A readable and invaluably thorough resource for understanding retirement finances.
A comprehensive guide offers advice on preparing for retirement.
Pfau begins his exhaustive breakdown of retirement planning with a note of caution for prospective retirees about to enter the labyrinthine jungle of United States federal regulations: Patience and information are the only surefire ways to make it through. “Fight the impatience that could lead you to choose short-term expediencies carrying greater long-term costs,” he warns, and his book is designed as the ultimate weapon in that fight. The author takes readers through every aspect of constructing their retirement’s financial superstructure, balancing the realities, and preparing for the unexpected. Everything from stock market speculation to the pluses and minuses of annuities to life and long-term-care insurance are discussed in great detail. Pfau acknowledges that there are many competing schools of thought on all of these issues, and he bases his own framework on the fact that different people approach their retirement finances in different ways. Some place their top priority on dependability, while others want more flexibility. As the manual explains the author’s approach, it is often seriously technical, full of thorny terminology and many charts and graphs, as befits the complexity of the subject. Readers are given clear but extremely in-depth instructions on how to navigate the intricacies of Medicare, for instance (a lack of understanding of the rules, Pfau writes, “can lead to gaps in coverage, overpayment on services or coverage, and unanticipated outcomes”). And in every section, readers are urged to do the “legwork” of discovering their options. The ultimate goal is to create a sufficient and sustainable retirement portfolio. Although the sheer amount of granular detail the author brings to the subject can seem daunting, the clarity of his explanations will smoothly carry even financially illiterate readers along.
A readable and invaluably thorough resource for understanding retirement finances.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-945640-09-4
Page Count: 474
Publisher: Retirement Researcher Media
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.
Memories and life lessons inspired by the author’s mother, who was murdered in 2021.
“Neither my mother nor I knew that her last text to me would be the words ‘Think you’ll be happy,’ ” Avant writes, "but it is fitting that she left me with a mantra for resiliency.” The author, a filmmaker and former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, begins her first book on the night she learned her mother, Jacqueline Avant, had been fatally shot during a home invasion. “One of my first thoughts,” she writes, “was, ‘Oh God, please don’t let me hate this man. Give me the strength not to hate him.’ ” Daughter of Clarence Avant, known as the “Black Godfather” due to his work as a pioneering music executive, the author describes growing up “in a house that had a revolving door of famous people,” from Ella Fitzgerald to Muhammad Ali. “I don’t take for granted anything I have achieved in my life as a Black American woman,” writes Avant. “And I recognize my unique upbringing…..I was taught to honor our past and pay forward our fruits.” The book, which is occasionally repetitive, includes tributes to her mother from figures like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton, but the narrative core is the author’s direct, faith-based, unwaveringly positive messages to readers—e.g., “I don’t want to carry the sadness and anger I have toward the man who did this to my mother…so I’m worshiping God amid the worst storm imaginable”; "Success and feeling good are contagious. I’m all about positive contagious vibrations!” Avant frequently quotes Bible verses, and the bulk of the text reflects the spirit of her daily prayer “that everything is in divine order.” Imploring readers to practice proactive behavior, she writes, “We have to always find the blessing, to be the blessing.”
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9780063304413
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.
The chef, rapper, and TV host serves up a blustery memoir with lashings of self-help.
“I’ve always had a sick confidence,” writes Bronson, ne Ariyan Arslani. The confidence, he adds, comes from numerous sources: being a New Yorker, and more specifically a New Yorker from Queens; being “short and fucking husky” and still game for a standoff on the basketball court; having strength, stamina, and seemingly no fear. All these things serve him well in the rough-and-tumble youth he describes, all stickball and steroids. Yet another confidence-builder: In the big city, you’ve got to sink or swim. “No one is just accepted—you have to fucking show that you’re able to roll,” he writes. In a narrative steeped in language that would make Lenny Bruce blush, Bronson recounts his sentimental education, schooled by immigrant Italian and Albanian family members and the mean streets, building habits good and bad. The virtue of those habits will depend on your take on modern mores. Bronson writes, for example, of “getting my dick pierced” down in the West Village, then grabbing a pizza and smoking weed. “I always smoke weed freely, always have and always will,” he writes. “I’ll just light a blunt anywhere.” Though he’s gone through the classic experiences of the latter-day stoner, flunking out and getting arrested numerous times, Bronson is a hard charger who’s not afraid to face nearly any challenge—especially, given his physique and genes, the necessity of losing weight: “If you’re husky, you’re always dieting in your mind,” he writes. Though vulgar and boastful, Bronson serves up a model that has plenty of good points, including his growing interest in nature, creativity, and the desire to “leave a legacy for everybody.”
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4478-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
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