March Reviews

Reviews by Len Oppenheim

As we approach spring this old man’s thoughts turn to baseball. The thing I miss most in winter is the absence of baseball. Every winter is a winter of discontent for me. You may quote me that “the perfection of baseball is proof positive there is a benevolent and caring God who created this universe and this planet”.

If you like, enjoy, and appreciate baseball even ¼ as much as I do, then you will be well served to buy and read Baseball Prospectus 2009: The Essential Guide to the 2009 Baseball Season.

Baseball, among the so-called major spectator team sports, stands alone as having no clock. In baseball you cannot “be saved by the bell”. Additionally baseball often comes down to mano a mano confrontations between the pitcher and the batter. Baseball involves many managerial decisions about personnel and strategy that are open to second guessing. But above all, baseball has become a game of “statistics”. If you want to understand how modern general managers and managers analyze performance and probabilities you must read this book to gain important insights.

Get prepared for 2009. This in depth book covers everything you would want or need to know about each team and every player and prospect in the majors today and in the next couple of years. The most important thing is that it is also lots of fun to read.

Unless you are a Puritan, a sadist, or a masochist, there is very little one can say that is positive these days about the stock market. However, in time a new bull market will be born and we all want to be as careful as we can to preserve our capital until that time and then be prepared to profit from the next “new era”.
Stock and market analysis has been divided into technical and fundamental analysis. Both tools should be used to optimize results. For 35 years or so I have been looking for the “magic bullet”, the “Rosetta stone” which would be the key to unlock the secrets of recognizing critical patterns that would allow me to invest and trade with perfect success. I am pretty sure there is no such thing. However there are numerous useful tools and techniques and especially mind-sets that can help one to optimize one’s results as an investor or trader.

The Heretics of Finance: Conversations with Leading Practitioners of Technical Analysis, by Andrew W. Lo and Jasmina Hasanhodzic is a “must-read” for anyone who is interested in investing and/or trading markets.

It is not so much the specific techniques discovered and utilized by the thirteen technicians who are interviewed that make this book so readable and so important. What is timeless is the wisdom of the professionals, and their sophistication. For example, this single observation, by Walter Deemer, provides the kind of insights invaluable to everyone: “Whenever you think you’ve got a key to Wall Street, somebody comes along and changes the lock. Whatever indicators work, however well, however, long, something will come along to change them, and you always have to be alert for new things to do.”

Another brilliant insight is provided by Paul F. Desmond: People tend to get too specific about theories and say that it doesn’t matter what the market is doing, this is what the market is going to do. That’s really dangerous. They’re saying that their theory is right, and the market is wrong. The market is always right.”

This is another very informative book that is easy and fun to read. I am so glad I have had the opportunity to read it, and I hope some of you will enjoy it as much I did, and also find it quite useful.

Reviews by Tony Kainauskus

At our store we keep a printed sheet explaining Advaita philosophy (Non-Duality)… it is a very popular item.

For those who have an interest in the subject please send me an e mail… I will be happy to forward it to you. I feel this would be worthy of your time to explore

info@21stbooks.com

Over the years people visiting our store enjoy asking me what my favorite reads are.

Here is a list of my favorites over the past years by subject….

Please click on title for full review

Novels

Non Fiction

Spiritual

Please pick out 1 or 2 of my favorites. Let me know what you think.
And as a reward for your good taste I will include a gift when you order one of my favorites. Gift offer valid till April 15, 2009.

Sometimes… we all need to read a positive and humorous memoir… a childhood filled with light

Instead of darkness

A Girl Named Zippy is that rare book. Filled with wonder and happiness, Haven Kimmel’s memoir deals with growing up in small town in Indiana during the early 1970’s. It is a modern humorous To Kill a Mockingbird.

The book is extremely well written with insightful wit. We are indeed lucky the author has such vivid and accurate memories of her childhood.

It is an extraordinary book for a full spectrum of ages. I believe everyone would enjoy this from the X Y or Z generation. If you are 24 or 85 you will laugh and be enchanted. It is that perfect book.

It has been a 21st Century Bookstore best seller for years, and everyone I recommend it to has thanked me.

Enjoy this very touching story of younger and more innocent time.

Sometimes during a weak moment of ignorance… sometimes I wish I can go back to who I once was (Silly me!)…

To go back to a time where I felt less spiritual aloneness.

To a time when my heart seemed to overflow more easily.

When to live meant hanging on instead of letting go.

When there still was a goal ….Instead of just killing time.

When I just knew the bliss would continue to grow, my spiritual hunger satiated to a blessed perfect ending.

But of course I cannot nor do I really want to.

I guess it’s not the actual circumstances but a feeling or maybe something beyond a feeling—my youthful naïve innocence that I sometimes miss.

Yet I know this thinking of the past is just a temporary resting into a forgotten place that never was and never will be real.

I decided a long time ago that this is where/how I would end up.

So I consider myself lucky…I know my journey ends at a destination already chosen.

This was all there ever was.

I think the young Tony would be glad how things turned out.

How he ended up.