The Duchess

By Amanda Foreman   Copyright 1998

Georgiana Spencer was the Duchess of Devonshire in the late 1700's and early 1800's. She is famous mostly because of a famous painting of her by Thomas Gainsborough, and also because she was an ancestor of Princess Diana. The author of this biography attempts to make the case that the Duchess of Devonshire was also an influential political adviser to members of Parliament and royalty. The Duchess and her husband, the Duke, were members of a faction of the Whig party. They supported more democracy and limits on the power of the aristocracy and King.

This biography quotes from many of the Duchess's own letters and diaries, as well as the letters and diaries of her friends and contemporaries. The quotes and excerpts introduce the language and manner of speech from that era into this modern biography . This in turn gives the biography an atmosphere similar to a Jane Austen novel, albeit a rather debauched Jane Austen.

The reason it's debauched is because the Duchess was an adulterer, gambler, and spendthrift, and the Devonshire household was very irregular. What made the household irregular was that the Duke of Devonshire was basically a polygamist. Their household included the Duchess's best friend, Lady Elizabeth, and the Duke fathered the children of both the Duchess and Lady Elizabeth.

So there are three key elements to the Duchesses life. Her political activities, her finances, and her love life. The author clearly admires and sympathizes with the subject of her book, however, most readers will probably find the Duchess a rather silly and foolish woman.

The author attempts to make the Duchess a serious person by attributing political opinions and activities to her. However, most of the evidence reviewed in this book doesn't really support the view that she had much political influence or impact on events. She just socialized with some of the prominent personalities of her time.

The author claims the Duchess was always deeply in debt and struggled to make payments on it. However, there isn't much evidence to support the view that she was ever in any serious threat of being sent to debtors prison. Her family and friends always seemed to have money to bail her out. And the people she borrowed money from wouldn't have kept lending money to her if they seriously thought there was real risk of it not being repaid.

The Duchess had a very strange love life. She not only didn't seem to mind her husband fathering the children of her best friend, but she supposedly gave birth to a child fathered by another man. It was all very sorted and disgusting. It reminds one that the so-called upper classes and the lower classes often have a lot in common. They tend to conduct their lives more like animals than people.

But despite the vulgar and debauched lives of the characters in this biography, it is still a rather enjoyable book. If readers enjoy Jane Austen's novels, they will likely enjoy this book. It is similar in style and is about characters who were contemporaries of Austen's characters. The only difference is that the characters in this biography would have been the villains in an Austen novel and not the heroes.

How to Raise the Perfect Dog

By Cesar Millan and Melissa Jo Peltier Copyright 2009

The full title of this book is How to Raise the Perfect Dog Through Puppyhood and Beyond. It is co-authored by Cesar Millan who is the host of a TV show called the Dog Whisperer. His philosophy is that dog owners must be their dog's pack leader. If the owner is not the leader, than the dog is likely to exhibit all sorts of behavior problems such as jumping on people, not obeying instructions, chewing on inappropriate objects, barking, etc. Mr. Millan says his mission in life is to teach owners how to handle dogs and prevent dog misbehaviour that results in owners rejecting and abandoning their pet.

To help provide material and examples for the book, Mr. Millan adopted five puppies and used his experiences with them to discuss in this book. The five puppies are all different breeds, but the most attention is given to the experiences of a bull dog. However, the dog stories in the book are not exclusively about the five puppies. In fact, the development and progress of the five dogs is rather difficult to follow because so many other dogs and issues are discussed.

Mr. Millan says raising the perfect dog begins with procuring a puppy from a reputable source. Specifically, a reputable source for a dog is a professional breeder or rescue shelter. The author warns against buying from pet stores. Dogs from pet stores may not have been treated well and could have behavioral and health problems as a result.

Mr. Milan goes on to describe his experiences procuring the five dogs for this book. He discusses the behavior of some of the puppies he observed during his selection process. However, he makes rather elaborate claims about the puppy behavior he witnessed. Based on brief interactions with the pups, he draws conclusions about their personalities and future character. His snap judgements seem very speculative and sometimes far fetched. For example, after a few minutes of observing a mother and her puppies, he observes one puppy wandering away from the mother so he decides that particular puppy has certain characteristics its siblings lack. Readers will suspect that an hour before or after he observed this wandering puppy, he probably could have seen one of its siblings doing exactly the same thing.

Mr. Millian and his co-author go on to discusses what to expect from your new puppy and address a comprehensive list of subjects and give practical advice related to raising a puppy.

The whole philosophy of Mr. Milian is based on dog owners projecting calm assertive energy around their dog and being the pack leader. He also emphasizes that dogs should be fed and walked on a routine schedule which contributes to the dogs perception that the owner is the pack leader. An alternative approach to Mr. Millians philosophy would be to think of the dog as a friend and equal and for the owner to follow and react to the dog's behavior. This would let the dog be in charge and the owner would lose control. In that situation the dog can become a nuisance to the owner and to other people.

Almost all the information and advice presented is told in the form of stories about real dogs and experiences, so the information is rarely dry or boring. Even for readers who don't particularly like dogs, the stories are well enough written to make for generally good reading.

One thing this book makes clear is how much work and responsibility is involved in raising and caring properly for a dog. It may make many readers appreciate the superiority of cats as pets. But if people still insist on owning a dog, this book is full of good advice about raising a well behaved one so that at least it won't be an annoyance to people who don't particularly like for dogs.

The Ultimate Depression Survival Guide

By Martin D. Weiss     Copyright 2009

This book is subtitled: Protect Your Savings, Boost Your Income, and Grow Wealthy Even in the Worst of Times. The author is an investment advisor. His father was an economist and also an investment advisor during the Great Depression of the 1930's. The author frequently quotes his father to support his belief that the economic crisis of 2008 is the beginning of a new economic depression that parallels the 1930's depression.

This book focuses on investment strategies which should be implemented at a later date. The author tells readers to sign-up at his website to receive updates of when to make specific investment moves.

His basic investment strategy is to sell stocks and real estate, and to buy US government bonds and speculate in gold and currency ETF's. The author's main reason for following this strategy is because it would have worked well in the 1930's. This doesn't seem like a very sensible rationale for making an investment. The best investment strategy is usually diversification into all asset classes.

The book does contain some limited discussion about economic theory and philosophy, which seems sensible. Specifically, the discussion about the government and the Federal Reserve encouraging the accumulation of excessive debt at all levels of society which has led to the current economic problems. And these economic problems won't end until some of the excessive debt has been eliminated.

The author is optimistic that the United States will one way or another reduce it's debt and a new age of prosperity will begin. He also seems to believe that this new age of prosperity will exist within the same political configuration as today. That may happen, but it seems just as likely that the economy won't improve until there are dramatic changes in the political boundaries and configuration. The author seems to base his opinion on the fact that the United States continued along the same path after the Great Depression as before and continued to prosper.

But the author's views seem to be based on the theory that history always repeats itself. History does seem to follow similar pattens, but it never exactly repeats itself. Since most of the author's advice is based on history exactly repeating itself, the advice probably isn't very good. And the authors advice to speculate in currency ETF's, which is just gambling, is further evidence that the advice in this book is not very good.

So you can skip this book as a waste of time.