The Satisfaction Cafe by Kathy Wang

THE SATISFACTION CAFÉ by Kathy Wang is a LibraryReads selection for July and was recently recommended by Ann Patchett on a PBS NewsHour feature (see video below). However, I found the story evoked feelings of loneliness and sadness. The main character is named Joan and although she is from Taiwan, she eventually moves to California and becomes the fourth wife to an older, wealthy white man. It feels as though she is constantly denying herself and suppressing her feelings in order to “fit in.” No one is very welcoming; why does she bother? The book moves slowly, although it covers several decades, with her own grown children eventually confronting many of the same issues about belonging and following rules. The title reflects her dream: “Joan wished there was a place she could visit to feel less alone: a restaurant with very friendly servers, perhaps, where she might order a bowl of spaghetti and casually surrender her insecurities. When she was little, she used to daydream of a place she named in her head the Satisfaction Café, which had friendly employees and nice food and pretty toys; even as a child, Joan’s imagination had not stretched to fantastic outcomes but, rather, a reasonable amount of happiness.” That feeling proved elusive and instead of peaceful contentment, a melancholy atmosphere pervades the story. Those who prefer a feel good story will be disappointed.  

How the Rich Get Richer by Gabriel Shahin

HOW THE RICH GET RICHER by Gabriel Shahin has a title and subtitle (“Your Ultimate Guide to Building Wealth”) that are sure to attract attention. Shahin is president and founder of Falcon Wealth Planning and has been advising clients for over two decades. His new book has sections on knowing what you want (what purpose does money have for you?) and investing for the long-term. He extols the virtues of choosing a partner wisely, overplanning, and owning a business. In a chapter on “healthy financial habits,” Shahin points to being disciplined, tracking spending, and learning to respect money. There is insight here, too, like the negative emotions (e.g., fear, guilt) often associated with money and also many personal, client or family examples (related to insurance, IRAs, and/or taxes), although the text is simultaneously a vehicle to promote his own firm and philosophies. In terms of recent texts on investing, I would also be curious to see The Wealth Ladder by Nick Maggiulli, recently reviewed in The Wall Street Journal.  

The New Rules of Investing by Mark Haefele

THE NEW RULES OF INVESTING by Mark Haefele with Richard C. Morais is subtitled “Essential Wealth Strategies for Turbulent Times.” Haefele is the global chief investment Officer at UBS where he oversees the investment policy and strategy for around $4 trillion in invested assets at UBS. In this book, Haefele stresses that “we must all change our way of investing to meet the needs of our time.” Advocating greater risk tolerance, he argues not for managing investments, but for managing wealth, and allocating your wealth by looking at Liquidity, Longevity, and Legacy. He also highlights the increasingly important role of government and even talks about 5Ds of disruption (debt, deglobalization, demographics, digitalization, and decarbonization). Haefele does offer limited advice on specific topics, like this excerpt on cryptocurrency which was featured in Barron’s. However, it would appear difficult for anyone to predict future actions, much less all unintended consequences, of the current administration. Instead, much of his text is a push for the strategies associated with the “UBS Wealth Way,” often told through client stories. Haefele also provides a varied list of other “books that shaped my thinking” and a lengthy bibliography (almost fifteen percent of the text). THE NEW RULES OF INVESTING offers an easy read, packed with anecdotes, more of a mindset reset than an investment guide. Contemplating the questions it raises could be helpful for readers prior to talking with their own financial advisors.

The Cliffs by J. Courtney Sullivan

THE CLIFFS by J. Courtney Sullivan features an old, possibly haunted, house near Awadapquit, Maine. The other main character, a young woman called Jane, used the abandoned house as an isolated refuge when she was a lonely high schooler. She soon left town for college and ultimately found a “dream job” as an archivist specializing in women’s issues at a Cambridge Library. Over the years, she introduces her future husband to the house when they visit her mother and sister, who work together in the resale field and both of whom struggle with alcoholism. Then, at 38, Jane ends up back in Awadapquit, with both her marriage and career in jeopardy due to her own overindulgence with alcohol (“Sometimes the tragedies of a person's life didn't happen neatly, single file, one at a time, but all at once, so that it was impossible to know how you felt about any part of the whole.”). At that time, the new owner hires Jane to learn more about the house’s history and her capable research was my favorite part of the book. Sullivan expands upon Jane’s findings about the sea-faring captain who built the house; she devotes entire chapters to his wife and her maid, giving each a voice in describing their lives. Readers also meet the next owner, a talented artist who experienced a family tragedy. And there are even sections on the Indigenous people who named the area. Sullivan has included numerous threads – spiritualism and mediums (“…bodily death is not the end of consciousness. It is merely the passing of the soul into another plane.”); the Shaker religion; abuse and misuse of historical artifacts; women’s roles over time; alcoholism’s impact across generations; and modern-day entitlement. Both The Washington Post and The New York Times (“This skillful novel makes the case that knowing what came before offers us our best chance to truly understand our connections to one another, and what we owe to the land we inhabit.”) also reviewed THE CLIFFS which received a starred review from Kirkus and was the July 2024 Reese’s Book Club selection.

Swan Song by Elin Hilderbrand

Hearing that a “beach read” was enthusiastically recommended recently by the editor of the New York Times Book Review was a bit surprising. But so was learning that the prolific author Elin Hilderbrand (The Five Star Weekend) is going to retire after the publication of her latest book set in Nantucket, the aptly named SWAN SONG. This is a great, suspenseful summer read which features Coco, a young woman with all of the energy her name implies. In the hopes of getting her screenplay produced, she has bluffed her way into a personal concierge position with a wealthy investor, Bull Richardson and his wild, party-loving wife, Leslee. The couple is new to Nantucket and purchase a huge home and yacht as they try to get accepted at an exclusive club. As Hilderbrand’s narrative switches between the beginning and end of the summer, she employs some foreshadowing amongst her vivid descriptions of the excesses (imported Amalfi lemons, anyone?). With a touch of romance and plenty of mystery, SWAN SONG received a starred review from Kirkus and was a LibraryReads Hall of Fame title for June. If you are looking for a diverting summer read, add SWAN SONG to your to-be-read pile now.

End Times by Peter Turchin

END TIMES by Peter Turchin is fascinating … absorbing … captivating in part because of how it uses historical social science combined with mathematical modeling and statistical analysis  (what he and colleagues call cliodynamics) to illustrate important points about “Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration.” Turchin points to the rise of unlikely leaders (Trump, Lincoln, and Hong of China) as a society increasingly experiences elite overproduction (“too many superrich and ultra-educated people, and not enough elite positions to satisfy their ambitions”) and popular immiseration (“when the economic fortunes of broad swaths of a population decline,” resulting in discontent and anger). Turchin, a research associate at the University of Oxford and an emeritus professor at the University of Connecticut, introduces other concepts (like precarity – or the precariat, a social class existing without predictability or security) and points to how power and wealth have long been associated in America (commenting that “before 1850, all American presidents were one-percenters (at the least).” He ultimately concludes, “Complex human societies need elites – rulers, administrators, thought leaders – to function well. We don’t want to get rid of them; the trick is to constrain them to act for the benefit of all.” In addition to several appendices, approximately twenty percent of the book is devoted to detailed notes. END TIMES appeared in the Next Big Idea Club Book List for June, and was reviewed in publications like The Guardian, and, along with The Fourth Turning by Neil Howe, in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. If this topic interests you, then be sure to read a sample or listen to an excerpt on the publisher’s web site.  

The Injustice of Place by Edin, Shaefer, and Nelson

THE INJUSTICE OF PLACE by Kathryn J. Edin, H. Luke Shaefer and Timothy Nelson is a work of non-fiction which is all about “Uncovering the Legacy of Poverty in America.” Professors at Princeton and the University of Michigan respectively, Edin and Shaefer collaborated previously on $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America. Here, they are joined by Nelson (also at Princeton) in a thorough review of America’s “internal colonies,” including traditions of violence, political corruption, revolt and retribution, and the potential for healing. They have produced a fascinating study which focuses on place-based disadvantage. In addition to income, they look at low birth weights, life expectancy, and inter-generational mobility, creating an Index of Deep Disadvantage, intentionally named to reflect injustice and unfair circumstances. They found that many of the most disadvantaged communities were rural, predominantly Native American, and/or located in Appalachia, South Texas, or the Southeast and these researchers saw a pattern: “a history of intensive resource extraction and profound human exploitation not seen to the same degree elsewhere in the United States.” The effort by their team is impressive, including on the ground visits to “a total of 155 locations, more than 75 percent of the 200 [places of deepest disadvantage]” and extensive appendices with roughly one-fourth of the book devoted to notes. It is gratifying to see the positive comments about future policy implications and social science scholarship from economist Raj Chetty and award-wining author Matthew Desmond (Evicted and Poverty, by America). THE INJUSTICE OF PLACE also received starred reviews from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly.

Caste by Isabel Wilkerson

CASTE by Isabel Wilkerson (The Warmth of Other Suns) was a 2020 adult non-fiction bestseller and has just been released in an adaptation for Young Adults. Citing examples from America, India, and even the Nazis, Wilkerson explores the concept of caste and its relation to race: “neither synonymous nor mutually exclusive.… Caste is the bones, race the skin. Race is what we can see, the physical traits that have been given arbitrary meaning and become shorthand for who a person is. Caste is the powerful infrastructure that holds each group in its place.”  A significant portion of the book highlights what Wilkerson terms the eight pillars of caste, including religion, heritability, marriage, and stigma. The tome is rather academic and even this version will be a challenge for most high school students. However, the text is filled with observations and assertions that could serve as discussion or essay prompts; here is one short example: “The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power – which groups have it and which do not. It is about resources – which caste is seen as worthy of them and which are not, who gets to acquire and control them and who does not. It is about respect, authority, and assumptions of competence – who is accorded those and who is not.” The preview I saw did not contain any bibliographic notes or an index (shown in amazon’s look inside preview) both of which would be useful to student researchers. For those interested in other related adaptations for young readers, see The Burning and Me and White Supremacy. Heather McGhee's The Sum of Us is scheduled to have an adaptation for young readers available in February, 2023. 

The House Party by Rita Cameron

THE HOUSE PARTY by Rita Cameron revolves around the very poor choices that unformed teenage minds make at times. Several high school students break into a new construction house and hold a party with drugs and booze and then some engage in sexual assault and ultimately cause over a hundred-thousand dollars damage when they wreck the house. That new home was a kind of last hope for Maja and Ted Jensen, transplants from New York who have not been successful at getting pregnant and struggle with their relationship. These are not minor crimes, but who gets blamed by local authorities? The kids with working class parents, with less privilege and less clout. Cameron does an excellent job of evoking emotion – the dread and fear, the embarrassment, the jealousy, the entitlement that lurks in this suburban Philadelphia community. Therefore, this novel was quite uncomfortable to read at times and it was difficult to empathize with the well-drawn, but basically selfish characters. THE HOUSE PARTY received starred reviews from Booklist and Publishers Weekly (“Cameron does a stellar job at demonstrating how easily stereotyping and wealth can influence outcomes”).