I enjoy reading stories of people that had to make their own way in the world, particularly in business. I had heard a little about HY Louie Co in the past when I unearthed the successful enterprise behind London Drugs.

This book begins with a short background on Hok Yat Louie – the first generation of the family in Canada and then accounts for Tong Louie’s early life, schooling and eventual rise to success and recognition in the Vancouver community. It’s illuminating to hear accounts of rascism and prejudice in all levels of Canadian society at the time, especially among prominent politicians.

I really enjoyed this biography. I read it in one sitting, which is exceedingly rare for me in this age of constant distraction. It’s worth reading for insight into the history of Chinese in BC. And also for insight into the hard work, restraint, and values that can help lead a company to success.

Great book. It can help you identify the mental-shortcuts in your reasoning process that sales and marketing staff use to their advantage. Sales folks leverage this to impair our ability to make rational decisions. Reading on this topic can help you to see through a sales pitch and make an informed and rational decision when it is required.

this is a great book. I highly recommend it to anyone that wants to rise above the level of a horse’s ass in the investing sphere.

I had the version with the appendix: Key factors in evaluating promising firms. A great summary in 4 or 5 pages.

This is an interesting look into the financial lanscape of the 1990’s. Lowenstein places you in the midst of John Meriwether’s bond arbitrage group at Salomon just as JM is leaving to start LTCM. It details the relationships between LTCM and the large banks and shows how the large banks’ unwillingness to forgo any potential profit from LTCM led them to cave into it’s demands for higher and higher amounts of leverage on it’s trades – the major contributor to LTCM’s meltdown.

I really enjoyed reading about Warren’s early days and the startup of his limited partnership. I’ve been reading Rise and Fall of LTCM lately and I found it fascinating to read accounts of these events from multiple viewpoints. This biography also adds some context to Warren Buffett’s actions and investment decisions. An interesting account of an interesting life.

This book was quite interesting. It explores human psychology and how it leads to unforced errors in our financial decisions. It exposes a few examples of Munger’s mental shortcuts that can cause us much grief in our analysis. This is a great book for people that make mistakes with money but can’t understand why they do it. I certainly do not think about money in the same way as the people in his examples. for example, I never spend more when paying with credit instead of cash and I never spend my tax refund as “found money”.

I can’t wait to read this. I’ve read several of Charlie’s speeches over the years – and always enjoyed his sense of humour and the clarity of his writing.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that interlibrary loan can get this for me :)

It’s selling for over $1000 on ebay :(

I was a bit disappointed by this book. If you are a Murakami fan I encourage you to read it and make up your own mind – but borrow, don’t buy this book. If you are not already a fan please start with his earlier work.

Kafka on the Shore is missing something – it may be due to poor translation but my opinion is unqualified since I can only read in English. There was something interesting about sentence structure and rhythm in translations of earlier Murakami, namely ‘The Wind-up Bird Chronicle’. ‘Kafka’ uses too many phrases and sentence structures from North American English that give the book the wrong feeling. I compare it to watching Disney’s English dubs of “Princess Mononoke” using American voice actors.

It may simply be that Murakami’s style has changed significantly since his earlier works (late 1980s-1995.

There were aspects of “Kafka on the Shore” that I enjoyed but it does not compare favourably with his earlier novels.

This is a fantastic book. One of my favourites. I would recommend starting elsewhere if new to Murakami.