A Perpetual Orgy

The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous, and Broke

By Suze Orman

This is a pretty awesome book for folks in the 20-35 range looking to get a handle on their finances. Suze lays everything out in her classic, no-bullshit style. I don't agree with everything she says (she insists couples who live together have a joint checking account but never says why, and her system for dividing expenses between couples sort of assumes that neither person is ever going to be unemployed), but most of her stuff is really good. She has a bunch of info online too, though you need a code from the book to get access.

She lays out plans of attack, talks budgeting (though without simple, pat answers to everything), explains complex stuff in straightforward terms, and generally gives young folks everything we need to get ourselves on our financial feet. I was very pleased to note that I was already doing most of the stuff she recommended (like focusing on paying off debt before trying to start saving). Woo!

Book 15 in 2009.

Pornology

By Ayn Carillo-Gailey

This is one of those books where I can't tell if it's a true story or not. It's funny and entertaining (and has a lot of good info on porn and the sex industry along the way), but it's also got a lot of the standard, predictable chick-lit stuff that annoys me. So, I'm glad I read it, and I enjoyed it, but I did a nonzero amount of eyerolling along the way.

Book 14 in 2009.

Break Through Pain

By Shinzen Young

I got this book because of a coincidence -- I was in Mountain View for lunch with my Dad and stopped in front of East/West Books to look at their sale rack. I happened to have been dealing with a lot of pain lately, and so this title jumped out at me. It was on massive markdown, so I got it. I'm so glad I did, it's really interesting.

The basic premise of the book, as I understand it, is this: suffering is the result of struggling against pain. If you don't struggle, the pain stays but it's transformed. The book explains a straightforward, deceptively simple method of learning to stop resisting pain. It's based around Zen mindfulness meditation, and comes with a CD to guide you through the exercises described in the book. Shinzen shares his own experiences transforming pain, and those of some of his students as well.

I haven't done a ton of work with the process yet, but I will say that when my knee acted up this week I tried to observe the pain without resisting it, and I could feel the muscles around my knee relax as I did so -- which lessened the pain. Interesting stuff.

Book 13 in 2009. (yeah, I know, I'm behind on updating my booklog. This is book 13, I just haven't posted the other books I've read recently. I'm working on it.)