Money Business, Playing the Market, Be Your Own Boss from Heinemann

Reading level: grades 3-5

These books are great for anyone who wants to learn a little about economics.

Be Your Own Boss -Describes simple characteristics of small businesses and how to start and manage a small business.

Money Business - Focuses on the fundamental forces that drive the economy, as well as history and economic principles. It touches on the laws of supply and demand and a quick history of the first bankers.

Playing the Market -There is a brief definition of the economy, savings and investments and how companies raise money. It explains the differences between stocks and bonds, interest rates, the role of government and the Federal Reserve. The book ends with instructions for reading newspaper stock reports.

The Country Wife by William Wycherley

The Country Wife is a controversial sexually explicit play written in 1675. It is complicated and difficult to read.

There are three plots in the play:

1. Horner pretends to be impotent in order to sleep with as many married women as possible. He spreads the rumor of his impotence, in order to convince married men that he can be trusted to socialize with their wives.

2. Pinchwife -a middle-aged man who marries a naive country girl hoping that he will not be cuckolded (a man being cuckolded is the last to know of his wife's infidelity). Until Horner gets a hold of her.

3. The love story of Harcourt and Alithea - Harcourt wins the hand of Alithea from the hands of the Upper-class town snob after she discovered he only loves her for her money.

The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan

Percy does not get a break. Soon to be 15, Percy has girl problems and must save the world from the Titan lord Kronos. Annabeth is the leader of this quest with Percy, Grover and Rachel (a mortal). They must go through the Labyrinth to find Daedalus before Luke’s army storms Camp Half-blood. The Labyrinth is a confusing maze and they soon encounter gods and creatures, some friendly but most are out for blood.

Like the first three, this is fun, full of adventure and I enjoy how Riordan goes back and forth between reality and fantasy.

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Is murder acceptable in pursuit of a higher purpose? Dostoyevsky presents this argument brilliantly. Taking us through Raskolnikov’s daily activities and thought pattern.

Raskolnikov thinks of himself as “extraordinary” and believes that extraordinary men have the right to commit a crime if it is for the good of humanity. He commits a murder, killing a despicable pawnbroker and her sister, to prove his point.

I remember thinking “he is so isolated and self absorbed” and completely out of touch with reality. I understood his anguish, he did everything right, he is extremely smart, good looking and hardworking. Why was he in this predicament; so poor that he couldn’t afford to eat or pay his rent? Why should an extraordinary man have to live this way while mean horrible awful people were allowed to have better lives and make the lives of decent people miserable? In his mind killing such horrible people is justifiable.