The reviewing, and even the pleasure reading, has been slow-going lately. In typical fashion I have about 4 books going, strewn about my bedroom floor, but none of them has really caught my full attention yet.

So, if I'm not reading (finishing) many books, not watching TV, have cut back on my movie habit and haven't mowed my lawn in days (weeks? Sorry, neighbors), what could I possibly be doing with my time?

One word: Facebook. Aka the time-suck where I run into old pals and stay up into the wee hours.

It's also the time of year: I can stay out later neglecting my lawn and not buying the tomato plants I need to buy.

Below are three new business books the AP has taken the time to capsulize. I guess the "personal finance team" is not too busy friending their former elementary school best friends to review some books... (P.S. You are looking at The Mercury's "personal finance team.")

Bookshelf: Things they won't tell you
The AP Personal Finance Team

"It all sounds good, but what aren't they telling me?" As a consumer that's a question you might ask about your plumber, auto mechanic or any other service-provider. If you're intrigued, that's the concept behind the new compilation of SmartMoney's collection of its regular "10 Things They Won't Tell You" feature.

While investors with a bit of an appetite for risk may want to learn more about emerging markets in Riches Among the Ruins. These are just a few of new personal finance titles that might help you sort out your money questions.

_____________________

TITLE: 1,001 Things They Won't Tell You: An Insider's Guide to Spending, Saving, and Living Wisely

AUTHOR: Jonathan Dahl and the editors of SmartMoney, The Wall Street Journal magazine

PUBLISHER: Workman Publishing

PRICE: $16.95 (paperback)

SUMMARY: If you're a fan of lists, you're in for a treat. This book compiles 100 updated installments of SmartMoney's popular monthly feature, "10 Things They Won't Tell You" into more than 500 pages.


The lists are intended to give readers an insider look into a variety of topics, such as using ticket brokers and going to the eye doctor. The book is divided into chapters such as family, education, home, food and drink, and health.

The lists often impart interesting research and are written in a playful tone that make them fun to flip through, if not carefully study. Under "Alternative Healers," for instance, categories include, "I'm not a doctor but I play one in my office" and "Hypochondriacs are my specialty."

Topics aren't always obviously related to personal finance, such as the lists on campus security and yoga instructors. But the implications for the consumer are always kept in mind. As Dahl writes in the introduction, "Who doesn't love a list?"

QUOTE: "It's what you aren't told by the experts that is almost as important as what they do say."

__________

TITLE: Riches Among the Ruins: Adventures in the Dark Corners of the Global Economy

AUTHOR: Robert P. Smith

PUBLISHER: AMACOM

PRICE: $24.95 (hardcover)

SUMMARY: If you think playing the markets in the U.S. isn't for the faint of heart, try trading in the debt of emerging market governments. Fortunes can be made or lost on an overnight currency fluctuation, corruption, or an outbreak of disease — think Mexico and swine flu.

Robert P. Smith is an American who has made and lost tens of millions of dollars trading debt in downtrodden economies. He started in the late 1970s, when such deals were virtually nonexistent. In "Riches Among the Ruins," Smith recounts adventures such as ducking shakedown artists in Nigeria, and racing through the streets of Baghdad after the fall of Saddam Hussein. In post-communist Russia, he lost more than $15 million in a single day when the ruble collapsed.

Beyond the war stories, Smith offers lessons relevant for U.S. investors seeking opportunity overseas. Smith also shares his take on the importance of narrowing the gap between rich and poor; the U.S. role in the global economy; and an increasingly integrated world trade system.

QUOTE: "At the end of the day, a country has to rescue itself, because outside sources — the IMF, the World Bank, investment banks, and other nations — often have secondary motives that may not align with the country's national interest."

__________

TITLE: Bank on Yourself

AUTHOR: Pamela Yellen

PUBLISHER: Vanguard Press

PRICE: $25.95 (hardcover)

SUMMARY: Former financial consultant Pamela Yellen maintains that you can't rely on mutual funds, stocks or real estate to provide long-term financial security. She says you can buy cars, fund your child's college, take vacations and make major purchases by using her "Spend and Grow Wealthy" program, which she promises will also enable you to fund your retirement nest egg.

Her secret is a dividend-paying whole life insurance policy offered by a handful of companies, plus a "paid up additions rider." After paying premiums for a few years, the policy is used to fund loans to yourself. You then pay back those loans, with the interest you would have paid to banks or credit card companies, helping to build up your reserves.

The book is filled with anecdotes and personal stories of people who have used the plan. But there are few worksheets or specific details on exactly how it works, and Yellen warns readers that discussing the plan with most finance or insurance professionals will yield criticisms of her advice, because they are not trained in the specialized program. Throughout the book there are references to the related Web site, www.bankonyourself.com, which is where readers are directed to go for a referral to a "Bank on Yourself Certified Advisor."

QUOTE: "Your retirement plan investments are typically subject to market risk and volatility. However, your principal in a B.O.Y. plan won't vanish due to a stock or real estate market correction. And your growth, as soon as it's credited to your plan, is locked in."

Book event in our area...and it's in the gorgeous Valley Forge Park. (Click here to read my recent post about another book that involves the park). What could be better? (Well, if it wasn't happening at 4 p.m. on a workday...) But for those of you who can go, enjoy a little historial fiction.

Below is from the press release sent by Valley Forge:

Best-Selling Author Ray Raphael to speak at Valley Forge National Park

VALLEY FORGE – Renowned author, Ray Raphael, launches his newest book, “Founders: The People Who Brought You a Nation” with a lecture at Valley Forge National Historical Park next Thursday, May 21, at 4:00 p.m.

Raphael examines how to call back a distant time, to view it more fully and accurately. “The reality of our nation’s founding has narrowed in the decades and centuries since. Actual events have been simplified, and the truth diminished,” says Raphael.

In this new book, Raphael examines seven lead characters:

General George Washington
Joseph Plumb Martin, a private in his army
Mercy Otis Warren, the most political woman of the Revolutionary generation
Robert Morris, the most powerful civilian in Revolutionary America who was strangely forgotten
Timothy Bigelow, a small-town blacksmith who helped engineer the first overthrow of British authority in 1774
Henry Laurens, South Carolina’s most unlikely rebel
Thomas Young, a country doctor turned revolutionary

Using each of these unique stories, Raphael leapfrogs past centuries of mythology and filtrations of the historical record to explore the American Revolution as it was known by those who lived it. His previous award-winning works include “A People’s History of the American Revolution,” “The First Revolution – Before Lexington and Concord,” and “Founding Myths.”

Copies of “Founders” will be available for sale in the Encampment Store. The author will be available to sign copies after the lecture. This free, public event is sponsored by Valley Forge National Historical Park, The Friends of Valley Forge Park, The Encampment Store at Valley Forge and The New Press. Call 610-783-1006 or e-mail maher@valleyforge.org for more information or to register.

Associated Press article about a cool Manhattan bookstore that I, a self-confessed bookstore addict, would love to visit:

Click here.

Or copy and paste: http://www.pottsmerc.com/articles/2009/05/15/business/doc4a0c1f65afc0a130790777.txt

Reviewed: “Life’s Little Financial Instruction Book: A Beginner’s Guide to Managing Your Money … and Enjoying Life!,” by Joseph Bisignano, Firebird Press, a division of Pelican Publishing Co., 2006, $7.95, 93 pages.

Joseph Bisignano, author of “Life’s Little Financial Instruction Book,” is a high school business teacher.

His no-nonsense little guide, easily read in one short sitting, talks about money and big-money decisions we face in life.

Bisignano’s Italian father told him never to trusts banks, that that “La banca ti mangia” — “The bank will eat you alive.”

The elder Bisignano, an Italian immigrant, never took out a loan, mortgaged a house or applied for a credit card.

But the author isn’t advocating such extremes. Just a little prudence.

“Many people live from day to day and from paycheck to paycheck, just getting by. Personally, I can’t live that way,” he writes in the introduction. “I can’t stand being indebted to people, other businesses or banks. And I will do anything to stay out of those situations.”

On the topic of credit cards, Bisignano suggest finding one without an annual fee and pay off your balance every month. That way, you’ll eliminate the costs of the convenience and won’t incur a finance charge. He recommends using one card only so you have only one bill to pay per month, thus saving postage (I guess his advice predates online payment). Make that one card “help” you by participating in cash back or rewards bonuses that can help you buy a new car or other items.Housing is another area where it pays to be pragmatic, Bisignano says.

When you rent, you are paying someone else’s mortgage. When you own, you are paying yourself. That’s not Bisignano’s advice — it’s mine. But he concurs, rather passionately.

“Paying rent is like taking money out of your wallet and setting it on fire! You will never gain anything from it, and you will never get that money back,” he writes.

He acknowledges reasons why some people must rent and encourages them to start saving for a downpayment on a house.

Once you own, the ideal situation is to rent out a portion of your property and have the renter pay part of your mortgage. But that’s not ideal for everyone, he says.

Bisignano gives a brief overview of mortgages and encourages homeowners to put at least 10 percent of the property cost down and take as short of a term as possible — advocating a 15-year loan over a 30-year. That might cost more in the form of a monthly mortgage payment but will save several thousands in interest.

On the topic of savings, Bisignano encourages picking up overtime at your job to earn more money for savings. (This is the part where I, a salaried employee, laugh bitterly.)

When selecting a financial institution to open a savings or other investment vehicle, Bisignano recommends shopping around until you find a bank that offers free checking with no minimum balance. He advocates buying U.S. Savings Bonds and CDs, paying yourself using Individual Retirement Accounts and participating in your company’s 401k plans, if possible.

The advice in Bisignano’s little book is simple and apropos for those of us who may not have learned our financial lessons from frugal dads, like he did. The upstate New York business teacher has put down on paper a few practical lessons that reach beyond his classroom into the real world.

I judged a book by its cover.

"Waiting," by Emory professor Ha Jin won a National Book Award, won the Pen/Faulkner Award and was a Pulitzer finalist.

Pun intended, but I kept waiting for it to get better, to really pull me in...

OK, so maybe I'm just disgusted by the extremly passive and inadmirable male lead character, Lin Kong, who weds a country woman through an arranged marriage then leaves her at home with the family farm and their child while he travels a distance away to work in an army hospital. There he finds a girlfriend, Manna Wu, but their relationship remains chaste because of the rules of the day. So they carry on this platonic relationship for 18 years until Lin can legally divorce his faithful country wife. Lin and Manna finally marry, but married life is terrible for them: She bears him twin sons (a relative miracle in China) and then nearly dies, causing spineless Lin to consider returning to his first family. And that's all.

In the end, he describes himself as a superfluous man. Ineffective would be the better word, I think.

However, the story of the cultural revolution and its effect on Chinese society is this detailed novel's backstory. It is beautifully told by the native Chinese author in a spare manner.

For me, the story lacked the drama and poetry of Arthur Golden, Amy Tan or Lisa See.

I love Valley Forge park.

Before I share with you news of a new book that mentions the national historic site, which is one of my favorite places to hang out outdoors year-round, I'll share the inscription on the Memorial Arch (this pretty nighttime photo of which was borrowed from the Web but the rest of the photos posted here are my own) that always gives me chills when I pass through during one of my walking, biking or photo-taking outings there.

And here in this place

in this vale of humiliation

in this valley of the shadow

of that death out of which

the life of America rose

regenerate and free

let us believe with an abiding faith

that to them union will seem as dear

and liberty as sweet

and progress as glorious

as they were to our fathers

and are to you and me

and that the institutions

which have made us happy

preserved by the

virtue of our children

shall bless the remotest generation

of the time to come

~ Henry Armitt Brown

It's really moving if you're actually there in the park, at the site of George Washington's encampment during the winter of 1777-78.

I encourage everyone to go there and check it out for yourself.

You don't have to be a history buff. You just have to like being outdoors in a beautiful place. Or you could just drive through. But for outdoor-lovers, there's a path that runs in a 6-mile loop that's perfect for walking, running, biking, rollerblading or what have you in all four seasons. And plenty of places for a picnic or to let the kids run free or just watch the omnipresent herd of extremely tame deer. There's also a little shop (the Encampment Store) behind the Memorial Chapel where you can buy lunch (good coffee and homemade soup, as I recall) or a souvenir.

OK, now we can get back to the book:

Well, it's not an entire book about Valley Forge; The park was recently named in "USA 101: A Guide to America’s Iconic Places, Events, and Festivals."

Due to be released on May 19, the book was penned by award-winning travel writer Gary McKechnie, who highlights Valley Forge along with 100 other world-famous and "distinctly local" places and events revealing the patchwork of America, according to a press release sent to me by our friends at The Valley Forge Convention and Visitors Bureau, Ltd. It says McKechnie included the famous encampment site largely because it helps create a better understanding of our nation’s first president.

“When you grow up in America you hear about George Washington, but it's only a one-dimensional image confined to an old man on a one dollar bill. When I went to Mount Vernon and Washington Crossing and then Valley Forge, the scope of what he did and who he was finally came into focus,” said the author.

“There was something extraordinary about him; some inexplicable power and presence that he had, and visiting Valley Forge illustrated that. Here was one man who not only preserved America's chances for victory, but he literally weathered the storm with his men until he was assured that they would come out stronger than before. That's what he did at Valley Forge.”

McKechnie, who has been published in National Geographic Traveler, People, Chicago Tribune, and The Washington Post, details the historic winter at Valley Forge and gives tips on visiting the Park. The 90-minute History of Valley Forge Trolley Tour, currently running on weekends, is mentioned, as are local establishements of interest.

And if you want to read about the other 100 events and destinations featured in the book, you'll find everything from the Little League World Series to the Grand Ole Opry, Mount Vernon to Mount Rushmore, and polka festivals to truck rallies (who doesn't like those?).

"USA 101: A Guide to America’s Iconic Places, Events and Festivals" is published by National Geographic Books and will be available at the Encampment Store at Valley Forge National Historical Park.

To learn more about Valley Forge, visit http://www.valleyforge.org/

That reminds me, I haven't been there since the everything bloomed last week. I haven't taken an photos there since the fall:

Maybe tomorrow...