is an extremely seductive book. Stephen Pollan's idea is that you'd be a fool to save your money for a rainy day. He says spend it now, which is contrary to what evey other personal finance expert advises. Take a round-the-world cruise, buy that new Mercedes, or better yet, lease it. This advice goes against the grain, and I found myself fascinated by such an original approach. It's tempting to adopt his methods and live for the present, but my advice is listen to the book, but don't take it too seriously.
Sound advice for any age........1998-03-28
Written for "baby-boomers," but, most definitely recommended for us younger folks too.
I took a chance, liked what I heard, and bought a set for a '25ish' friend; whose nose is always stuck in one financial book or another. He was immediately hooked, and, has already begun to change his way of spending, thinking, and doing. Just last week, he was thinking of buying the paper edition to reinforce what he listened to!
Generally, I don't do well with audio-books (or even the written financial word), but, this one is worth picking up in any form.
My Dad raised me on many of the same practices and principles preached within, and I couldn't agree more with the concept of; dying broke, paying cash, and giving now!, instead of leaving it later.
Product Description
4 Trade paperback Titles By Ellen Gilchrist - Net of Jewels - In the Land of Dreamy Dreams - Drunk with Love - Victory Over Japan
Average customer rating:
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The Advanced No Money Down, Motivated Seller, Home Study Program on 8 CDs
James Orr
Manufacturer: LearnToBeRich.com, Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD
General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Investing | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Business | Books on CD | Audiobooks | Formats | Books
Investing | Business | Books on CD | Audiobooks | Formats | Books
ASIN: B000NPW79O |
Product Description
In Secret NO MONEY DOWN Tips and Tricks learn how to buy real estate with absolutely NO MONEY DOWN and without going to a bank to qualify for a loan. In Real Estate Mentor Calls Volume #10: Subject To Primer you will learn how to buy houses without bank qualifying and with little or ZERO money down. Learn about the benefits of investing in real estate for short term income and long term wealth building in the Why Real Estate Investing audio CD. Find motivated sellers who will deed you their house with no money down and no bank qualifying for a new loan with 14 Ways To Get Motivated Sellers Calling and Get the Deed. Do not get caught with an unprofitable house... learn to analyze deals like a professional with How to Analyze Deals Volume #1 where we cover both analyzing deals when buying all cash (using hard money) and Subject To (making payments on seller's loans). In Sell Your House Fast For Cash, you will learn how to sell your house fast, for top dollar for cash using strategies only professional real estate investors know. Learn ways to maximize cash flow generated from your real estate investments with Almost 101 Cash Flow Strategies. On the Explode Your Net Worth with Real Estate Investing audio CD included, you will learn ways to massively increase your NET WORTH via real estate investing.
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- Three to Get Deadly: A Stephanie Plum Novel (Stephanie Plum Novels)
- Trap Line
- Trial Run
- Unleashed: A Melanie Travis Mystery (Melanie Travis Mysteries)
- Vim & Vinegar: Moisten Cakes, Eliminate Grease, Remove Stains, Kill Weeds, Clean Pots & Pans, Soften Laundry, Unclog Drains, Control Dandruff, Season Salads
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