Not a lot of time for reading/blogging this week. I was putting together The Mercury's annual Progress section spotlighting area business accomplishments. Look for it online at www.pottsmerc.com/business or in print this Sunday, Feb. 28.

Stories for the 12-page section were written by each of the Merc's three in-house reporters, me, and one stringer. Their four stories are all great reads, but I'm gonna tell you about mine:

I wrote about Limerick residents Doug and Deb Campbell. They faced the challenge of their professional and personal lives in September 2008, when their Pottstown properties burned to the ground after an accidental fire was set (kids playing with matches was the unofficial ruling). Luckily, none of their 54 tenants were killed in the fire. A few were injured jumping off the roof of the three-story structures to safety, as were some area firefighters hurt in the line of duty.

The Campbells decided to rebuild; their new buildings literally rose from the ashes. Once they went through the often frustrating process of getting all the necessary permits lined up, they started to rebuild in August 2009. This March, they will open up the newly rebuilt High Street Rentals at 538 and 540 E. High St.

Their story is just one of those to be featured in our special section. Please check it out.

But if, in the meantime, you were just itching for some personal finance book news, below is the AP's personal finance Bookshelf feature. Enjoy.

Date: 2/26/2010 10:33 AM
New titles cover personal finance from all angles

By The Associated Press

Financial well-being can be reached from a variety of paths. Several are charted out by money experts in new personal finance books.

In "One Year to an Organized Financial Life," the message to readers is to get off your assets and put your financial life in order, month by month, topic by topic. Organization, then, is the way to success.
The second title, "Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is," follows a more inspirational strategy en route to "portfolio peace of mind."
An alternative way of approaching things gets explored in "The Money Book for Freelancers, Part-Timers, and the Self-Employed." Its target audience may have no choice but to march to a different personal finance drummer in what the authors characterize as a world of mass layoffs and ever-shrinking benefits.

Here's a look at the new titles:

TITLE: One Year to an Organized Financial Life
AUTHOR: Regina Leeds with Russell Wild
PRICE: $16.95 (paperback)

SUMMARY: The Los Angeles-based Leeds, who dubs herself the "Zen Organizer," takes on finances in her third "One Year" book. Her overarching premise is that when things are in order, you'll feel calmer and more inspired.
To help put readers' financial lives in order, Leeds brings in Wild, a financial adviser with a few books of his own. But this book isn't about how to invest or where to stash cash; it's about taking control.

Leeds offers a month-by-month approach written in simple, straightforward language that begins with understanding your relationship with money and moves to decluttering your wallet, briefcase and office space. She offers a schedule for making sense of different topics, from bills to spending, taxes, credit cards and retirement accounts.
There's a chapter for kids and money, and one on controlling holiday spending. And while the book is set up like the calendar, Leeds notes you can start the 12-month plan at any time.

QUOTE: "Your budget is the foundation of your financial life. Without it you might be robbing Peter — say your 401(k) — to pay Paul — perhaps that four-star vacation you just put on a credit card."

PUBLISHER: Lifelong Books (Da Capo Press)
— Eileen AJ Connelly

TITLE: Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is
AUTHOR: Sue Stevens
PRICE: $15.99 (paperback)
SUMMARY: Some personal finance books are checklists summarizing all the things you need to do to be financially sound. Others are inspirational, focusing on a right-brained approach to your money. This one is a mixture of both, as underscored by the title.
The author, a former professional cellist turned financial planner at Vanguard, Morningstar and now her own firm, takes the reader through the basics in this 168-page book. Key points about budgeting, determining net worth, retirement planning, health care concerns and estate planning all are addressed.

But her primary message throughout concerns finding financial happiness and using money to support your highest intentions — employing a personal, conversational writing style and drawing on real-life stories to make her points. Underscoring her theme, she outlines a six-step process to achieve what she calls "portfolio peace of mind."

QUOTE: "By paying attention to a few key areas, you can transform your everyday relationship with money from frustrating to inspiring. Instead of endless worry, you can create a life that you look forward to living because it reflects who you are and what is important to you."
PUBLISHER: CreateSpace
— Dave Carpenter

TITLE: The Money Book for Freelancers, Part-Timers, and the Self-Employed
AUTHOR: Joseph D'Agnese and Denise Kiernan
PRICE: $15.00 (paperback)

SUMMARY: Salaried workers often take a lot for granted when it comes to their personal finances. Taxes are automatically withheld, and insurance and retirement plans are at their disposal. For freelancers and other independent contractors the lack of a financial plan can cause tremendous problems.

Just consider the unpredictability of their income from month to month, or working with clients who pay late. "The Money Book" lays out the key issues for workers who don't have benefits. It hits on the major themes of saving regularly, planning for retirement, and managing your taxes when you, the worker, are ultimately responsible. Its conversational tone makes it easily accessible for readers who aren't inclined to read about how to crunch numbers and budget.

QUOTE: "This is a book for anyone with a job that doesn't provide benefits. It's for anyone who is trying to plan for the future on an income that varies from month to month. It's also a book for the hardworking individuals who, by no choice of their own, find themselves juggling temporary jobs to make ends meet, none of which provide the kinds of benefits that most Americans rely upon."

PUBLISHER: Three Rivers Press
— Trevor Delaney

I saw this book cover photo by the Associated Press on the wire, smiled, then wished I had it to review.

Not only am I feeling a little Scrooge-like (which will happen when you have a secondary job in retail during the holidays) at this point in time, but I also agree with the author's premise: That a lot of the gifts we give just become clutter in someone else's closet.

From The Associated Press' Bookshelf Roundup:

TITLE: Scroogenomics: Why You Shouldn't Buy Presents for the Holidays

AUTHOR: Joel Waldfogel

PRICE: $9.95

SUMMARY: This 186-page pocketbook measures just 4 by 6 inches in size, and invites readers to think just as small when it comes to holiday excess. Joel Waldfogel, an economist at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, goes beyond the obvious in arguing against habitual gift-giving.

Buying a tie that Dad will never wear or a toy that a child may use once, will hurt more than just your pocketbook and add to household clutter. Waldfogel argues all those ill-chosen gifts damage the economy, whether they're purchased using credit or not. He calculates waste of $85 billion each winter from holiday gift giving's failure at "allocating resources" — getting stuff to the right people who can actually use or enjoy it.

QUOTE: "The red tornado is Santa Claus. And despite the warm feeling he evokes in children, his tornado of giving does a perennially poor job of matching stuff with people. In so doing, he destroys a lot of value."

PUBLISHER: Princeton University Press

The dark wordsmith Edgar Allen Poe, were he alive today, might brighten a bit to learn that his first published work fetched more than a half-mil at auction today - and set a new record to boot.

The rare, tattered copy of "Tamerlane and Other Poems" sold for $662,500 earlier today, smashing the previous record price for American literature. The 40-page collection of poems was published in 1827 by the author, who identified himself only as "a Bostonian" on these particular pages. According to the Associated Press, Poe wrote the book shortly after moving to Boston to launch his literary career.

The previous record is believed to be $250,000 for a copy of the same book sold nearly two decades ago, per the AP.

No more than 40 or 50 copies of "Tamerlane" were printed, and only 12 remain.
The record-breaking copy is stained and frayed and has V-shaped notches on the outer and lower margins.

According to a post on Marjorie Kehe's Chapter and Verse blog, the book’s owner is former television executive and rare book collector William Self. His 300-book collection, all of which goes on sale today, also includes rare works by Mark Twain, Jane Austen, and Charles Dickens.
Self, who is 88, has told the press that were his children to inherit the books, they wouldn’t be able to afford to pay the taxes on them.

Kehe writes that “Tamerlane” is the Latinized name of 14th-century historical figure Timur, a Mongol conqueror and emperor. Although a fierce and controversial character with a mixed legacy, Timur was a great patron of the arts who, according to legend, knew a thing or two about rare books himself. His court calligrapher is said to have created two remarkable editions of the Koran, one so small that its text fit on a signet ring, and the other so large that it had to be carried in a wheelbarrow.

For my fellow poetry geeks, click here for the full text of "Tamerlane."

Apparently, not me.

Well, I read a few pages of "The Probable Future" by Alice Hoffman, my pleasure reading of the moment. But my to-be-reviewed business books are languishing on my desk under piles of yesterday's and the day before's page proofs, papers, handouts from Wegmans, phone messages and an overripe Bosc pear.

Thankfully, The Associated Press was up to the task. Below is their weekly Bookshelf Roundup of the latest finance-related reading:

Bookshelf: Millionaires and football philosophy

By The Associated Press

You can learn how the rich really live, how one renowned football coach approached leadership and some new strategies to put to use when searching for a job with three new books that explore these diverse themes.
Researcher Thomas Stanley walks readers through his findings uncovering the surprising spending habits of the wealthy. The late coach Bill Walsh dishes on his philosophies about professionalism and other aspects of leadership that helped him transform the San Francisco 49ers into a football dynasty. And career coaches Richard and Terri Deems help job hunters turn their experience into ammunition for finding their dream jobs.
Here's a look at the new titles:
_____________________
TITLE: Stop Acting Rich and Start Living Like a Millionaire
AUTHOR: Thomas J. Stanley
PRICE: $26.95
SUMMARY: Being a millionaire is not about fancy cars, expensive watches, fine dining or top-shelf liquor, Thomas Stanley argues.
Building on the sort of research results he previously reported in the "The Millionaire Next Door" and its follow-up books, Stanley explores the behaviors of millionaires and extrapolates how people who aspire to be wealthy ought to act.
Using findings from surveys of wealthy people, Stanley explains, for instance, that most millionaires don't drive BMWs, wear Rolex watches or live in million-dollar homes. He also explores the cultural impact of what he calls "the glittering rich," the celebrities whose extravagant lifestyles many people try to emulate.
In trying to live like those who have enormous wealth, he argues, ordinary people actually set themselves back and make true financial security more elusive. And since financial security is what his research shows provides for happiness, he concludes that a more frugal lifestyle that enables people to build wealth will make them happier than any Mercedes or bottle of Grey Goose vodka.
The book can be repetitive in spots but it contains some surprising data that makes for a convincing argument supporting a simple lifestyle as a path to security.
QUOTE: "I don't mean to suggest that one live like a miser; the occasional guilty pleasure is perfectly acceptable. If you work hard and save accordingly, you should enjoy a treat from time to time. The problem is that people have come to enjoy the guilty pleasure every day to the exclusion of working for a financially independent future."
PUBLISHER: Wiley
—Eileen AJ Connelly
_____________________
TITLE: The Score Takes Care of Itself
AUTHOR: Bill Walsh, with Steven Jamison and Craig Walsh
PRICE: $25.95
SUMMARY: Before his death, legendary NFL coach Bill Walsh discussed his philosophy on leadership in a series of interviews. Now those interviews have been turned into a book, written from Walsh's perspective, and drawing on his experience as a transformative figure for the San Francisco 49ers and football strategy.
In discussing the importance of professionalism, for instance, Walsh recounts how he didn't allow players to showboat or taunt the other team on the field. At the 49ers headquarters, phones had to be answered promptly and courteously. Walsh says the rules, big and small, eventually helped infuse the entire organization with an atmosphere of professionalism.
Interspersed throughout the book are insights from former colleagues, including assistant coaches Bill McPherson and Mike White.
QUOTE: "There is no guarantee, no ultimate formula for success. However, a resolute and resourceful leader understands that there are a multitude of means to increase the probability of success. And that's what it all comes down to, namely, intelligently and relentlessly seeking solutions that will increase your chance of prevailing in a competitive environment. When you do that, the score will take care of itself."
PUBLISHER: Portfolio
—Candice Choi
_____________________
TITLE: Make Job Loss Work for You
AUTHOR: Richard S. Deems and Terri A. Deems
PRICE: $12.95 (paperback)
SUMMARY: Using their experience working people making career changes, some pop psychology and some traditional advice, the authors put together a helpful book for those who find themselves looking for work.
The book aims to help unemployed readers focus on their accomplishments at work in order to better define what they want to do. Readers are prompted to answer numerous questions and to come up with specific achievements in measurable terms — information that can later be translated into lines on a resume or cover letter.
The couple offers both traditional wisdom about organizing a job search and some unconventional advice, including the suggestion that resume writers add positive quotes from co-workers or clients to their resumes. And there's a section that reviews the sorts of questions a job seeker may have to answer during an interview.
QUOTE: "If you've not been happy or satisfied doing what you've been doing, now's the time to think through your options and design your future."
PUBLISHER: Jist
—Eileen AJ Connelly

Free books online!


That is, if you have a Kindle or Sony reader to read them.
Which I don't.
But I do like to hear about and get my paws on free stuff ... If only someone was giving away free Kindles!

I would like to take this opportunity to point out that you can also get free mp3 music downloads from Amazon if you search for "free" under the mp3 downloads tab. Some good stuff, too.


Anyhow, check out this story from the Associated Press:


The latest craze: Free e-books offerings


By HILLEL ITALIE

AP National Writer

NEW YORK — James Patterson's latest best seller, "The Angel Experiment," is a little different from his usual hits. The novel isn't new; it came out four years ago. Its sales aren't happening at bookstores, but mostly on the Kindle site at Amazon.com.
And the price is low even for an old release: $0.00

"I like the notion of introducing people to one book, while promoting the sales of another," says the prolific and mega-selling author (and co-author) of numerous thrillers." His Kindle download is the first book of Patterson's "Maximum Ride" young adult series.

"We've given away thousands of free e-copies," Patterson said. "'Maximum Ride' is big already and we think it could be a lot bigger. That requires getting people to read it."

Patterson is among the biggest brands added to the growing list of free e-book offerings. Over the past few months, top sellers on the Kindle — with downloads in the tens of thousands, authors and publishers say — have included such public domain titles as "Pride and Prejudice" and "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes," and novels by Jennifer Stevenson and Greg Keyes.
In recent days, the top three Kindle sellers have been free books: Patterson's, Joseph Finder's "Paranoia" and Keyes' "The Briar King."

"There's always going to be someone who wants free things. What we're trying to do is link free with paid," Maja Thomas, senior vice president of digital media at Patterson's publisher, the Hachette Book Group, said. "It's like priming the pump."

"What we like to do is make the first book in a series free, usually a series that has multiple books," said Scott Shannon, publisher of the Del Rey/Spectra imprint at Random House, Inc., which published Keyes' fantasy novel.

Shannon said Del Rey has had especially good luck with Naomi Novik's "Temeraire" fantasy series after offering the first book for free. He said sales for the other Temeraire novels increased by more than 1,000 percent. "It's been stunning," he said.

Publishers and authors have been nervous that the standard cost for electronic editions of new releases, just under $10, will take away sales from the more expensive hardcovers and set an unrealistically low price for the future. They are concerned, but open-minded, about free books, which present a chance and a challenge: Readers may buy other books, or, they may simply seek more free titles.

"It's a huge hot-button topic we've been discussing within our division and at the corporate level," Shannon said. "We have had phenomenal success with using free books to get people to buy others by an author. But in the long term, we have to guard the market. We have to make sure people understand that time and energy goes into writing a book."

"Consumers love free — free is a good price. But the opportunity they present to publishers is to experiment, and I stress experiment," Ellie Hirschhorn, Simon & Schuster's chief digital officer, said.

The dominant e-book seller Amazon.com has been aggressive about keeping prices low, and has given free e-books high visibility by including them on the Kindle best-seller list. A leading rival, Sony, does not include free works among its best sellers, although some free books have popular downloads.

"We do withhold them from the best-seller list, so that it's an accurate reflection of what people are actually buying," says Sony eBook store director Chris Smythe.

In an e-mail statement about free ebooks, Amazon.com spokeswoman Cinthia Portugal, said, "We work hard to provide customers with the best value possible and pass savings on to them whenever possible." Portugal added that Amazon includes free books among its top sellers because the list is "based on customer orders — customers are still ordering these books, they just have a price tag of $0.00."

David Bailey, 56, a systems analyst in Tacoma, Wash., is the kind of customer publishers and authors want to get. He has downloaded free texts by Kelly Link, Scott Sigler and others, but has then purchased other books by those authors, sometimes "just to support them."

One of Bailey's free downloads was Finder's "Paranoia," a thriller first published in 2004. Finder, whose "Vanished" comes out Aug. 18, said he initially saw the free offering as a "no lose" deal since "Paranoia" wasn't selling many copies anyway and sales for his other books, including "Power Play" and "Killer Instinct," have gone up. But, noticing all the free best sellers on the Kindle, he wondered if readers will get used to not paying.

"I get a lot of e-mails from people, saying, 'I hadn't even heard of you until I read your free book.' So no question, it does bring in free riders," Finder said. "But I'm also increasingly concerned. There are so many free e-books that basically you could stuff your Kindle or Sony Reader with free books and never have to buy anything."

Maybe everyone has a book in them, but not everyone should write a book.
That's one of the lessons I learned attending the Publishing Institute at the University of Denver 6 years ago.

The program was designed to give people fresh out of college or those looking to change careers, as I was at the time, an in-depth look at the publishing industry. I did that while spending time in the beautiful and humidity-free Mile High City, where I could see the Rocky Mountains every day, and had the opportunity to hang out for most of the summer with my sister and her girls, who live there.

But anyway, at DPI, while not enjoying the weather, mountains, and my beautiful and hilarious nieces, we studied marketing, promotion, book cover design, literary agency, magazine and journal publishing, and sales, the big focus of the 6-week summer program was on editing and book publishing.

Book editors, in the course of their work, read a lot of duds. The volume of manuscripts that come across their desks is staggering. And much of it is crap.

To unearth a true gem of a book - a bestseller, even - in the slush pile (unsolicited manuscripts) is a very rare occurence indeed. Which is why authors must work with a literary agent to determine whether publication is feasible and, if so, to help them find someone to publish their manuscript.

Which is what makes it so remarkable for an author to have a first novel published. To have it quickly become a bestseller is rather astonishing.

First-time author Kathryn Stockett, 39, did just that with her novel "The Help." But it wasn't as if Stocket just strolled up to the publisher and was handed a contract. She got 45 rejection letters from literary agents first. Forty-five. And perservered. And got a bestseller under her belt.

I haven't read "The Help," but after reading Chris Talbott's review of the novel for the Associated press (below), it's on my list...


First-time author scores unexpected best seller
By CHRIS TALBOTT
Associated Press Writer
JACKSON, Miss. — Good thing Octavia Spencer is an actress. She needed all her stagecraft to hide a horrified look when her friend, Kathryn Stockett, asked her to read her new novel, "The Help."
Stockett told Spencer she based a character on her.
"My face just got hot," Spencer says, "and I thought, 'What are you talking about?'"
It got worse. The character was a short, loud black maid who spoke in a Southern dialect and never seemed able to keep a job because of her big mouth, which didn't go over well in the white neighborhoods of Jackson in the early 1960s.
"And I thought to myself, 'If this is Mammy from 'Gone With the Wind,' I am just going to call her and tell her,'" she recalls. "I think by Page 3, I realized what she was doing and I realized how intelligent these women were.
"Oh, honey, to me it's an amazing journey."
Reactions such as Spencer's are becoming common as "The Help," Stockett's debut novel, creeps up the best-seller lists after an early February debut. The premise of the book usually causes an immediate visceral reaction, especially if readers know Stockett is white. After a few pages, though, most readers are hooked.
Entertainment Weekly reviewer Karen Valby called the book's backstory potentially "cringeworthy" before giving it high praise and an A-minus. Industry standard Publishers Weekly gave it a starred review and in The New York Times, Janet Maslin called "The Help" a "button-pushing, soon to be wildly popular novel." Positive vibes are viral on the Web.
"It's exciting to see someone get this kind of attention for a first novel," Stockett's agent, Susan Ramer, says. "This is very rare."
Not bad for a manuscript that was shunned as Stockett shopped it to agents. She stopped counting at 45 rejection letters, but kept at it until Ramer snapped it up after reading a few pages. What others didn't see — or care to read — was immediately evident to Ramer.
"Reading it, you say, 'I've got to have this,'" Ramer says.
She was able to sell the book in a matter of days. Publisher Amy Einhorn chose it to launch her own imprint at G.P. Putnam's Sons.
"We editors like to say that the books we publish are wonderful," Einhorn says. "If we're being truthful, the fact is books of this level don't come along often. Everything I keep hearing from people is, 'I can't believe that's the first book you launched your imprint with because it's so amazing.' It was kind of a no-brainer."
"The Help" tells the story of three women during the formative years of the civil rights movement in Mississippi, where it was dangerous to push the boundaries of segregation for both blacks and whites — though for very different reasons.
So when black maids Aibileen and Minny begin to work with a white woman named Skeeter on a book about their experiences as domestic help, they fear retribution ranging from firings to beatings. For Skeeter, an awkward, hairdo-challenged University of Mississippi grad who has never had a boyfriend until midway through the novel, the penalty is ostracization from normal white Jackson society; she is branded as one of those "integrationists."
In a sense, it's a story of the movement behind the civil rights movement. But it is much more. At turns hilarious and heart-wrenching, the story feels like a pitch-perfect rendering of a time when black people weren't even second-class citizens in a state where anti-integration forces fought back with both restrictive laws and violence.
The 39-year-old Stockett was born in 1969, a few years after the novel's events. Her family had a maid named Demetrie, who helped raise Stockett before Demetrie died in the mid-1980s. It wasn't until much later that the author got a better understanding of the climate in which she grew up.
"I was young and dumb," she said in a recent interview from Los Angeles where she was on book tour.
"I'm so embarrassed to admit this ... it took me 20 years to really realize the irony of the situation that we would tell anybody, 'Oh, she's just like a part of our family,' and that we loved the domestics that worked for our family so dearly, and yet they had to use the bathroom on the outside of the house.
"And you know what's amazing? My grandfather's still alive, the house is still there. Demetrie died when I was 16, and I don't know that anyone else has been in that bathroom since then."
It is the issue of separate bathrooms that spurs Aibileen to help Skeeter with her book. She wants to keep her job and her reputation as a skilled surrogate mother but she can no longer live with the idea that the woman whose children she raises thinks she carries diseases that white people don't.
The stories that Aibileen and her friends tell Skeeter are funny, sad, poignant and terrifying, and are filled with consternation at the contradictory ways — and prejudices — of white people.
Mary Coleman, a political science professor at Jackson State University who grew up in the rural Mississippi town of Forest, found the author's portrayal of the relationships between white families and their black help authentic.
"I grew up in a community where tons of mothers provided domestic help to white families and the twists and turns of life in a largely segregated town could be learned sooner rather than later if there was a relative who worked in a white home," Coleman says. "We grew up understanding that the world looks very segregated physically speaking, but the lines or walls weren't as high as people imagined because of these whispered conversations in white homes that were, in fact, later heard in black homes."
The book also rang true to Vickie Greenlee, a 66-year-old travel agency owner, who has been a member of the Junior League for decades. Stockett skewers the Junior League of Jackson in "The Help." Its president, Miss Hilly, serves as the book's antagonist and its members, though genteel, steadfastly reinforce segregation — she starts a project that all good white Jackson families have separate bathrooms for blacks, for example.
Greenlee says the Junior League is very different today, but that Stockett captured the times well — well enough to raise a few eyebrows when Greenlee suggested they choose "The Help" for their book club.
"In describing the book to them, a couple of them said, 'Oooh, I don't know,'" Greenlee says. "But when they read it, they thought she did an excellent job. A lot of that was very relevant. And the relationships with our maids, we felt like they were part of our families. Then again they didn't take issue with us or didn't question what we did."
Stockett had no idea anyone would ever read the book when she started. She began writing it while taking a break from her job as a magazine consultant in New York City shortly after the terror attacks destroyed her hard drive and her previous attempts at fiction, which began when she majored in creative writing and English at the University of Alabama.
"We couldn't e-mail, we couldn't even make a telephone call, a land line or cell phone, for about two days, so I just got really homesick and really it had been a lot of years since I had spoken to Demetrie," Stockett recalls. "I remember wishing that I could just talk to Demetrie and hear her voice again. So I started working on this story ... trying to escape the media and all the mess on TV. It started as a short story and just continued on and on from there."
Stockett is continually surprised at the reaction to the book. It's one of those rare books that gets pushed by both small booksellers and the big chains. It's No. 1 on the Southern Independent Booksellers Association list and edged onto The New York Times and Publishers Weekly lists two weeks ago.
"I think it's because of this word-of-mouth phenomenon because people begin engaging one another in discussions about how they grew up, what their feelings were about race differences in the '60s and whether or not they relate to this kind of story," she says. "I've gotten so many e-mails from readers who are sharing their stories."

Some distant dream of a job offered tuition reimbursement for coursework that was somehow related to your job. I figured pretty much any course of study relates on some level to writing and editing, so I checked out a master's program at Rosemont College, which was closeby. Alas, because my work schedule overlapped with the class schedule by half an hour two nights a week, my employer nixed that idea. It occurred to me that maybe they would've found some way to get out of it anyway. But it was a nice idea on paper.

If you do have that kind of perk at your job, for the sake of all of us who don't (no real perks other than the occasional free newspaper), I urge you to take advantage of it. Go get that master's or doctorate you've been tossing around in your list of "shouldas."

Below is an excerpt from this Friday's Watercooler column by The Associated Press on the topic of tuition reimbursement:


Pay my tuition ... please?
excerpted from the Watercooler column
By Erin Conroy
AP Business Writer
Your employer may offer tuition reimbursement, but in these trying economic times, how do you work up the nerve to cash in on the opportunity?
Katy Piotrowski, author of the new book “The Career Coward’s Guide to Career Advancement,” says at least half of American workers are offered educational benefits from their jobs. Still, many don’t know how to pursue these opportunities or justify them to employers during an economic downturn.
“It’s easy to get into a scarcity mentality of, ‘Oh gosh, there’s just so little money around,’” Piotrowski said. “But companies are always looking to succeed and get to the next level. If you’re interested in learning new things that could position the company in a better way, it can be a win-win situation.”
Piotrowski offers these tips to approach employers about financial support for continued education opportunities:
•Lead with your employer’s interests and ask which areas they would like to see the team develop expertise. Then, as you evaluate training programs, aim to incorporate your employer’s needs into courses that will also help you achieve your personal career training goals.
•Provide hard data about how your improved education will result in increased productivity, profitability and opportunities.
•Guarantee a good grade. Many businesses won’t cover employee education costs unless they receive a “B’’ grade or higher. Offer a similar guarantee to your employer to prove that you are serious about success in the classroom.
•Promise to stick around for a set period afterward. One primary objection employers have to paying for education is that team members leave shortly after earning their degrees.
•Offer to split the cost. Times are tight, especially now. If you meet objections about a weak bottom line, suggest that you split the cost. Some educational subsidy is better than none at all.

This Associated Press book review touches a topic I haven't: Wills and estate law.

In a will, 'equal' doesn't always mean 'fair'
By EILEEN AJ CONNELLY
AP Personal Finance Writer

NEW YORK — There's a lot more that goes into a will than directions on how to distribute an estate to your heirs.

Memories, resentments, regrets and greed are just some of the extras that get thrown into the mix. And even when families seem to have strong relationships before the will is read, anger and rage can bubble up if just one person believes that a will is unfair.

Les Kotzer, a wills and estate lawyer in suburban Toronto, has seen families damaged by fights over an inheritance. But people can avoid much of the pain by facing some truths while the will is being written, he said.

Parents should first recognize that "equal" doesn't always mean "fair." Splitting assets evenly between siblings may seem like the equitable way to divide an estate, Kotzer said. But when issues like how much parents contributed to the education of one sibling or the caregiving role of another are factored in, what's fair may be quite different from an even split.

Kotzer also advises people to never assume that after they die, their children will work things out, especially when it comes to things like family heirlooms. His new book, "Where There's an Inheritance," co-written with attorney Barry Fish, tells stories of clients disagreeing over precious items, from a grandfather's piano to a family portrait. The hurt that remains when these emotional issues turn into legal battles can be devastating, Kotzer said.

"People have to recognize that fighting is not just over money," he said. Parents who want to help their kids avoid disagreements or make sure that personal effects go to certain people need to be specific. "It's important to work out a neutral solution."

Careful planning and communication can help solve problems before they arise. "It's about learning how to avoid the battles," Kotzer said. "You have to recognize what the aftermath of a family battle is."

I'm the first to admit that I'm not one of those people who's always right on top of their cell phones. In fact, if you've called or texted my cell in the recent past and I haven't gotten back to you, it's not that I'm ignoring you: I probably just haven't checked my messages lately.

So when I saw this news report that Amazon will be selling book downloads directly to your cell phone, I was a little incredulous. My Motorola Razr has about 5 lines' worth of space. Not exactly conducive for prolonged bouts of reading.

But I guess that's not the point. The point is that the technology is now available, in case you're looking for something to read during those moments in line at the grocery store or in the dentist's waiting room.

Rejoice.

And prepare to squint.

Date: 2/6/2009 2:11 PM

Amazon to offer Kindle e-books on cell phones

NEW YORK (AP) — Books that Amazon.com Inc. sells for its Kindle electronic reading device will also be available on cell phones, too.

Amazon spokesman Drew Herdener said Friday that the Seattle-based online retailer is working on making Kindle books available "on a range of mobile phones." The company is not yet saying when the books will be available, or on which phones.

Another e-book provider, Mobipocket, which is owned by Amazon, already sells titles that can be read on numerous smart phones. And on Thursday, Google Inc. announced that titles available from its Book Search service can now be read on Apple Inc.'s iPhone or a phone running its Android operating system. For now that would just be the G1, which is sold by T-Mobile.

Amazon is widely expected to unveil a new version of the Kindle device at a news conference Monday at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York.

The company has not released sales figures for the first version of the Kindle, which it rolled out in late 2007. Amazon said last fall it sold out of the $359 device after Oprah Winfrey endorsed it. The company has made 230,000 titles available on the Kindle, which can download books wirelessly.

On the heels of a week's vacation to Colorado, my blog's getting cobwebs. Thanks to the Associated Press for bailing me out this once...

Revisiting a Classic: 'Your Money or Your Life'
By EILEEN AJ CONNELLY
AP Personal Finance Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — There are countless personal finance books that advise readers on budgeting, investing and paying down debt. Few leave the tips aside and ask you to question your relationship with money and the reasons you spend what you do.

"Your Money or Your Life," urges readers to re-examine everything about their financial lives through a less materialistic lens. Originally printed in 1992, the classic title has been updated and reissued at a time when the frugality it advocates might look much more appealing.

The book encourages readers to shed the viewpoint that more is always better, and offers nine steps that have the potential to help drastically reduce expenses and reshape the role that money plays in your life. Some of the steps are time consuming, like determining how much you've earned during your lifetime and producing an inventory of everything you own. And some, like determining your "real hourly wage" — by factoring in how much time and money you put into your job when you're not at work — can be eye-opening.

The Associated Press talked with co-author Vicki Robin about the philosophy behind "Your Money or Your Life," and what it has to offer in today's economy.

Q. Do you think the book's emphasis on living within your means has a new relevance in the current economic climate?

A. People have leveraged themselves to the hilt and are in shock that the system has let them down. I think the book provides a very helpful framework for people to take stock, and begin to track the flow of money and stuff in their lives, so they can get a clear picture of their relationship with money.

I don't mean to imply that people have been drunk, but in a way, debt has been sort of a binge. In the old days, we could binge all the way until we were out of money. With the advent of credit cards, we could binge with nobody watching. But what do you do when you wake up on Jan. 2 and realize you made a fool of yourself? You have to forgive yourself, take stock of where you are. You need to make some amends, and make some resolutions. I would really love it if people chose this moment to ask themselves where they are and where they want to go.

Q. You state that the nine steps outlined in the book can help reduce expenses an average 20 to 25 percent. How is that possible?

A. It is an enormous number, and I'm not saying that's the goal, I'm saying that's the result of paying attention. The book is about awareness, very precise awareness of what's going on.

The key to that reduction, is that when people determine their real hourly wage, on average they find that 20 to 25 percent of their nominal wage is their real hourly wage. Once people start paying attention to that, they start to look at the small, unconscious daily luxuries, and the bigger things. Every aspect of one's expenses comes into the "Is it worth it?" scrutiny, not necessarily the belt-tightening scrutiny.

Q. Is it really possible to convince people to step back from the consumer-driven idea that "more is better"?

A. The concept of "more is better" has been constructed by the industrial growth economy and aided and abetted by the advertising industry. Up until we were educated into more is better, we were naturally frugal because we understood that there's only a limited amount of stuff, and there's only a limited amount of needs.

I think this has been educated into us and I think we can easily educate it out of us. But politically and socially, it's going to be a tough row to hoe.

Q. Another concept you challenge is the idea that people define themselves by their jobs. What's wrong with identifying yourself through your work?

A. We're trying to break the stranglehold of identification with only compensated work. I think it dishonors the many other things that people do that are not compensated for financially.

There's many roles that we assume in life: sister, brother, mother, father, daughter, son, worker, community member, friend, volunteer. So we're just suggesting to not say I am a (profession) in such a way that it devalues the rest of your life. If you start valuing everything in your life, then you start realizing that your work is not everything. So you can make sure that you have enough hours of the day for other things that are important to you.

Q. Your book has been criticized as presenting a New Age, "hippie" or "tree-hugger" philosophy that many might find hard to embrace. Are you concerned that could limit its reach?

A. Christians have said it's a Christian approach to money. Buddhists have said it's a Buddhist approach. Frugal people have said it's an approach to frugality. I don't think it's New Agey per se, I think it's pragmatic.

Q. You don't give a lot of specific financial advice in the book. Does it contain anything for people who don't follow all nine steps?

A. Most people don't follow the whole program. But people frequently say it changed their life. One woman said she didn't realize until she did an inventory of her closet that she had many, many white blouses. She realized that every Friday after work, she'd go to the store and she'd buy herself a pretty blouse, because she "deserved it." If it's only that, if you read the book and wake up to a shopping habit, it's enough. Even if you stick a toe in the water, some realization happens. What we're simply trying to add to the conversation is that your own awareness of what makes you happy and what you spend your money on is important.

I'm pretty sure I'm the only person on the planet who never got swept away by the Harry Potter books. At the suggestion of Mercury Police Reporter Brandie Kessler, I read the first one. It was cute. I saw the movie. Also cute. But, and perhaps this shows my age, there are other ways I'd like to spend my time. I know Mercury Reporter Evan Brandt, author of The Thin Green Line blog, and his son Dylan read all the books together. That is adorable. Still, I don't need to read them. But for all of you Harry Potter fans out there, Rowling's latest, "The Tales of Beedle the Bard," is now flying off the shelves of a store near you. Just in time for the holidays.


New JK Rowling book goes on sale around the world
By Ben McConville
Associated Press Writer

EDINBURGH, Scotland — The latest magical tome by J.K. Rowling has started to fly off bookstore shelves.

Rowling launched "The Tales of Beedle the Bard" on Thursday with a tea party for 200 school children at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh, where she lives.

The author is donating royalties from the book to a charity, which hopes it will raise millions to help vulnerable children.

Recession-hit booksellers hope the book — a collection of five fables mentioned in Rowling's saga about boy wizard Harry Potter — will give them a festive boost

"We expect it to come straight in at No. 1 and is very likely to be our No. 1 book this Christmas," said Jon Howells of Britain's Waterstone's book store chain. "It's in with a fighting chance of being the best-selling book of the year, even though there are only a few weeks to go.

"This is J.K. Rowling. None of the usual rules apply," he said.

"Beedle the Bard" is being published Thursday in more than 20 countries, with a global print run of almost 8 million. But is generating only a fraction of the fanfare that greeted the Potter novels.

Rowling is donating her royalties to the Children's High Level Group, a charity she co-founded to support institutionalized children in Eastern Europe. The book is published on behalf of the charity by Harry Potter's traditional publishers — Scholastic in North America and Bloomsbury elsewhere.

Rowling, whose Harry Potter books have sold more than 400 million copies and been translated into 67 languages, wrote the Beedle tales after finishing "Deathly Hallows" last year.

One of the stories, "The Tale Of The Three Brothers," is recounted in "Deathly Hallows," in which the storybook helps Harry and his friends defeat evil Lord Voldemort.

Rowling has described "The Tales of Beedle the Bard" as a distillation of the themes found in the Harry Potter books, calling it her goodbye to a world she lived in for 17 years.

The book was initially produced last year in an edition of seven handwritten copies. Six were given away by Rowling as gifts, and one was bought by Internet retailer Amazon at an auction for almost 2 million pounds ($3 million).

Rowling told the schoolchildren at the launch that she published the book after complaints from readers over the sale.

"There was quite a lot of high feeling from Harry Potter fans that only someone who had 2 million pounds could afford to read the book," she said. "I thought: 'fair point,' so I thought I'll publish it and then the charity can have that money too."

Rowling read a passage from the tales to her young audience, which was given free copies of book.

Amazon is printing 100,000 copies of a leather-bound collectors' edition priced at 50 pounds, or $100 in the United States.

Prolific Shillington native John Updike has updated the story of his quarter-century year-old riotous novel "The Witches of Eastwick." As a fan of Updike's work, especially the "Rabbit" books, here's one I will be reading in the near future.

Perhaps you remember the movie verison of "Witches," starring Susan Sarandon, Michelle Pfeiffer, Cher as the witches and Jack Nicholson as the salacious "D."

Can't quite get that cherry-pit launching scene out of my head...

Similarly, this sequel left a bad taste in the mouth of AP reviewer Henry Jackson.

However, this is Updike, and Updike does brooding and melancholy well. I look forward to glimpsing the "moments of brilliance" Jackson speaks of.

The aura has vanished from Updike's witches

By HENRY C. JACKSON

Associated Press Writer
"The Widows of Eastwick" (Alfred A Knopf. 308 pages. $24.95), by John Updike: Even the most wicked witches age. And, as it turns out, a sorceress' decline is by turns as painful, lonely and even common as that of any unmagical being.
The aura has vanished from the three witches of Eastwick that John Updike crafted in a wondrous, taboo-filled novel of the same name 24 years ago. In its sequel, "The Widows of Eastwick," Alexandra, Jane and Sukie are still here but, like the author, they are fading — and sometimes gracelessly.
All three are widows now. Having long ago fled the bedlam they left behind during the ill-fated pursuit of Darryl Van Horne in seaside Eastwick, R.I., the once rollicking coven slowly reconvenes, bonding over their mutual losses but mostly reliving past debauchery.
Since they left Eastwick, contact among the three has faded. Alexandra retreated to the southwest, living remotely with a sculptor husband. Jane moved with her own beau to Connecticut, remaining sharp and cynical. Sukie, once Eastwick's gossip columnist, married a wealthy man and became a second-rate romance novelist.
They take steps to dull their pain, such as they feel it. Alexandra, the most emotive and mournful of the trio, travels to Canada alone, then to Cairo with Jane, who has maintained more of her wicked edge and is less apologetic about the past. When Sukie's husband dies, she joins the ladies in their travels, falling somewhere between on the emotional scale.
If it sounds melancholy, it is. All the reunions feel forced: The witches with each other and then later, inevitably, with Eastwick; Updike with the protagonists and their sexual exploits; the reader with the whole bawdy ensemble.
What's odd is that Updike seems to know this. It seems even to be the point. This is supposed to be sad, regretful. His typically descriptive prose is forlorn throughout.
It's a tone he sets early, as when he describes Alexandra's discovery of her husband's cancer:
"They had joined the legion of elderly couples who fill hospital waiting rooms, as quiet with nervousness as parents and children before a recital. She felt the other couples idly pawing at them with their eyes, trying to guess which of the two was the sick one, the doomed one; she didn't want it to be so obvious."
The plot of "Widows" moves slowly, like an aged thing. Even this feels fairly deliberate. Decline is never as rapid as we'd hope, Updike seems to intone. We have too much time to look back, and that can punish. Even the witches seem to get it:
"How lovely, being remembered," Sukie says to Alexandra at one point. Alexandra's reply says it all: "It can be, or not."
Updike, of course, need not worry about being remembered. He will be recalled fondly — though probably not for this novel. One of the most prolific and gifted writers of his generation, he has nothing left to prove.
There are moments of brilliance, but he, like the witches, is ebbing.
Toward novel's end, Alexandra speaks to the daughter of a former lover, Joe. It's an apt coda — whether intentional or not. (With Updike, one always suspects intent.)
"'How has it been for you,' she asked. 'Being in Eastwick for this summer?'
"'It was ... useful,' Alexandra decided. 'It confirmed my suspicion that I belong elsewhere. There was less here than I remembered.'"

This posting is thanks to Mercury Online Editor Eileen Faust, who found this Associated Press story about a fun little book about what could be done with all the money spent on the War on Terror thus far.

As of this posting, the war has cost each American at least $1,853.66, according to the site below.

Bring the boys (and girls) back home!

Here's the story:

iPods for all: Other ways to spend Iraq war's $1T

By DUNCAN MANSFIELD
Associated Press Writer

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - When the Sunday morning political pundits began talking last year about the tab for the war in Iraq hitting $1 trillion, Rob Simpson sprang from his couch in indignation.

"Why aren't people outraged about this? Why aren't we hearing about it?" Simpson said. And then it came to him: "Nobody knows what a trillion dollars is."

The amount — $1,000,000,000,000 — was just too big to comprehend.

So Simpson, 51, decided to embark "on an unusual but intriguing research project" to put the dollars and cents of the war into perspective. He hired some assistants and spent 12 months immersed in economic data and crunching numbers.

The result: a slim but heavily annotated paperback released in July (Hyperion Books, $9.95) titled, "What We Could Have Done With the Money: 50 Ways To Spend the Trillion Dollars We've Spent on Iraq."

Simpson is no geopolitical, macro-economic, inside-the-Beltway expert. He's an armchair analyst and creative director for a Knoxville advertising agency, a former radio announcer and music critic in Ontario and a one-time voiceover actor in Cincinnati.

His alternative spending choices reflect his curiosity and wit.

He calculates $1 trillion could pave the entire U.S. interstate highway system with gold — 23.5-karat gold leaf. It could buy every person on the planet an iPod. It could give every high school student in America a free college education. It could pay off every American's credit card. It could buy a Buick for every senior citizen still driving in America.

"As I started exploring, I was really taken aback by some of the things that can be done, both the absurd and the practical," Simpson said.

America could the double the 663,000 cops on the beat for 32 years. It could buy 16.6 million Habitat for Humanity houses, enough for 43 million Americans.

Now imagine investing that $1 trillion in the stock market — perhaps a riskier proposition today than when he finished the book — to make it grow and last longer. He used an accepted long-term return on investment of 9 percent annually, with compounding interest.

The investment approach could pay for 1.9 million additional teachers for America's classrooms, retrain 4 million workers a year or lay a foundation for paying Social Security benefits in 65 years to every child born in America, beginning today.

It's too recent to make Simpson's list, but that $1 trillion could also have paid for the Bush administration's financial bailout plan, with $300 billion to spare.

It might not be enough, however, to pay for the war in Iraq. Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz has recently upped his estimate of the war's cost to $3 trillion.

Simpson created a Web site companion to his book that lets you go virtual shopping with a $1 trillion credit card. Choices range from buying sports franchises to theme parks, from helping disabled veterans to polar bears.

Click on Air Force One, the president's $325 million airplane. The program asks: "Quantity?"

"At one point we couldn't find anybody who actually stuck with it long enough to spend $1 trillion," Simpson said. "It will wear you out."

___

Companion Web site to the book: www.whatwecouldhavedonewiththemoney.com

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.

The following exerpt is from the Associated Press' "Watercooler" column, which runs Fridays in The Mercury's business section. Coincidentally, this book, "Job Search Bloopers: Every Mistake You Can Make on the Road to Career Suicide ... and How to Avoid Them." is sitting on my desk right now, waiting to be reviewed. I'll make it my next review after this Saturday's (planned, barring any major crazy Wall Street development) column, on "Escape the Mid Career Doldrums: What to Do Next When You're Bored, Burned Out, Retired or Fired," as they kind of go together, yes? And on deck on the fiction side, but totally business relatable, is Joshua Ferris' "Then We Came to the End."

Anyway, here's the Watercooler excerpt:

BLOOPERS: Picture this: You're in the shower, and you hear the kids fighting over which channel to watch. Then your teenage daughter bursts into the bathroom announcing there's "some guy on the phone." You take the call — and realize the man on the other end of the line is a potential employer for a job you've applied for, sounding as confused as you do embarrassed.

That's just one example of a humiliating job-hunting mistake pulled from the recently published "Job Search Bloopers: Every Mistake You Can Make on the Road to Career Suicide ... and How to Avoid Them."

To sidestep the above blunder, job seekers should establish a strong support system and make sure their family is aware they are expecting a life-altering phone call, according to one of the book's authors, Laura DeCarlo. All calls should be handled professionally; if that's impossible on a home line, then set up a voice mailbox, call forwarding or special ringtone on a cell phone.

"There are so many outrageous ways to mess up getting the job you want," said DeCarlo, who is president of Melbourne, Fla.-based Career Directors International. "It's the small details that can make or break the job search."

Other examples in the book, drawn from real-life stories told by resume writers and career coaches, include everything from those who go to job fairs unprepared to those who show up at a job interview ridiculously overdressed.

"With this book, we hoped to take stories that are frustrating and even torture to endure, but feed them back to the reader as tips for what to avoid in a way that will make them laugh rather than cry," DeCarlo said.