February Read/Bought Review

In February, I read David Sedaris’ Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, and not much else. Even though the cold usually induces cozy evenings in with a book, I’ve been surprisingly busy and I’ve had a lot less leisure time lying around the apartment. But the book was better than I thought it would be. It made me daydream about living in Paris, or as an ex-pat anywhere. Having the accent, the feeling of constantly learning, that’s a dream life for me.

On the plane ride to San Fran, I also read the Persepolis graphic novels by Marjane Satrapi. Fabulous. Can’t wait to see the movie.

I’ve also started in on The New Mainstream by Guy Garcia. Subtitle: How the Multicultural Consumer is Transforming American Business. At work, I recently was assigned all of our multicultural initiatives, which was a nice vote of confidence and something I was definitely interested in already. I’ll have to report back on how this is. With business books you usually get the main premise in the first ten pages and the rest is examples and case studies and more of the same, so I don’t know if I will be motivated to finish.

Books I’ve bought – none! Everything was from my shelf already but Persepolis, which was loaned by a friend. I set out to the library the other day to pick up Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad, Poor Dad, but was googling the author’s name before I left and came across this Slate piece that criticized it as fluff with no real financial advice. The book has been on my to-acquire list for awhile. The title is especially snappy to me, as I was raised in a “doing-okay” middle-class family, where money was rarely openly discussed. I wondered if I had missed certain lessons and principles that I wouldn’t have if I had grown up in a wealthy household, which seems to be Kiyosaki’s premise.

Now that I have lived in a different state from my family for over five years, and my salary is more than both of my parents’ combined incomes, I don’t know if that’s the case or not. My parents are both wise about money, I think, and I don’t know how they are doing now anymore than I did then. But I think they have done some things right. They pay all their bills on time and have a good credit rating and they are fiscally responsible. So, I’m almost glad to hear that there is criticism of the book out there as little more than a marketing tactic. Would be interested to hear though if there are any good nuggets of wisdom in the book or if anyone else has had a better experience.