Archive - September 19, 2014

David Mather (Chile 1968–70) has published his second novel with Peace Corps Writers. One for the Road, David’s first novel, published in 2011, tells the story of Tom Young, a Peace Corps Volunteer who served in Chile, and how that experience changed his life. Now in 2014, David has published a sequel, When the Whistling Stopped, that finds Tom going back to Chile 30 years after his service to resolve past heartaches. Once there he finds himself in the middle of tackling big-company pollution and the endangering of species. I talked with David about his Peace Corps experience and both of his books. — Marian • David, tell us about you educational background. I attended Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine and received a Bachelor of Arts with a major in History, and a minor in English Lit.. . What was your Peace Corps Assignment? I was a “B.A. generalist” doing . . .

The Mystery of Money: Understanding the Modern Financial World by Harlan Green (Turkey 1964–66) Publishing by the Seas 126 pages May 2014 $12.95 (paperback), $8.95 (Kindle) Reviewed by Leo Cecchini (Ethiopia 1962–64) This book is not about “mystery,” but about how to invest your money. The author says in the second sentence it is about “. . . how to make money work for us. . .” As such it is a very useful and reasonably priced guide to investing. The other objective of the book is to warn how financial markets are “. . . so opaque to the uninformed eye . . . that it is easy for insiders to manipulate and mislead investors.” While also useful, the author is a little too given to casting this part as a matter of “them,” the unscrupulous financiers, versus “us,” the gullible investing public. The book starts with the “sub-prime” fiasco that caused the “Great Recession.” This is . . .