Portfolio manager Creatura, a 20-year investment veteran who has been widely quoted in the financial media, serves up 86...
A debut book offers a professional’s personal perspective on stock market investing.
Portfolio manager Creatura, a 20-year investment veteran who has been widely quoted in the financial media, serves up 86 microchapters of wit, wisdom, and Wall Street observations. This is not a prescriptive plan or distinct method for stock market investing. With no overarching theme other than sharing the author’s “expensive lessons,” the book bluntly and at times amusingly skewers commonly held beliefs about investing while offering just enough considered counsel to tantalize the would-be dabbler. “When participating in risky activities such as walking a tightrope, swinging on the trapeze, or buying stocks,” writes Creatura, “it is important to have a safety net.” According to the author, that safety net is a company’s balance sheet: “When you’re purchasing a stock, this is what you’re buying…what you will own.” Such common-sense wisdom permeates a volume filled with pithy statements that hold relevance for novice and experienced investors alike. Each of the book’s terse chapters is a stand-alone snippet with a well-defined point. It might be efficiency: “Reduce the number of stocks you consider while increasing the quality of ideas you look at.” It might be investment advice: “Recognizing a 60/40 proposition and investing accordingly is what you need to be successful in this business. That is all.” Or it might be a paradoxical pronouncement: “Consistency is an admirable personal attribute. It can also be a dangerous curse for an investor.” The author has a knack for educating as well as entertaining, with a writing style that ranges from factual to funny. Several full-page cartoons, including the illustration of “An Unbalanced Investor” with callouts such as “Seat of Pants for Flying,” hit just the right note. Chances are the serious investor will have to read and perhaps reread the pages with a highlighter in hand to glean Creatura’s more earnest embedded advice scattered throughout the book, but even the casual investor will find this volume enjoyable, if not illuminating.Pub Date: May 26, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-63413-485-9
Page Count: 260
Publisher: Mill City Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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