
Title : Senior Living Communities: Operations Management and Marketing for Assisted Living, Congregate, and Continuing-care Retirement Communities
Author : Benjamin W. Pearce
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Should be required reading for all in elder care!!
I used Mr. Pearce's book as a guide in preparing my presentation at our dept. mgr. retreat last week (giving him credit of course!). As a result, a board member and a fellow dept mgr. ordered their own copies of this book. All-inclusive, professional approaches. I'm surprised--and grateful--that Mr. Pearce shares his expertise so openly. It's refreshing to observe an author whose goal is to raise the bar for quality of care for the elderly, and help his competition achieve same through his generosity in sharing his own experience/knowledge. I'd give away every book in my library before I'd give up this one!!

Title : Wall Street on a Shoestring: Financial Success for Just Five Dollars a Day
Author : Clare La Plante
Rating : 4 Stars out of 5.
Summary : FINALLY, a book for now-small, future-big investors!
Clare's crystal-clear writing style helps the novice investor make sense of it all. A way to START NOW, with pocket change. Great book!
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Title : The Peanut Butter Murders
Author : Corinne Holt Sawyer
Rating : 3 Stars out of 5.
Summary : the characters are interesting but the puzzle is faulty
i have enjoyed this series because of ms holts characters but i found the puzzle was simplistic and and easy to solve...i much prefer agatha christie for a more challanging puzzle

Title : Rich Dad's Retire Young, Retire Rich: How to Get Rich and Stay Rich Forever! (Rich Dad's Advisors Series)
Author : Robert T. Kiyosaki
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Essential Look at How You Must Think and Act to Prosper!
This book deserves more than five stars for its exceptional clarity, authenticity, relevance and eloquence.
Those who love the Rich Dad, Poor Dad books will adore this one. I found it to be the best book in the series since Rich Dad, Poor Dad.
Mr. Robert T. Kiyosaki speaks with the authority of experience. He did retire young at 47 while his wife was 37. At that time, his expected annual income was between $80,000 and $125,000. Many people yearn for early retirement with wealth, mostly because they hate their work. Mr. Kiyosaki was soon back at work, establishing new businesses. Most of his wealth was created after he retired. "I keep working because there are so things that need to be done." So, he has clearly moved from earnings a living, to living a mission of self-expression. That's very wonderful, and I hope you will accomplish the same result!
Although the subtitle says this is "how to" book, it's really more of a "what to think" book. The fundamental concept is to leverage your mind, your plans, your actions, and your priorities to get wealth faster and more easily.
As usual, Rich Dad provides some wonderful quotes. Here are a few of my favorites.
"David could beat Goliath because David knew how to use the power of leverage."
"Cash flow is the most important word in the world of money. The second most important word is leverage."
"Leverage is the reason some people become rich and others do not become rich."
"Because leverage is power, some people use it, some abuse it, and others fear it."
"Getting rich begins with words and words are free."
" . . . do more and more with less and less."
The first books in the Rich Dad, Poor Dad series have been about cash flow. This one shifts over to leverage. Section 1 is about leveraging your mind, section 2 looks at leverage from a plan to retire, section 3 addresses leverage from actions. The book goes on to give you a final exam on your attitudes and a challenging thought to chew on to help get you focused properly: making lots of money with no money to start with.
Now, any book about leverage would normally have lots of pages on how debt leverage works. In fact, that is only a small part of what this book talks about. You will find that discussion in part of chapter 16, which looks at all of the forms of leverage in real estate.
One of the strengths of the book is a fine discussion of how to think about risk and reward. It's not how often you fail, but how big the costs of your failures are compared to the rewards of your successes . . . and your determination to keep trying until you succeed. For instance, 9 out of 10 new businesses fail. But the value of the 1 in 10 that succeed should vastly outweigh the costs of the 9 failures.
The book is excellent in warning you against the risks that you are unconsciously taking. Most people have 100% of their financial futures tied up in government pension and Medicare payments and the stock market. Mr. Kiyosaki correctly points out that this assumption is probably faulty, because there are far more Baby Boomers depending on these two resources than there are resources. One part of the leverage concept is to have more streams of cash flow. He also has excellent ideas on how to reduce risk in your current and potential sources of cash flow.
You are also given a list of good habits to pursue. And top tips from the prior books are repeated in a convenient section near the end of the book.
If you follow the advice in this book, it will be worth more to you and your family than all the other investment and retirement books that you read combined. But you have to take action! Thinking about taking action won't get you there.
I would describe this book as being a lot like Tony Robbins's book, Personal Power, except it is focused effectively on the emotional and mental disciples needed for financial security and investing.
By the way, I have known many people who have retired young with the assistance of being rich. They all embody the principles captured in this book. By contrast, at age 65 only 5 percent of all Americans will be able to afford to live a wealthy life style. Most will be looking for more income. Act now . . . to have a choice of future life style.
Think and live the thoughts that will make you as rich as you want to be! The solutions are there if you look for them.

Title : Invest in Yourself: Six Secrets to a Rich Life
Author : Marc Eisenson
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Get High Returns on Your Time, Energy, and Money!
"Our goal for Invest in Yourself is to motivate you to take charge of your life and make the most out of your time, energy, and money." That's a novel and valuable perspective that's worth five stars for this book.
Too many self-help books focus on helping you get more money or more out of your money, but ignore the costs in terms of the time, attention, effort and stress involved. Invest in Yourself looks beyond that overly-narrow focus. That's the good news about this book.
The bad news about this book is that it has taken on more than one book can hope to fully deliver on. I hope the authors come out with sequels that expand and magnify what is here.
The six secrets are:
(1) Make your own lifestyle decisions.
(2) Put your family first.
(3) Wherever you work, be in business for yourself.
(4) Make the most of the money you bring home.
(5) Turn your debts into golden investment opportunities.
(6) Map out your financial future.
The three authors have an unusual perspective. They have dropped out of the "get ahead at the office" rat race and "shop until you drop" lifestyles much more than most. As a result, they have lots of money-saving ideas based on their own life experiences. Much of what is in the book, Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge would approve of. If you are like me, you will find money-saving ideas that would never have occurred to you, otherwise. My parents have always shopped are yard sales, but it had never occurred to me to use these routinely for the kind of around-the-house items that I will seldom use like unusual garden tools.
One of the strengths of the book is that it is not a "one size fits all" approach. They realize that each person will have a different set of life goals, and the advice is couched to accommodate that.
I also liked the way that the book challenged the automatic assumptions that many make: Career comes first; job comes first; exciting consumer experiences are a main reward for success; and only the best will do.
By having three authors, the perspectives and ideas were much more varied than I have seen in other, somewhat-similar self-help books. That also was a strength.
The weakest section was the last one on mapping out your financial future. Almost everyone will need more guidance than is here. That's the bad news. The good news is that there are lots of books about creating financial plans that you can use to supplement this one.
On the other hand, those who buy into the traditional American Dream and will happily pay the price for economic success will find less in this book than will those independent souls who listen to their own intuition for guidance. Despite ideas for making penny-pinching fun, it's not going to be fun for everyone. I do applaud pointing out how saving money for essentials is far more valuable than expanding income due to the income tax effects on progressive income. The advice about paying off your expensive debt is pretty standard, but I liked the way it was couched in terms of thinking of it as a high return investment.
I hope you will not only read this book, but apply its lessons. As you do, I encourage you to expand your perspective even more broadly than the book does. What other areas do you have important values in, besides time, money, and energy? How can those values be honored in your tradeoffs? The more you do this, the better life you will have . . . the richer your life will be in terms of its effect on those around you.
Enjoy, live long, and prosper!