My Book Review Rating: 3 out of 6 stars

Do you know whether the money in your 401(k) plan will see you through retirement? Is your credit card maxed out? Are you struggling to even make teh minimum payments?

If you prefer not to think about your personal finances then you should probably read America, Welcome to the Poorhouse. White paints a pretty bleak, but eye-opening picture about the state of America’s personal finances. She talks about how you can turn your 401(k) into a pension so that you can have the retirement lifestyle you hope for. She also shows you how to get out of credit card debt.

Some of White’s book went over my head – partly because I’m an Englishman!(!) – but also because she talks about economics and reforms and other things that might well make your eyes glaze over. But in every chapter there are pure nuggets of useful information that you can put into practice right away to improve your personal finances.

Thanks for reading America, Welcome to the Poorhouse by Jane White, a post published on Blue Archipelago Reviews. Why not visit us and leave a comment :)

My Book Review Rating: 3 stars – I can appreciate the sentiment, but it’s not really my thing!

If you are a shopaholic, and you have closets lined with purchases that you bought on a whim or with the hope that you might one day be slim enough to fit into it then this book is for you.

Moran walks you through the steps you need to take to become a more effective shopper, and to ensure that the purchases you make will add value to you and your life, rather than being a drain on your bank account.

It’s a quick read – I polished it off in less than an hour – and it does contain some useful tips and insights. It all got a little bit too new age for me though in the penultimate chapters!

Thanks for reading Shotgun Shopping – How to Materialize Anything You want Through the Metaphor of Shopping by Sheevaun Moran, a post published on Blue Archipelago Reviews. Why not visit us and leave a comment :)

My Book Review Rating: 3 stars an insightful tale lacking a literary edge

As a Compliance Manager for a UK bank I was keen to read this offering from Lloyd Constantine promising an inside look into the ground-breaking legal battle that blew the lid off the Mastercard Visa cartel and changed the face of the US debit card industry.

The facts of the case certainly made for an interesting read as big brand names including Wal-Mart, The Limited and Safeway pitted their wits against the credit card giants.

It’s billed as a ‘riveting story’ which to be fair it really should have been, unfortunately I just couldn’t gel with the writing style. I feel that the real impact of this story has been somehow lost in the very factual writing style of lawyer Constantine, and I can’t help feeling that it would have reached a whole different audience if it had been ghost written by someone else. Instead it will probably be thoroughly enjoyed by antitrust students who might one day dream of taking on a case even half the size of this record breaking campaign.

If you’re in the legal field and want an inside view into the biggest antitrust case in American history then you should definitely read this book, if you’re not then I’d give it a miss.

Thanks for reading Priceless: The Case that Brought Down the Visa/MasterCard Bank Cartel by Lloyd Constantine, a post published on Blue Archipelago Reviews. Why not visit us and leave a comment :)

My book review rating: 3 stars one to read if you have always dreamt of travelling the world

When Grant Lingel discovers in his final year of college that he doesn’t quite have enough credits to complete his course he decides to throw caution to the wind, and instead of completing the missing credits and destining himself to a desk job like the rest oh his friends he packs a backpack and heads off to Mexico.

In his memoir Imagine, Lingel recounts his travels, from the places he visited, to the people he met along the way, and what he learned about himself and the world in the process. It certainly made for an interesting read, especially as I never had the backpacking bug myself – I prefer to stay in a nice hotel for a week at a time than to put my life in a backpack and hang out in hostels!

Lingel certainly raised an eyebrow or two throughout the book as he seemed to bed a girl in every town and drugs play a large part in his journey – parents, if you have a teenager who is about to head off on such an adventure you might not wish to read this!

You might already know that my other passion is for all things Disney World, and as I was reading Imagine I couldn’t help comparing it to the trip reports I read of people’s Disney vacations at a forum I frequent. While they are about short vacations rather than long backpacking trips some of them are almost as long as this book LOL

The writing is clunky at times and this is never going to be a literary masterpiece – but for an insight into the world of backpackers and the reminder that a big wide world exists out there for us to discover it certainly serves its purpose.

If you have dreams of the big blue yonder then you should definitely treat yourself to a copy.

Thanks for reading Imagine: A Vagabond Story by Grant Lingel, a post published on Blue Archipelago Reviews. Why not visit us and leave a comment :)

My Book Review rating: 3 Stars – mildly amusing but would have been better as a blog than a book!

According to the cover Checkout: A Life on the Tills by Anna Sam is an international bestseller, published in ten languages – and the Daily Telegraph thought it made “compelling reading”; I’m afraid I’m going to have to disagree…

Anna Sam has pulled together a series of anecdotes in a sort of ‘day in the life’ of a supermarket checkout girl. Having worked in a retail store during my college years and knowing exactly what customers are like I was really looking forward to reading this book. I was expecting it to be “fall on the floor with laughter” funny – and was really disappointed.

The anecdotes are there, and it could be a wonderful book to while away a few hours when you are felling blue and need a lift, but it’s just lacking – something. The edge that really brings out the humour – and I wonder if something has been lost in translation.

As I was reading the book I was thinking how much better it would be as a blog – I can imagine if one of these tales landed in my Google Reader once in a while I’d stop and read them and raise a smile. I think that it did start out life in just that guise, which goes to show that sometimes blog content should be left on the Internet where it belongs!

Have you read Checkout: A Life on the Tills by Anna Sam? Leave a comment and let me know what you thought.

Thanks for reading Checkout: A Life on the Tills by Anna Sam, a post published on Blue Archipelago Reviews. Why not visit us and leave a comment :)