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It would be great if we could all retire with a nice portfolio of savings and pension income, without having to worry about paying the bills most retired people pay.

Yet...many retirees are living out their retirement on the breadline without much hope for even going on holiday without being assisted by relatives or even handouts. Don't let yourself be one of them...it's never too late!

Title : The Late-Start Investor
Author : John F. Wasik
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Here's how to retire well if if you haven't planned earlier

For years, retirement and financial pundits have presented their mandates for financial planning for retirement. Unfortunately, for most of us, we read these books as they shower us with guilt if he had not started saving ten percent of our salary from age eighteen.

John Wasik knows better as a senior editor with Consumer's Digest magazine. We are each and all imperfect against the mandated forumlas and ponderous pundits. In this book he tackles the subject for the gain of the arrives or is about to arrive at retirement age having started saving too late which, I trust, includes most of us.

The author/expert allays our fears and then provides the most practical analyses and recommended steps I've read anywhere. And,he writes not in complex formulas but in a straightforward and easily-understandable way.

From his recommendations, I've been able to accelerate my own retirement finance program. I have bought the books for others, each who has told me that they have gained by it.

A remarkable book.

Title : You'RE Fifty--Now What?: Investing for the Second Half of Your Life
Author : Charles R. Schwab
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : The Best Book on Financial Planning for the Over 46 Age Set

My biggest complaint about most books on financial planning is that they try to cover everyone with one approach. Mr. Schwab's book is a pleasant exception to this rule. By at least focusing on those of around middle years (46 through 56), he can be more specific and make the information more relevant to each reader. Naturally, I would like to see future books be even more focused than this one, but Mr. Schwab has certainly moved in the right direction.

I found this book to be vastly superior to 52 Weeks to Financial Fitness by Marshall Loeb, which was also written for people in this age category.

Mr. Schwab's profits as author from this book are all being donated to the Charles Schwab Corporation Foundation to provide for the needs of seniors.

The book is divided into two parts: First, planning for the rest of your life; and second, getting organized to implement that plan.

The planning section is very well done because it covers materials at a level of perspective that goes from the needs of most beginners to handling the needs of all but the most sophisticated people. Fundamentals are covered in sidebars so as not to clutter-up the main text for those who do not need the information. The subjects covered include how much money you will need in total, determining the value of what you have available, estimating the gap between your needs and resources, understanding how to think about asset allocation in your investment funds, establishing the proper cash flow to match your needs, and readjusting your investment mix over time.

Each section is clearly written and provides formats to make it easier for you to assemble and think about your information. I was particularly pleased to see Mr. Schwab challenge some conventional wisdom about financial planning. Many people use a rule of thumb that you will need 70% of your preretirement income. In practice, many people find that they spend more than that because some costs go up more rapidly than inflation, like medical care, or they take on new interests. Mr. Schwab suggests 90%. I think even that may not be conservative enough. I think a better assumption is to have the percentage grow over time, slowly. Eventually, it will probably exceed 100%.

In addition, many people will tell you to plan on spending 6% of your assets each year after you have to start drawing on them. Mr. Schwab wisely suggests that 3-4% will be more appropriate for most people. I liked that advice very much.

The advice on investing is much more conservative than you would expect from someone who heads an on-line brokerage house. But appropriately so. He suggests you stay in common stocks as long as possible, because you may well live much longer than you think. But he has all but 10% of your portfolio in either no-load index funds or conservative bond and cash positions. If you skip the idea of owning any individual stocks, the advice is quite appropriate for the average person. It also has you reducing your exposure to stocks over time, as the years appraoch when you will need the income. So even if stocks stop performing well (as some warn) in the next few years, you will be relatively safe.

Part II of the book gets you into deciding whether you need a financial advisor or not, and how to select and work with one. It also looks at the most important questions about insurance, estate planning (get thee to a lawyer), and how to handle your donations so they bring you the most satisfaction and least after-tax cost.

The book has several other nice qualities. It emphasizes the rest of your life as being the "second half" rather than the downhill slide or some other negative concept. In sports, we all know that the winners are usually those who play the second half the best. Also, at half-time, the coach often makes adjustments that lead to winning performance. It is a very nice metaphor for financial planning at this stage in life. "What do I want for the second half of my life?" is the key question posed in the beginning of the book for you to consider.

I also liked the optimism of the book. Rather than focusing on the fear that people have about outliving their money, the book emphasizes the potential for good things to happen. You may live longer, and think of all the good things that could follow. "Anything is possible" was my favorite line from the book, which followed examples of wonderful accomplishments by seniors of advanced years.

Unless you already have been through this exercise recently with a financial advisor, I suggest that you get the book and use the exercises.

Further, I suggest you take even more time to think through the possibilities that the post child-rearing and tuition years may offer you. It's almost like getting to start over again, but with much more in the way of resources and wisdom.

Look for and find the best choices!

Title : The Inheritance of Loss
Author : Kiran Desai
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : "Mythic battles of past and present, justice and injustice."

Writing with wit and perception, Kiran Desai creates an elegant and thoughtful study of families, the losses each member must confront alone, and the lies each tells to make memories of the past more palatable. Sai Mistry is a young girl whose education at an Indian convent school comes to an end in the mid-1980s, when she is orphaned and sent to live with her grandfather, a judge who does not want her and who offers no solace. Living in a large, decaying house, her grandfather considers himself more British than Indian, far superior to hard-working but poverty-stricken people like his cook, Nandu, whose hopes for a better life for his son are the driving force in his life.

The story of Sai, living in Kalimpong, near India's northeast border with Nepal, alternates with that of Biju, Nandu's son, an illegal immigrant trying to find work and a better life in America. Biju, working in a series of deadend jobs, epitomizes the plight of the illegal immigrant who has no future in his own country and who endures deplorable conditions and semi-servitude working illegally in the US. As Desai explores the aspirations of Sai and Biju, the hopes and expectations of their families, and their disconnections with their roots, she also creates vivid pictures of the friends and relatives who surround them, creating a vibrant picture of a broad cross-section of society and revealing the social and political history of India.

Though Sai's romance, at sixteen, with Gyan, her tutor, provides her with an emotional escape from Kalimpong, it soon becomes complicated by Gyan's involvement with the Gorkha National Liberation Federation, a Nepalese independence movement which quickly becomes bloody. Gyan's commitment to the insurgency offers an ironic contrast with the commitment of his family to the colonial British army in earlier times, just as the judge's hatreds, learned in England, are ironically contrasted with his British affectations in later life.

A careful observer of behavior, with a fine eye for revealing details, Desai brings her narrative and characters to life, illustrating her themes without making moral judgments about her characters-creating neither saints nor villains, just ordinary people leading the best lives they can, using whatever resources are available. Her characters, like people from all cultures, make sacrifices for their children, behave cruelly toward people they love, reject traditional ways of life and old values, rediscover what is important to them, suffer at the hands of faceless government officials, and learn, and grow, and make decisions, sometimes ill-considered, about their lives. Dealing with all levels of society and many different cultures, Desai shows life's humor and brutality, its whimsy and harshness, and its delicate emotions and passionate commitments in a novel that is both beautiful and wise. Mary Whipple

Title : Pay Yourself First: A Commonsense Guide to Life-Cycle Retirement Investing
Author : Timothy W. Cunningham
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : One of the most insight books on investing for the future.

This is a must read for people in their 20s and 30s, especially those who are married and have children. Most people think Social Security and the company 401K will take care of their retirement. A great many of those people believe if they start saving in their mid-30s they will accumulate enough wealth to retire comfortably. This book reinforces the need to begin saving for retirement as soon as you begin working full-time because of the power of compounding and all of the various circumstances like Bar Mitzah's, weddings and other financially draining events. It made me examine my own portfolio and strategy for future financial events. It is a very easy to read and understand book and can be read in a day.

Title : General Washington's Christmas Farewell: A Mount Vernon Homecoming, 1783
Author : Stanley Weintraub
Rating : 4 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Goin' South......

Don't be put-off by the cheesy title of this book. Yes...it's obviously a marketing ploy meant to tie in to the holiday season. In any case, Mr. Weintraub has crafted an interesting book. We follow Washington from West Point to Mount Vernon, as he tries to get home for Christmas. Most notably, he stops in New York City, Philadelphia, and Annapolis. In NYC he says farewell to his officers. He also puzzles his subordinates by going to visit a bookseller who is a known Tory sympathizer. (Unknown to Washington's underlings, the man was part of the commander-in-chief's network of spies who kept the general informed of the goings-on during the 1776-1783 British occupation of Manhattan.) In Philadelphia, amongst other things, Washington orders some new spectacles from the noted scientist David Rittenhouse. In Annapolis, Washington returns his commission to Congress, thus making formal his resignation from public service and return to private life. The book is only about 175 pages and can easily be read in a day or two. However, Mr. Weintraub manges to provide a lot of information. Some of it is interesting on a "serious" level - for example, we see Washington at the start of the journey insisting that his departure from public life will be permanent. He made several speeches on the way home, and he constantly stressed that Congress needed strong legislative powers so that it could hold the bickering colonies together. By the time he reached Annapolis, Washington had come to the conclusion that it was going to be an extremely difficult process to turn a loose confederation, which no longer had the "glue" of battling a common enemy, into a true nation. Washington was not being an egomaniac, just realistic, when he came to understand that he was the only person who could be a unifying force. Therefore, when he gave the speech in Annapolis in which he resigned his commission as commander-in-chief he changed the language so as to leave the door open for a later return to public service, if such a thing proved to be necessary...which it did. Washington was remarkably unambitious for someone who was held in such awe. He was, indeed, the man who could have been king. (In his own day, everyone wanted to touch him, as though he were holy. Many years later, people had relics - as though he were a saint. Lincoln had a splinter of Washington's coffin contained in a gold ring he wore. President McKinley had several strands of the great helmsman's hair.) Americans owe Washington an eternal debt that he turned his back on dictatorship. On the lighter side of this book, we see Washington the man - sans wig, so to speak. We see him losing his temper, his pride in his dancing ability, his love of fine wine, etc. We also get to hear about his expense account, where it seems as though he put down every possible item, down to the last pound, shilling, and pence. (He even included tips he had given out to people who had waited on him.) I especially enjoyed the little personal touches that Mr. Weintraub saw fit to include - such as letting us know that the 6'4" Washington slept in a 6'6" bed. The author also tells us about the time that Washington fired a Mount Vernon gardener for getting drunk. Then, when the man expressed remorse and wanted his job back, Washington agreed...but he made the man sign a contract specifying that he could only be in his cups at certain times of the year. For example, he was allowed 4 days of drunkenness at Christmas! The book, on rare occasions, becomes tedious when Mr. Weintraub gives us excerpts from speeches delivered by sundry parties during the various "farewell" dinners. But, for the great majority of the time, this book will hold your interest with its nice balance between the public and the private Washington.

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