A bracing can-do guide to boosting long-term financial health.
Cox provides a comprehensive overview of improving one’s financial situation and money management.
In her nonfiction debut, the author, a certified financial planner with decades of experience, starts things off by mentioning something she’s heard from countless clients over the years: They really wish they’d started thinking about their retirement savings long, long before they actually got around to it. “Your future self is out there,” Cox writes starkly, “waving at you frantically from 20 or 30 years down the road, hoping you don’t forget about them.” Insisting that financial planning is very much not reserved for the wealthy, the author assures her readers that it’s for everybody, and that it’s never too late to start planning. In this brief, tightly organized book, she breaks down the complexities of the many retirement savings options open to people in the present moment, from ordinary savings accounts to stocks, pensions, 401(k) plans, CDs, and even cryptocurrency. In each case, she analyzes the variables involved, from inherent market instability to the different investing attitudes of different generations to other factors, like increased lifespans (“maybe it’s modern medicine,” Cox muses, “or maybe people are just hanging around a little longer hoping to see the Chicago Cubs win another World Series”). The author addresses all aspects of personal money-handling, from (refreshingly) the emotions involved to such draining elements as addressing crushing debt, which she describes as a marathon rather than a sprint (“And guess what?” she adds. “You absolutely can cross that finish line”). Whether she’s explaining taxes and deductions or charitable donations, Cox maintains this same governing tone of informed optimism; no matter how complicated or forbidding the financial subject seems, Cox manages to be both realistic and cheerful—no mean feat. Readers who start this book feeling gloomy about their long-term finances will finish it feeling much more informed, and maybe a little more optimistic themselves.
A bracing can-do guide to boosting long-term financial health.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9798312205527
Page Count: 286
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Aug. 7, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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