Review: Homeplace: A Southern Town, a Country Legend, and the Last Days of a Mountaintop Honky-Tonk

Homeplace: A Southern Town, a Country Legend, and the Last Days of a Mountaintop Honky-Tonk by John Lingan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I began reading this book after a brief skimming of the book’s description. I expected a lot of country and roots music history, with some small town-loving prose. I got a lot less of the music I was expecting. I got a lot more of the small town story, but it was a story of change, not all reminiscing. Sure, there’s a lot of reminiscing about the history of Winchester and the area, especially the recent history, the Patsy Cline years. And there’s a lot about what has changed as the townspeople have changed, with the old residents dying off and new outsiders, almost always from bigger cities, moving in. Those outsiders often have different ideas, and the clash of old and new is what the book is really about.

The section that really explained the situation was about a water tasting competition held in town. This event has become the area’s draw, or what it is known for, usurping “the birthplace of Patsy Cline," or the home to a very traditional mountain honky tonk. The idea for the event was by outsiders, and the event is mostly run by outsiders. I liked the way the author illustrated the perspectives of the outsiders as well as some of the older, traditional residents in their thoughts on the water tasting event. You can sense that growth and progress will overtake history and tradition. The same kind of thing happened in my small hometown. An outsider mayor gifted the town a 30 feet tall plastic statue of a man on an old high-wheel bicycle, and had it placed on city property in the center of town. There’s no historic reason to showcase a bike there, but it is along a bike trail. There was lots of grousing by the long-time residents initially, but that has mostly died down, and the statue is becoming what the town is known for. (Previously the town was best known for writing a prodigious number of speeding tickets, so maybe this is an actual upgrade.) This book covered topics that seemed all too familiar.


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Review: Children of the Mind

Children of the Mind by Orson Scott Card
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

While it was good to see closure to Ender’s story, this was a bit disappointing with many dropped plot lines and an ending that was left open for Card possibly starting a new series with plenty of characters we’ve gotten familiar with. Could have used some more Wang-Mu, with some depth. She comes across as a slightly more human version of supercomputer Jane, and needed some fleshing out.

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Review: You're on an Airplane: A Self-Mythologizing Memoir

You're on an Airplane: A Self-Mythologizing Memoir by Parker Posey
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is a book that illustrates the manic style of Parker Posey. If you thought the pouty, flighty, loud, odd, smart, spoiled, changeable and often annoying characters she plays were just parts that were written for her, it seems from this memoir that that’s the real her, not just acting. The book is written as if it is one side of a conversation between Posey and an unnamed traveler sitting next to her on an airplane flight. Posey meanders throughout her life, telling stories about growing up, pets, apartments, and occasionally movies. Interspersed throughout the book are grainy, staged black and white pictures of the actress and her dog and props, more arty than enlightening. I expected to read a lot about her movies, but was disappointed. Not much about the Hal Hartley movies, not much about “You’ve Got Mail”. She does talk about how little money she’s made focusing on independent films, though. Interesting life, and you do learn about about what makes Posey tick, but a little Parker Posey goes a long way. From now on, I think I’ll stick to her films.

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Review: Leveraging Your Financial Intelligence: At the Intersection of Money, Health, and Happiness

Leveraging Your Financial Intelligence: At the Intersection of Money, Health, and Happiness by Douglas Lennick
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I consider myself well-read in personal finance. So when I saw the title of this book, I thought I might find a book that either comes up with new ways to think of personal finance based on common knowledge, or ways to teach others. I’d be interested in either of these topics – becoming better from a good base, and teaching my kids and others. That isn’t what this is about. Instead, this is a typical goal-setting self-help book, with as much a focus on living a healthy and valuable/reasoned life as on finances. It’s probably more the first topics than finance. If you are well read in these topics, much of this will sound familiar. If you haven’t read a lot or thought a lot about personal finance, this seems like a good book to read early in your exploration.

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Review: Great Jobs for Everyone 50 +, Updated Edition: Finding Work That Keeps You Happy and Healthy...and Pays the Bills

Great Jobs for Everyone 50 +, Updated Edition: Finding Work That Keeps You Happy and Healthy...and Pays the Bills by Kerry Hannon
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The first half of this book, written by the author of many jobs articles on the AARP website, documents a large number of jobs that could be appropriate for older workers and for those looking for temporary or part-time work. Each job is described with details, examples, job requirements, typical employers, and possible salaries. I found this to be an interesting list, going into such esoteric jobs as bridge tutor, alumni event planner, and eco-landscaper. (Unfortunately, no circus jobs were mentioned!) According to the author, it’s not just retail work out there. Many of these jobs require advanced training, but the author points out those jobs that require, say a master’s degree compared to those that might require a 100 hour course for a certification. This extensive list opened my eyes to work that I may not have been thinking about for my “golden” years, or for my pre-“golden” years (depending on layoffs and health scares).

The second half of this book is a generic job hunting guide aimed at older workers. This included the typical advice on resumes, LinkedIn, entrepreneurship, and more, and included sections on job hunting for former military and for the disabled. The author aimed broadly here, also including some basic financial, social, and health advice. I found this part of the book to be very similar to many other books I’ve read over the years, so unless you have never read a book about careers, I wouldn’t recommend the second half of this book. Also, while the author lets her pleasant and occasionally humorous personality show in her writing, I found some of the tips in the second half to come across as condescending. Many people she is writing to are up-to-date on topics like email etiquette and the use of LinkedIn. Her advice is not for those people.

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Review: Principles: Life and Work

Principles: Life and Work by Ray Dalio
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The author is a fellow who really likes process, rules, and, yes, principles. I had never heard of the author, but found the first part of the book, the autobiographical part, to be very interesting. This is what I would consider a business biography, but from an entrepreneur’s perspective. You get the birth and growth of the business, yes, but you also get the family background and upbringing that led him to his business style, which is what the second half of the book is about. The author describes in some detail the principals with which he built his business and how he hopes it runs as he reduces his time there. This had the feeling of a story about mean Steve Jobs. When you read about the things that Jobs did to his employees, you thought Apple/Next was quite a unique environment, and were glad you weren’t there. Dalio leaves the same impression with his rulebook on running a company, rules that seem quite extreme compared to the average business, rules that make me think he’s talking about a commercial version of a utopian community. He denies multiple times that his company is a cult – doesn’t that always make you wonder? As I am not planning on building a company with a strong social governance component, I found the second half of the book dry. I did enjoy the first half, though. While I’m sure he’s hiding some of the warts in his story, he does expose a surprising number. I found the story of Dalio’s rise to great wealth and the openness with which he describes many missteps he freely documents to be quite interesting.

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Review: Tribe of Mentors

Tribe of Mentors by Timothy Ferriss
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a long book. Ferriss decides that the way to efficiently ask a large number of people that he respects and would consider worthy of being called a mentor is to come up with a short set of common questions and ask them through email and hope for responses. He gets a number of responses answering some of the questions, which he shares in this volume, and a few gracious declines that he also shares.

You learn a few things here. One is that Ferriss’ idea of a good mentor isn’t just business superstars. Here, there are authors, scientists, and an outsized group of fitness experts and specialty athletes. You sense that Ferriss built this list working on his “The Four Hour Body”. You also learn that on certain topics people think alike. There are plenty of mentions of Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning” as the book recommended to learn from. And many people relate similar experiences as failures they have learned from – it got a bit repetitive. I was also surprised at the length of most of the answers – there was a lot of effort put into responding by the “tribe”. Most of the answers were very personal, which helped to tell the story. My favorite bit, most related to my work, was Temple Grandin’s explanation of a failure that set her up for success. Her anecdote involved fixing a hog moving problem with technology, only to find it was a management problem. So many people want the “shiny new thing”, but really need to fix the way they do business. (And I’ll remember her vivid description of hogs sitting on a conveyor belt and flipping over backwards when it runs.)

I took my time reading through this, and it took a few weeks. This is one of those books that you get more out of when consumed a bit at a time, with the side effect that it doesn’t feel as repetitive. In my mind the best answers had to do with suggested reading material. The author compiles this “reading list” on his website for reference. The length really was detrimental to my enjoyment, though, as was the mix of mentors. These were not who I would have asked – these were more “mentors who were willing to reply” to Ferriss. I liked the concept.


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