Frederick Kaufman believes that money has incredible power. He takes a historical approach to explore how humans went from trading goats for chickens to trading goats for sea shells, to exchanging goats for gold coins. And then Kaufman goes through the evolution of paper money.

Not surprisingly, Kaufman believes digital currencies like Bitcoin are the future of money. Right now, there are over 2000 crypto-currencies circulating in today’s world economy.

I found Kaufman’s approach to money as a metaphor very convincing. If you’re interested in money–now and in the future–The Money Plot lays it all out in clear, concise, and understandable language. GRADE: A

Table of Contents

I Small Money

Behind the Curtain 3

1 The Shell Game 7

2 The Trophy Wife 37

3 Acts of Violence and Other Words 55

4 The Soul of Money 69

5 The Crusade 87

II Big Money

The Silver of Count Hieronymus von Schlick 127

6 Money Wants to Be Free 131

7 The Buck Starts Here 145

8 The Float 179

9 How to Make Money 211

10 The End of Money 243

Acknowledgments 253

Timeline 255

Glossary of Selected Terms 261

Bibliography 267

Illustrations 287

Two for the Money (2021) includes the first two Nolan novels: Bait Money (1973) and Blood Money (1973). The Nolan novels are a pastiche of “Richard Stark” (aka, Donald E. Westlake), the professional thief, Parker. Like Parker, Nolan is a craftsman of crime, executing heists with precision and caution. In Bait Money (aka, First and Last Time)–Max Allan Collins’ first published book–Nolan wants to retire from his criminal profession and work a legitimate job like running a nightclub.

But Nolan has baggage. Nearly 20 years ago, Nolan killed the brother of a Mafia member. Although time has passed, the Mafia member wants revenge on Nolan. Nolan realizes he needs to settle this score in order for his retirement to happen.

The deal Nolan works out requires Nolan to pull off another caper: a bank robbery. But, since professional thieves can’t work with Nolan because of Mafia rules, Nolan has to pull of the heist using two young man and a young woman who have never robbed a bank before. I enjoyed all the planning and complications that lead up to the crime. The aftermath of the robbery is explosive.

Blood Money continues the story with Nolan avenging the murder of two of his friends. But with his money stolen, Nolan needs to track down the murderers and the cash they took from him. Once again, the plot is twisty with plenty of surprises. If you like Richard Stark’s Parker novels, you’ll enjoy these wonderful pastiches! GRADE: B+

NOLAN SERIES:
   1. Bait Money (1973)
   2. Blood Money (1973)
   3. Fly Paper (1981)
   4. Hush Money (1981)
   5. Hard Cash (1981)
   6. Scratch Fever (1982)
   7. Spree (1987)
   8. Mourn the Living (1988)
   9. Skim Deep (2020)
   10. Double Down (2021)

I was a big fan of Al Stewart’s “Year of the Cat” back in the mid-1970s. The surreal lyrics and the sax solo thrilled me. Apparently, “Year of the Cat” thrilled a lot of people which resulted in this re-mastered (by Alan Parsons) 45th Anniversary Edition. If you want to learn how the song came about, just click here. Are you an Al Stewart fan? GRADE: A

This 45th Anniversary edition of this special album includes a complete, previously unreleased concert recorded at the Paramount Theater, Seattle in October 1976 on the YEAR OF THE CAT tour over two CDs and a new mix of the track ‘Belsize Blues’, recorded at Abbey Road Studios in September 1975.

TRACK LIST:

DISC ONE
YEAR OF THE CAT
RE-MASTERED BY ALAN PARSONS

1. LORD GRENVILLE
2. ON THE BORDER
3. MIDAS SHADOW
4. SAND IN YOUR SHOES
5. IF IT DOESN’T COME NATURALLY, LEAVE IT
6. FLYING SORCERY
7. BROADWAY HOTEL
8. ONE STAGE BEFORE
9. YEAR OF THE CAT

BONUS TRACK
10. BELSIZE BLUES

(RECORDED AT ABBEY ROAD STUDIOS IN SEPTEMBER 1975)

DISC TWO:
LIVE AT THE PARAMOUNT THEATER,
SEATTLE – OCTOBER 1976
PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED
1. APPLE CIDER RE-CONSTITUTION (LIVE 1976)
(PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED)
2. THE DARK AND THE ROLLING SEA (LIVE 1976)
(PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED)
3. ONE STAGE BEFORE (LIVE 1976) (PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED)
4. SOHO (NEEDLESS TO SAY) (LIVE 1976)
(PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED)
5. NOT THE ONE (LIVE 1976) (PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED)
6. ON THE BORDER (LIVE 1976) (PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED)
7. BROADWAY HOTEL (LIVE 1976) (PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED)
8. ROADS TO MOSCOW (LIVE 1976) (PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED)

For years I used to take Solgar’s Oat Bran tablets. They provided fiber each day and also reduced my cholesterol numbers. But for some unknown reason, Solgar discontinued their Oat Bran tablets and I was unable to find an acceptable substitute…until this month. I was searching on AMAZON for some health products when I stumbled onto these tnvitamins OAT BRAN TABLETS.

I ordered a bottle and started taking one tablet each day. I’ll be going for routine blood work in a month in preparation for my bi-annual doctor’s exam. I’ll be curious to see if my cholesterol numbers fall. Where do you get your fiber?

In Army of the Dead, Las Vegas is a walled city (of shipping containers) where inside the perimeter thousands of zombies shamble around looking for someone to eat. The U.S. Government plans to drop a tactical nuclear bomb on Sin City and destroy the zombie apocalypse once and for all.

But the owner of one of the ruined casinos hires a team of misfits to sneak into Las Vegas before the bomb hits to retrieve $200 million in his casino’s safe. The leader of the team, Scott Ward (played by Guardians of the Galaxy’s Dave Bautista), recruits Tig Notaro as a helicopter pilot and Matthew Schweighofer as a safe-cracker. There are other characters on the team, but they’re mostly muscle.

As the caper progresses, more things go wrong. Plenty of gunfights and mayhem result. In typical Zach Snyder fashion, Army of the Dead has TWO fake endings which makes the last 10 minutes of this movie painful to watch. Unless you really love zombie movies, skip this. GRADE: C

Chris Buck’s Gentleman’s Club (2020) is one of the oddest books I’ve read during the Pandemic. Buck’s book is a mixture of photos and interviews with exotic dancers and their partners. In the Preface, Buck explains, “At its best, a strip club is a dive bar with a charged sexual energy and quiet sense of desperation (from the patrons and dancers). There is something about where the beautiful and the tawdry meet that hits the sweet spot for me.” (p. xi)

The men (and women) who date exotic dancers range from seemingly average people (truck drivers, office workers, etc.) to individuals as exotic as the dancers they date. In the 40 interviews, Buck shows the conflict and complexities of this intense lifestyle. If you’re in the mood for something completely different, Gentleman’s Club captures some of the incredible weirdness of this world. GRADE: A

About 20 years ago, Art Scott visited us and he picked out a new stereo system for me. It consisted of a Rotel CD player, a Rotel amplifier, B&W standalone speakers, and a Onkyo tuner. I had no problems until about nine months ago when the Rotel CD player started to skip. I took it to The Speaker Shop, our local audiophile stereo store where I originally bought my system, and the owner asked, “Do you want to fix it or buy a new one?”

I said, “Let’s get it fixed.” A week later I got the call to pick up my Rotel CD player. It worked fine until last week when it started skipping again. Time for Plan B. I returned to The Speaker Shop and bought a new Rotel 11 CD player. Patrick installed it and now wonderful music fills our house again with no skips. I listen to music every day. How about you?

After installing the new Rotel 11, Patrick chose The Corrs’s Talk on Corners: Special Edition for the first CD to play. Great Choice!!!

Tracklist

Heather McGhee claims racism costs us all. And then she presents the data that proves she’s right. Along with the detailed economic analysis McGhee provides, she drops nuggets like this: “A 1669 Virginia colony law deemed that killing one’s slave could not amount to murder because the law would assume no malice or intent to ‘destroy his own estate.’ ” (p. 11)

My favorite chapter in The Sum of Us is Chapter 7, “Living Apart.” McGhee steps away from her economics of racism and writes about growing up on the South Side of Chicago and learning that white neighborhoods and black neighborhoods were very different. School was very different, too. Because McGhee is highly intelligent, she was put in advanced classes where she was the only African American student. It was here where McGhee started to think about how segregation punished both races. She learned “When slavery was abolished, Confederate states found themselves far behind northern states in the creation of the public infrastructure that supports economic mobility, and they continue to lag behind today.” (p. 20)

If you’re interested in the economic consequences of racism (as well as the moral and psychological aspects), The Sum of Us lays it all out. This is not an angry book (although I got angry several times while reading about the meanness and cruelty in our history). Heather McGhee presents her case for change…and it is a powerful one. GRADE: A

Table of Contents

Introduction xi

Chapter 1 An Old Story: The Zero-Sum Hierarchy 3

Chapter 2 Racism Drained the Pool 17

Chapter 3 Going Without 41

Chapter 4 Ignoring the Canary 67

Chapter 5 No One Fights Alone 103

Chapter 6 Never a Real Democracy 139

Chapter 7 Living Apart 167

Chapter 8 The Same Sky 193

Chapter 9 The Hidden Wound 221

Chapter 10 The Solidarity Dividend 255

Acknowledgments 291

Notes 295

List of Interviews 399

Index 401

Anthony Boucher is the sole editor of The Best From Fantasy and Science Fiction, Fifth Series because J. Francis McComas stepped away after helping Boucher edit the first four volumes of this series. The most famous story in this volume is “A Canticle for Leibowitz” by Walter M. Miller, Jr. which would later be expanded into a classic SF novel.

I remember sitting in a Study Hall in the early 1960s reading the ACE edition of this book. When I read Zenna Henderson’s “Pottage”–one of her stories about The People who crash-landed on our planet and lived in fear of being discovered and killed–I remember my eyes getting misty. It’s a masterful story about a teacher and troubled children told with emotion.

I liked Anthony Boucher’s short short story “Nellthu” which is a variation on “The Three Wishes” motif. This series continues to present excellent stories with Boucher’s informative introductions. Recommended! GRADE: A-

Table of Contents: 

• 7 • Introduction (Best from F&SF 5) • (1956) • essay by Anthony Boucher
• 9 • Imagine: A Proem • poem by Fredric Brown (variant of Imagine 1955)
• 10 • You’re Another • (1955) • novelette by Damon Knight
• 44 • Survival • (1955) • poem by Carlyn Coffin
• 45 • This Earth of Majesty • (1955) • short story by Arthur C. Clarke
• 59 • Birds Can’t Count • (1955) • short story by Mildred Clingerman
• 68 • The Golem • (1955) • short story by Avram Davidson
• 74 • 1980 Overtures • (1955) • poem by Winona McClintic
• 75 • Pottage • [The People] • (1955) • novelette by Zenna Henderson
• 113 • The Vanishing American • (1955) • short story by Charles Beaumont
• 125 • Created He Them • (1955) • short story by Alice Eleanor Jones
• 136 • Silent, Upon Two Peaks … • (1955) • poem by Anthony Boucher [as by Herman W. Mudgett]
• 138 • Too Far • (1955) • short story by Fredric Brown
• 140 • A Matter of Energy • (1955) • short story by James Blish
• 142 • Nellthu • (1955) • short story by Anthony Boucher
• 144 • Dreamworld • (1955) • short story by Isaac Asimov
• 146 • One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts • (1955) • short story by Shirley Jackson
• 157 • The Glass of the Future • (1955) • poem by Anthony Boucher [as by Herman W. Mudgett]
• 158 • The Short Ones • (1955) • novelette by Raymond E. Banks
• 181 • The Last Prophet • (1955) • short story by Mildred Clingerman
• 190 • Botany Bay • (1955) • short story by P. M. Hubbard
• 194 • A Canticle for Leibowitz • [Saint Leibowitz] • (1955) • novelette by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
• 220 • Lament by a Maker • (1955) • poem by L. Sprague de Camp
• 221 • The Doctrine of Original Design • (1955) • poem by Winona McClintic
• 222 • Pattern for Survival • (1955) • short story by Richard Matheson
• 226 • The Singing Bell • [Wendell Urth] • (1955) • short story by Isaac Asimov
• 245 • The Last Word • [Claude Adams] • (1955) • short story by Charles Beaumont and Chad Oliver

Here are two different music compilations featuring very different selections of songs from the 1980s. On Rock of the 80s, Volume 1 there’s the only song sung in German that became a hit in America: 99 Luftballons by Nena. On MILLENNIUM ’80s NEW WAVE PARTY there are groups like Bow Wow Wow and Haircut One Hundred. Which of these two CDs would you prefer? GRADE: B (for both)

Tracklist:

Tracklist: