
Title : You've Earned It, Don't Lose It: Mistakes You Can't Afford to Make When You Retire
Author : Suze Orman
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Every woman's book on pitfalls in planning: Read this FIRST!
I grabbed this book on impulse, knowing that I have a bad track record with money management subjects. I thought it would be laying around gathering dust for awhile...
Was I surprised when I started reading the first page and then plowed right through it in 1-1/2 nights! So easy to read and understand. (The Wall St. Journal series, with all their glitzy colored pictures couldn't do what Suze did with her real-life stories as examples.) Maybe it's the woman's touch, but she got through to me. The whole picture of retirement issues and planning became clear.
I highly recommend this as a first book for financial planning -- it's NOT JUST ABOUT RETIREMENT, it's more about protecting women by arming them with vital information... every woman should READ THIS BOOK BEFORE MAKING ANOTHER DECISION involving money (or before someone makes one for her).
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Title : The Golden Door to Retirement and Living in Costa Rica: A Guide to Inexpensive Living in a Peaceful Tropical Paradise
Author : Cristobal Howard
Rating : 3 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Great Book!
Hi, I am working at ILISA Language Institute in Costa Rica, San Jose and I just want to say that this book helps our student a lot by giving them helpful tips or by arrange their own travel in Costa Rica. Thanks!

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.

Title : A Peaceful Retirement
Author : Read
Rating : 4 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Another gentle and charming book from my favourite author
A change in direction with not only retirement but marriage proposals as well for my most loved fictional character. With all of the Fairacre books, a book I have read over and over - only with particular sadness as it appears that this may be the final book. I found the illustrations a bit off putting - part of my love of Miss Read's books are due to J Goodall's beautiful illustrations - not that these are bad, just not what previous readers may be used to. My only complaint is that it is too short!
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Title : Mrs. Ted Bliss
Author : Stanley Elkin
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : A Miami widow's quirky odyssey of the heart.
Mrs. Ted Bliss is a widowed woman in a polyester pant suit living her last years in a Miami Beach condominium. When a local drug kingpin buys her dead husband's car, it triggers a remarkable chain of events that brings Mrs. Bliss face-to-face with the premises of her life as a dutiful wife. The authenticity that Elkin brings to Mrs. Bliss' inner dialogue and his characters' speech was so humorous and touching that I frequently had to collar somebody so I could read them the passages out loud. If you like to find the extraordinary in "ordinary" lives, if you have an ear for language, please give yourself and treat and pick up this book.

Title : Rich Dad's Prophecy
Author : Sharon L. Lechter
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Employed or Self Employed? - Financial Future SHOCKER!
This book has made me sit up and think! I'm shocked!
Millions of people depend on their plans for retirement income.
Yet, when programmes first became popular over two decades ago, Robert Kyosaki's rich dad WARNED that these plans would cause one of the BIGGEST stock market crashes in history... a crash that would financially destroy the unprepared. Now rich dad's prophecy is coming true.
* How the fears, dreams, and actions of millions of 'baby boomers' will control the economic future...
I understood from the book that although we had the NASDAQ exchange record its biggest ever one-day fall, back in April, 2000, - the worst is still yet to come!
Read it NOW, or you'll regret it!

Title : Social Security Benefits Handbook (Social Security Benefits Handbook)
Author : Stanley A. Tomkiel
Rating : 2 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Boring
Sakes alive, I was bored out of my skull. I don't know what I was thinking when I bought this book. I only got through the first chapter or two before my brain started going numb. I'm just 40, so what do I care anyhow. Man, what a waste of $20. Save yourself the pain if you are a youngster like me, and wait and see what transpires over the next decade as the debacle over social security unfolds.