I really enjoyed The Master Butcher's Singing Club, by Louise Erdrich. It is the story of a German immigrant family and their life in a small North Dakota town. Great characters with an unpredictable story line that reminded me a little of John Irving without the dancing bear fetish. Maybe the North Dakota connection (from around 1920 to 1950) will inspire certain old North Dakota types to give it a shot.
On a less frivolous front, I think I mentioned in comments one time that I recently read Perfectly Legal, by David Cay Johnston. The subtitle is "The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich--and CheatEverybody Else" which pretty much sums it up. Depressing reading. I can't say that W comes out looking good in this book, but it's not a book that has much of a political bent. Depressing, but informative.
Close on its heels, I recommend The Coming Generational Storm, by Laurence J. Kotlikoff and Scott Burns. I thought it did a pretty good job of sorting through the upcoming financial stresses that the baby boomers are going to put on our economy in the coming years. It's hard to tell what's going on with all the political FUD surrounding the so-called Social Security crisis, while nobody's worrying about the even larger Medicare and Medicaid issues. Paul Krugman (who may not be your favorite columnist, but who is a pretty damned smart economist himself) in his review of the book wasn't thrilled with the way these guys wrapped all their arguments around the general demographic problem associated with aging, when the problems and programs are really separable. But, I thought it was pretty good. It was a bit off-putting that at the end they recommended using an online service they provide to help you plan around the upcoming issues. However, while it was off-putting, it inspired me to look into some other online financial planning stuff (which I might post about once I'm convinced it helps more than my current plan of financial management by procrastication).
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