Book Reviews

By Jean Chatzky "If you can't see it and you can't touch it, you won't spend it." That's a money rule, and one I happen to live by on a daily basis. Just as I believe and adhere to the rule that you should live below your means.

Over more than two decades of helping people learn to manage their money, those are among the maxims that have stood out in my mind. They're the things I find myself thinking (if not repeating) over and over again. Why? Because they make sense. They're funny. They're memorable. And they work.

Who doesn't like reading books offering financial advice? The latest book in this oeuvre is Finding the G Spot: A Sassy, Sensible, Entertaining Approach to Finance! by Jenn Killins.

Killins is a Canadian financial planning expert who wrote the book on a "keep it simple" approach, making financial planning easy to understand for the every day reader.

As I write this, the former website of Toronto's infamous mayor Rob Ford is being hacked.

Whether your seeing "Rob, we're sorry!" and being redirected to the mayor's print media nemesis, Toronto Star or your on the westcoast and seeing, "Rob Ford (January 31, 1862 – June 8, 1892) was an American outlaw best known for killing his own gang leader Jesse James in 1882," before being redirected to the outlaw's Wikipedia page, there is probably a hacker behind that move.

We know them as those anonymous operators who break into our bank accounts and steal our identities from the comfort of our own homes, but beyond that -- Who are these guys?

One man who knows more of that answer than most is Misha Glenny. The international best-selling author of McMafia interviewed countless hackers and the people who try to catch them for his new non-fiction crime thriller, DarkMarket: Cyber Thieves, Cyber Cops and You [Anansi Press].

Walletpop Canada reviewed the book a few weeks ago and we sat down with Glenny himself as he discussed what precipitated his expertise in the world's international underworld, where he falls in the personal privacy vs. national security debate and what people should do to protect their data online.

Liked this article? Don't miss another one. Follow us on Twitter or Facebook.

At some point, we all know the traditional tips for protecting our bank accounts from cyberthieves: never respond to an e-mail claiming to be your bank or credit card company requesting your full name, account number and account password -- this is a phishing scam. Always cover the PIN pad on a point-of-sale [POS] terminal, in case a hacker has installed a skimmer and a pin-hole camera over the original POS terminal to read the magnetic strip on your credit or debit card and record your PIN number.

What we never know however, is who these hackers are. Well, wonder no more. Misha Glenny, author of 2009's immensely popular McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld, has lifted the veil on the seedy side of cyberspace. He interviews the cyber criminals who rip you off and the cops who are trying to catch them, with a cinematic specificity that makes the reader feel like they're following their every move and is inside their heads.

Like this article? Don't miss another one. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

If you're a fan of CBC's Dragons' Den then you know how it goes. The Dragons listen to enthusiastic entrepreneurs as they make their pitch for their product. If they are convincing, a Dragon will back their idea.

One of those Dragons is Arlene Dickinson, owner and CEO of Venture Communications. Her new book, Persuasion, is a look at how persuasion is not a dirty word but a reliable business tactic when done correctly.

Like this article? Don't miss another one. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Comedian George Carlin once said, "Whoever coined the phrase 'Let the buyer beware' was probably bleeding from the asshole."

The line was in reference to underhanded sales tactics, but, according to the new exposé Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy, the visual he describes can be equally figuratively applied to most intern's experiences across North America.

In addition to providing what could be the first true history of the internship -- from its beginnings in medicine as the original year of practicum after medical school to the current explosion that began in the 1980s -- American author Ross Perlin lifts the veil on working conditions most of us assume are limited to third world countries.

RELATED LINKS

• Unpaid Internships Outed as Illegal?
• Creative Ways to Land a Job in a Tough Market
• The Best Part-time Jobs for Students

Authors @Google: Ross Perlin

One of the interesting things about writing about lifestyle finance is that people will send you books about how to deal with money problems.

Many such books offer basic advice - make a budget, stick to it, don't make it easy to access your money and finally, stop using your credit cards. Jane Honeck's The Problem with Money? It's Not About the Money! goes deeper and suggests that your adult relationship with money stems from your first or even subconscious childhood impressions of money. Only by acknowledging these influences can you, according to Honeck, become 'financially conscious.'

Brothers and sisters, starting and running a business is HARD WORK. Cash flow is unpredictable; you can find yourself sliding into debt hell, $30 at a time when clients don't pay up or when checks got lost in the mail. There is not a regularly replenished bank account to rely on.

Try, then, to move houses (and just watch as phone calls get missed and checks get lost in the mail!) all while trying to balance your family and work life. To keep things interesting and realistic, let's also add a sick pet to the mix. This isn't even the worst case scenario. The sick pet could be a sick family member.

Finally now, just for fun, go and have a baby. This is, after all, why you want to work at home, right? Did I mention that you need to do it all without an Employment Insurance (EI) safety net?

Inspiration comes from funny places sometimes.

A little book about the lessons people have learned on life's highways byways (and dark alleys), figuratively speaking, is just about the last thing I expected to see from two financial services industry veterans like Paul Bates and Al Emid.

(Bates is chair of the board at the Investor Education Fund, serves on panels at the Ontario Securities Commission and works as special advisor to the president at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. He has also served as dean and industry professor at the university's DeGroote School of Business. Emid is a journalist who's covered the financial services industry for more than 30 years.)

The book, What I Have Learned So Far and How it Can Help You, chronicles the stories of 50 Canadians – superstars and ordinary people alike – in 181 short, highly readable pages to share the lessons each have learned from the School of Hard Knocks.

When I was in the market for my first home, I was given two copies of the book, Homegirl: The Single Woman's Guide to Buying Real Estate in Canada written by Brenda Bouw by two different women.

I gave a copy to a friend but kept one and read it straight through. Buying your first home can be terrifying. You're dealing with large sums of money, most of it not yours, trying to find a good location, hoping there won't be multiple bids on your dream home and hoping the home inspection works out.

This book covers all those thoughts and more.