Roger's
I cannot live without books.
-Thomas Jefferson
All of Roger's book selections have been carefully selected with the intention of learning more in the many areas that can enrich his clients' lives. Here are the past selections of Roger's Book Club...
Growing Up:
A Classic
American Childhood
Marilyn vos Savant
Book Description
Growing Up contains numerous lifetimes' worth of insights spread throughout its thirty-two chapters, with over 1,000 items on everything from car maintenance to career choices, hiccupping to great posture. The book includes hundreds of activities, skills, and experiences for kids aged three to eighteen. Marilyn Vos Savant, listed in Guinness Book of World Records for holding the highest recorded IQ, expands a column she wrote for Parade magazine in which she offered guidance to parents about what every child should know before they leave home.
Roger's Notes
As a father of a 6 and 3 year old, I have found this book to be inspirational in trying to raise my children to have childhood experiences that both reflect back on a simpler time and will make their “growing up” more meaningful. In fact, it’s compelling enough to make me want to revisit the childhood experiences that I cherished. I recommend it highly to parents and also grandparents who are trying to think of interesting ways to engage with their grandchildren.
Freakonomics:
A Rogue Economist Explore the Hidden Side of Everything
Steven D. Levitt and
Stephen J. Dubner
Book Description
How do people achieve what they want? What is the driving force behind what motivates them? In Freakonomics, economist Steven Levitt sets out to investigate such questions, along with some of life's riddles. Co-authored by Stephen J. Dubner, the material in this work is labeled "freakonomics" because Levitt uses investigative tools from economics to tackle a series of questions that, at first glimpse, might seem to be detached from the discipline of the "dismal science." Levitt and Dubner show that economics is, at the core, the study of incentives: how people get what they want or need, especially when others want the same thing. The author uses statistics to examine matters of everyday life, including topics ranging from crime and drugs to abortions to campaign financing and game shows to the influence of parents on child development. A professor at the University of Chicago, Mr. Levitt sets out to explore the hidden side of everything. Freakonomics establishes this irregular hypothesis: if morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work. This book will literally change the way we see the modern world.
Roger's Notes
Freakonomics is an entertaining book by an economist – an oxymoronic
thought at first glance. In this case, it’s true. In a series of discussions that
read and organize like a selection of magazine articles, economist Steven Levitt addresses issues and make connections you might not have considered – crimes rates correlated to the legalization of abortion, cheating in Japanese sumo wrestling compared to test cheating in Chicago, or asking “How is the Ku Klux Klan like a group of real estate agents?” I read this book with a little bit of skepticism – a concern about tricks being done with statistics for the sake of argument or entertainment. But Levitt’s approach is engaging enough and provocative enough to minimize such concerns.
One Bullet Away:
The Making of a Marine Officer
Nathaniel Fick
Book Description
From the Publisher
If the Marines are "the few, the proud," Recon Marines are the fewest and the proudest. Nathaniel Fick's career begins with a hellish summer at Quantico, after his junior year at Dartmouth. He leads a platoon in Afghanistan just after 9/11 and advances to the pinnacle—Recon—two years later, on the eve of war with Iraq. His vast skill set puts him
in front of the front lines, leading twenty-two Marines into the deadliest conflict since Vietnam. He vows to bring all his men home safely, and to do so he'll need more than his top-flight education. Fick unveils the process that makes Marine officers such legendary leaders and shares his hard-won insights into the differences between military ideals and
military practice, which can mock those ideals.
In this deeply thoughtful account of what it's like to fight on today's front lines, Fick reveals the crushing pressure on young leaders in combat. Split-second decisions might have national consequences or horrible immediate repercussions, but hesitation isn't an option. One
Bullet Away never shrinks from blunt truths, but ultimately it is an
inspiring account of mastering the art of war.
Roger's NotesI happened across this book in the library recently. The book shelves are starting to to get flooded with this type of war memoir but this one was worthy of the time. I was attracted to it because the author took the path least traveled upon his graduation from Darthmouth by going into the Marines versus going to Wall Street or law school. It gives an honest account of the mental transformation that occurs going from civilian to Marine officer and later to a Marine office in a combat zone. Perhaps because it is written from an officer’s perspective, it is not nearly as raw as the memoir Jarhead by Anthony Swofford. As the Iraqi conflict continues to get more and more politicized, it is encouraging to read accounts by soldiers such as Fick who appear to be motivated by nothing more than a desire to serve their country and the men they serve with.
Roger G. Ward, CPA/PFS, CFP®
Managing Principal
