P.S. A Column On Things

Financial Fitness Forever

Paul Merriman  manages $1.5 billion of other people's money, has a well-respected  investment podcast, and appears on TV to advise about investing. He's also had the good sense to use a writer, long-time Seattle Times business reporter/editor  Richard Buck, to help him come up with the words (excerpt here) that go around his charts and graphs. [Disclosure: Richard and I worked together at the Associated Press in Boston]. Buck gets a "written with" credit  for Financial Fitness Forever. I consider myself a fairly sophisticated investor; I know from bond yields, maturity profiles and rates of returns. Unlike a majority of Americans, I know a stock from a bond and am not appallingly ignorant about finance. I give myself an A or B, rather than a C, D or F. But only the fool thinks he knows everything, and this refreshingly breezy and readable book contains solid advice that matches my experience and could reasonably be expected to help anyone invest more intelligently and knowledgeably. Perhaps I understand and appreciate the book because Richard and I have two things in common: we were both business reporters (I worked for the Oregon Journal), and we were both interested in finance as kids. He subscribed to an investment newsletter; I actually subscribed for a year to the technical investors' bible, the Value Line Investment Survey, which was definitely overkill for a 12-year-old with $100 to invest.

The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta

3 stars out of 5
Most of the books that make it into the Paul's Reading section on the right hand side of my blog make it because I rate them 5 stars--because usually a novel has to be particularly good to get me to finish it (same goes, actually, for non-fiction). This book is an exception.

I heard Tom Perrotta on NPR's Fresh Air and on the New York Times Book Review podcast. He was great, and the book sounded fascinating. I love comic authors (although I was not familiar with his previous work), and the concept: the after effects of a "sort of" rapture, sounded captivating. I bought the e-book the first day it was available. I read through high spots (many) and low spots (few), only to find out that, in the end, the book didn't finish, it just ended. Now I know art doesn't wrap an ending in a bow for you, with a neon sign flashing "author's message," but I just didn't find this novel satisfying.

Baghdad by the Bay

Herb Caen
5 stars out of 5

Herb Caen, alas, is rapidly on his way to being forgotten, except in those places where he was never known. Unlike Walter Winchell, who was nationally syndicated and also had a national radio program, Herb Caen was strictly a local boy--syndicated, sporadically, in the Honolulu Advertiser because of the large San Francisco ex-pat community there, but nowhere else. Basically, from 1938 to his death in 1997, Caen was Mr. San Francisco, mostly for the San Francisco Chronicle, but with eight years at the Examiner in the 50s. I still remember the thrill of driving out to the airport on Sunday mornings to pick up a Sunday Examiner and Chronicle, mostly to read Caen and Count Marco (try getting that thrill from the Internet; I dare you).

Anyway, for years, I've been meaning to read Caen's books. I started with his far-and-away most popular collection of columns, Baghdad by the Bay, which went through seven printings in 1949, and made whatever national reputation Caen enjoyed. I was not disappointed. Surprised, a little, but not disappointed. I read Caen every day in 1977, the first time I lived in SF, and from my return in 1979 to his death in 1997, but that was late Caen. As people always say of Woody Allen, "I liked his earlier stuff better." In the book, you could see the Caen column at age 11, rather than at age 39. His liberal leanings are all over the book (why shouldn't blacks and Asians be allowed to live anywhere they wanted?). What's missing is his three-dot journalism. The book is basically a collection of "Sunday columns," the day each week when Caen became elegaic. I often skipped them in later years, as they seemed tired and formulaic. In the day, they were fresh and exciting. If you wanted to feel as if you could walk the streets of San Francisco just after World War II, there's no better way then to find a used copy of this book and read it. Caen's 1996 Pulitzer amounted to a coveted "Good Sport Award" for his longevity, but was just proof again (as if proof were needed) that the Pulitzer's are a Boswash centric old boys' club. Caen deserved to win in 1949. I'm just glad he won eventually. Baghdad by the Bay is a fascinating snapshot of the city that was, and, to an extent, the city that never was, written by a brilliant prose stylist who loved his city and his work.

Supreme Courtship

5 stars out of 5

Have you ever noticed how many novels seems to accelerate towards the end? Hundreds of pages of detailed, leisurely story telling, then WHOOSH, the thing ends in a heaving rush. The classic example of this was Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities, a huge book, which wrapped up with a "one year later" newspaper article--I found it disappointing, after all those pages and a cheap artifice. I am not saying Supreme Courtship was that bad, but it does seem to follow that template. As it happens, its virtues outweigh its vices.

And, oh yes, you might ask "what's with all the books lately?" Well, after a year of successfully keeping my weight under control, I am encouraged that it is possible to make lasting lifestyle changes. I have been disappointed for some time that I never meet my goal of reading for at least a half hour a day in the comfy chair in our library. I am getting closer to my goal! So, you'll see more about books here in this blog.

Now for the book at hand.

Christopher Buckley (son of William, journalist in his own right), is a worthy successor to Benchley and Perlman, but does them one better; they wrote short essays, he writes actual novels with plots. In that regard, he is more like Peter DeVries and Garrison Keillor. His humor is a humor of character and situation, not jokes or style.

Consistently funny, Buckley walks a fine line between parody, satire and slapstick, and does so in a consistently amusing and entertaining way. Supreme Courtship is the story of a television judge elevated to the Supreme Court by a frustrated president. Buckley deftly skewers modern presidential campaigns and modern internal Supreme Court bickering at the same time, as well as taking a few well-aimed swipes at reality television. There are several characters who are recognizable burlesque version of real people (including Sen. Joe Biden), but unlike, say, Black and White and Dead All Over, such thinly disguised portraits are incidental, rather than central. Rollicking fun. Be sure to read it.

The Book of Illusions

5 stars out of 5

Apropos of the review above, I should note that Paul Auster's Book of Illusions is not one of those books with a variable story-telling pace. It is consistent throughout, and the end does not feel rushed. This is one of those books that I picked up because I heard it discussed on National Public Radio. My secondary fictional interest, besides journalism novels, is Hollywood Fiction.

For anyone who likes every page of their novel soaked in the feeling of being a Hollywood insider, this piece of literary fiction should be like catnip. Auster has written the tale of a woebegone academic who stumbles across a silent film comedian. The comic made movies for a year and a half, then disappeared 60 years earlier. The academic writes the first and only book about the actor, and is then told his subject is still alive! The interweaving of the two narratives, the richly imagined life of the actor and the sadly lived life of the professor, is skillful in a way that makes me jealous as a writer. It's a great read.

Black and White and Dead All Over

I heard John Darnton talking to Terry Gross on NPR's Fresh Air about this book and couldn't resist it. He wrote it as a way of avoiding the "real" book he has been contracted to write, about his father, a New York Times was correspondent killed during World War II when Darnton was only a child. He, his mother, and several other members of the family have worked for the Grey Lady in the years since. I've seen a number of avoidance projects over the years, and this has to be the best ever.

The book is a thinly disguised roman a clef about the New York Times, and earns a place of honor in the pantheon of great journalism novels, as I define the genre: the central character is a journalist and the process of journalism is depicted. You finish this book feeling as though you are covered with printer's ink. If you, like me, have followed the ins and outs and ups and downs of the newspaper, you'll have no trouble spotting Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., R.W. "Johnny" Apple, former executive editors Howell Raines and A.M. "Abe" Rosenthal. In fact, if you know the paper better, you can probably identify all the other thinly veiled references I missed. The novel features a detailed tour of the important parts of the building (including the hole where the presses used to be and the neglected morgue), as well as a seemingly accurate and well-sketched look at actual daily newspaper operations. Fantastic, engaging and well written.

Trite, and often stated in the bar next to my blog where I list and briefly review the books I have read recently, but I could not put it down.

Greenspan Book

Also from Richard Dalton, some thoughts on Alan Greenspan and his new book:

For a self-admitted numbers geek, Alan Greenspan is very endearing; he lusted first after a baseball career, then wanted to be a jazz saxophonist (at 17) and later became an Ayn Rand acolyte.

Interviewed (poorly in my view--why did she get the call?) by Lesley Stahl on the eve of availability of his new book, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World, Greenspan called Nixon foul- mouthed, Ford ethical and Clinton the smartest president he served with. He said Hilary was definitely smart enough to be president but he's hoping (he sounded wistful to me) for a Republican candidate. He bridled a bit at the suggestion that he should have foreseen and acted upon the present credit crunch while Fed chairman but seemed willing to admit to other actions where he had made mistakes.

I just put in a request for his book at our library. I think a lot of people will also do this or, if they aren't as frugal as I am, go right out and buy a copy.