Reading List

Posted by Dave on December 27, 2011

This is a guest post by Dave, who is also looking to retire no later than 45, but unlike Tim has no kids and doesn’t want any. Dave is from Ontario and is working towards his CGA certification.

In my spare time, I tend to read books.  When I don’t have time to actually read a book, I listen to books while I’m cooking or cleaning around the house (I listen at double speed on my i-pod – it took a little while to get used to, but single speed just seems slow now).  My problem is likely the same as most people’s – what books do I read?

This being the holiday season, maybe you have a few days to read right now.  I thought I would tell you what books I enjoyed over the past year, and what books I am looking forward to coming out in the new year.  This is not really a personal-finance post, but some of the books are finance-related, so it loosely falls into the scope of this site.

I’m not really going to provide an in-depth summary of the books, I’m basically just putting some titles forward as books I like, and you might too.

Finance Books:

I actually don’t really read too many of these books anymore.  I read dozens of these books while I was conceiving my personal finance plan a few years ago.  As a personal finance writer, maybe I should read more of this kind of book, but I’ve found that blogs like this one and others tend to inspire me more than books.

1.) Early Retirement Extreme:  Tim wrote a review of this last year.  My wife got me this for Christmas last year (my request).  I agree with Tim’s review and have taken a lot of great information from it.

2.) Liar’s Poker:  This was Michael Lewis’ first book, and other than Moneyball probably my favouitetitle.  It reminded me that I care a lot more about my money than the majority of money managers.

Diet and Exercise Books:

1.) The Primal Blueprint:  If you’re looking to eat healthier, feel better and lose some weight in the New Year, I’d highly suggest reading this book and following it.  My wife and I have been following the essential premise of this book for about 18 months.  My wife has lost about 40 lbs, I have lost about 15 (and we have both maintained this weight-loss easily) in that period.  I would say that we have a much better idea of what food makes us feel better and seems healthier compared to what we were eating before.

2.) The Vegetarian Myth:  Think you’re helping the world by going vegan/vegetarian?  I’d suggest you read this book written by an ex-vegan and perhaps get another viewpoint.  At one point in the past I thought about dropping meat from my diet, mainly to cut back on food costs.  After reading this book and several others about the North American food system I went another way.  Now I buy my meat locally.  I visit the farms and talk to the farmers, I see the area that the animals are raised and what they are being fed.

“Fun” Books:

These are books that I read and think some people might like, some are older and some are new, but I really enjoyed them.

1.) Voyageur by Robert Twigger:  My brother leant me this book earlier in the year.  He is not a reader, and maybe gets through one or two books per year but he was excited about this one.  I read it in a weekend – It is about a guy who has never canoed before, but attempts to follow Mackenzie’s route through the Rocky Mountains on a birch-bark Canoe.

2.) Ender’s Game:  Even if you don’t like fantasy/science fiction (which this book is) I would say that the “base” story of this book is fairly universal.  I have given this book as a present many times to people and have never really had any complaints (and my friends are not polite people).

3.) Beat the Reaper:  I listened to this book on my vacation a couple of weeks ago, it’s an interesting book that kept my attention while sitting beside the pool in the Dominican Republic.  It is a fictional drama ex-hitman turned doctor whose past comes back to bite him (not really sure if that is a genre or not, but that’s where this would fall).

Books I’m looking forward to in the New Year:

1.) A Memory of Light:  This is the last book of 14 of The Wheel of Time – I didn’t start reading these until about 5 years ago, but the series started in 1990 so the ending has been coming for a while.

2.) Sacre Bleu - Christopher Moore:  If you have never read this author, you are missing out.  One of the most consistently funny writers I have come across.

3.) The Wind Through the Keyhole - Stephen King:  I really enjoy Stephen King’s stories.  Sometimes the writing isn’t great, but the ideas in the stories always take me away.  I love the Dark Tower stories, and this is a prequel to that tale.

So, that’s my list of books that I’ve read in the past year or so and think other people might like.  Any books you would suggest?

Seeing my Family at their Best

Posted by Robert on December 26, 2011

Book Review: The Wealthy Barber Returns

Posted by Canadian Dream on December 22, 2011

I’m not sure if you have ever had this option in your life, but if you have ever spent a hour or two just talking about money to someone who is knowledgeable and excited about the topic the time can just fly by.  This is more or less what reading The Wealthy Barber Returns by David Chilton feels like.  The mans knows his stuff and it is quick and easy to understand book and it also has lots of humor.

In some regards I do feel sorry for David, since after his first book became almost a bible to most personal finance geeks (not surprising since it sold over two million copies in Canada), his second was almost doomed to disappoint somewhat because he couldn’t live up to the hype surrounding the book no matter how hard he tried.  I don’t mean to say the book sucked or anything like that, but rather the expectations could easily be set far too high for the book.

I personally somewhat had this issue.  Why?  Well if you have to know the very first person finance book I ever read was The Wealthy Barber.  So like it or not, that book defined a lot of ideas in my head early on in life about saving in general.  So I did try to rein in my enthusiasm for the book, but I didn’t do that great of a job.  It was rather like Christmas when my copy arrived.

David himself manages to echo a lot of standard advice that you have already likely heard: spend less than you earn, be careful with how much credit you use and for the love of God save something!  Hardly earth shattering advice, but David does have a point about repeating it: the advice hasn’t sunk in yet for the majority of people.  Thus this book is aim squarely at the majority of clueless Canadians who rather talk about almost anything else other than their money, despite the fact a large amount of their problems stem from their lack of knowledge about their money.

So while I did enjoy David’s humour and his explanations of everything, I didn’t learn anything new out of the book.  Which is hardly surprising since if you look at the number of book reviews on this site and realize that is only a fraction of what I have read it becomes obvious I’m a personal finance geek from my toes to the tips of my hair that is standing straight up.

In the end I do think this is a great book for the majority of people to read, especially if they feel the topic of money is a dry and boring one.  Yet if you have already read a lot on personal finance you likely won’t learn much, but you will still enjoy the funny parts.

So did you read David’s new book?  If so, did you like it?