Book Review: Some Kind of Blunderful by Livy Hart

Some Kind of Blunderful by Livy Hart
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book tells the story of the love affair between Mia Fadden, a young school teacher and Alex Conroy, a corporate honcho working in the Avondale, Georgia office of Peachtree Tech, the same office where Richard Fadden, Mia's dad works as the head of Marketing.
This was one of the books that I purchased based on the comments on an Insta thread. As I read the book, I wrote my observations in my daily journal. The first comment that I wrote was that the language is pleasant and breezy. The second comment was that 'While the chapters of the book alternative between Mia's and Alex's narratives, their styles are not different at all, making it difficult to understand when they say 'I', whose perspective the author is using'.
The book is predictable from the get go. At the end of Chapter 1, Page 1, starting with their first date, you knew what was going to happen by the end of chapter 39. So there was no mystery. There were not many earth-shattering insights as well. Was their any plot tension which could create lumps in the reader's throat and make him want to jump in an rescue the damsel in distress? No, there was no such tension.
Like I said, I liked the simplicity and breeziness of the writing style.
The two protagonists hogged the entire book, leaving other perspectives inaudible. I would have loved to hear more from Josie, she seemed like fun. Or her wise boyfriend Ezra.
Considering limited perspectives in the book, the author has peppered with chapters describing their sex life. Some of it, while making nice reading, did not move the story forward in any way.
Considering the genre, a YA Romantic Fiction, this book has done well. I loved the use of simple language and a good mix of narration and dialogues. Also, as a connoisseur of the art of writing, I loved that the paragraphs were of different lengths.
I could not identify the perspectives of some of the characters like Mia's dad Richard. He was working for a corporate and the company was changing its hiring and firing policies. Why was he resisting change? He has had fair share of changes in his life and had handled them quite well. In addition, he is accustomed to be take care of by his much younger daughters. So when it comes to a young boss who wants to introduce his ideas, why the long face?

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Book Review: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Have you ever started reading a book and even after the first 50 pages, find that the book is going nowhere, but you are unable to put it down because of it promises to become amazing very soon? That was what the book Piranesi did to me. First couple of parts describe Piranesi's life as a lonely person in a huge house with its labyrinthine rooms and it countless number of statues. The world (which is his house) is surrounded by water everywhere and Piranesi, in his calm lassitude, continues to observe and document his observations.
Piranesi has forgotten his past, so the entire story happens in present. He keeps a journal of his daily experiences with his own quaint names for the years. (10th day of the ninth month of the year when Albatros came to the house).
Piranesi is not alone. There is another gentleman, whom he calls 'The Other'. The Other is always nattily dressed and is collecting data using Piranesi to do the dirty work. He provides various things to Piranesi, including Shoes, Vitamin Tablets and dresses. He regularly visits the house to interact with Piranesi, but he doesn't stay there like him. Piranesi thinks that he goes to the 'Other World', eventhough he has no idea what and where and weather it exists.
Like a TGV starting from Paris, the story starts slow, but once it picks pace, boy doesn't it pick it? The second half of the book is so fast paced with new characters and story lines and plot twists that it is difficult to catch up.
For such a really well written book, there are some gaps that irked me. For example,
Piranesi talks regularly of heating seaweed soup. How did he get the fire? There is no mention of a regular supply of any fuel or igniter. Maybe he made his fire like Tom Hanks did in the movie Cast Away. (This book reminded me of that movie in many ways, especially how Piranesi identified himself with the House and found it difficult to adjust to the 'Other World') However I did not get any answer to that question.
In one of the parts, there is a mention of Piranesi listening to two people talking, but afterwards there is no mention of these people. Who were they and what happened to them?
This is the second book that I read in 2025. I got the reference from one Insta Thread. I bought four books based on that reco and have finished reading two of them.

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Book Review: The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna

 

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My rule is that if a book grips me in the first few pages I will continue to read. This book gripped me from the first page, nay, the first line itself. Mika Moon is a 31 year old witch (born in South India, to boot) who has always been told to stay away from others, because 'the world is not a safe place for witches'. She, and other witches, meet up once a quarter to discuss spells and potions and other witchcrafty stuff.
Mika wants togetherness, she wants to be a part of the society, a society that, just a couple of centuries ago, was cruel to witches like her. One day she gets a curious message asking her to come to Nowhere House. Her curiosity takes her there. The house is owned by Lilian Nowhere, herself a witch, and who is a mother to three adopted children, all of the witches. Lilian is never around and the children are looked after by an assorted family of Ian and his husband Ken, Lucy and Jamie, a devastatingly handsome librarian.
Mika is told that she has to be a tutor to the children and should teach them to learn to control their Magic. Magic, like fire, works best when it is controlled. Little does Mika know that there is more to the invite than that meets they eye.
Read on....
I like the simple language used in this book and the fast pace. While there are 31 Chapters, each of them is small enough to give you a sense of progress. Also I love the Subtle references to magic that interweaves the book. Mika's car is named 'Broomstick'. It can't get more magicky than that, no?
What I would have wanted is for Mika to demonstrate more of her skills, especially in that scene where Jamie went to meet his mother, I would have expected her to cast some spells on his brothers, like levitating them and pasting them on the ceiling or something. Nothing happened. He went in and came out with some books!
I saw the reference to this book in one of the Insta posts where one person had mentioned this book as one of the best that he has read. I bought it a couple of days ago and finished reading it now. I am happy that I did.

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Book Review #44: Investing Between the Lines: Author: L J Rittenhouse

I have so far reviewed 43 books in my series on 50 Finance Books. The books reviewed so far falls into different genres like Personal Finance, History of Finance, Wisdom and Investing Fundamentals. The

book 'Investing Between the Lines - How to make smarter decisions by decoding CEO Communications' written by L J Rittenhouse falls into the genre of CEO Communication. This may be the only book of this genre in this series.

Why does CEO Communication matter?

The goal of Rittenhouse Approach is to create a gold standard for CEO Communication, by culling examples from thousands of such communications. The way CEO communicates is very important due to the following reasons.

• It reveals the character of the CEO. Authentic leaders write trustworthy letters
  
• Warren Buffet uses it to identify the integrity of senior management, which is one of his main investment criteria. He reviews past CEO communications to see if the commitments and plans made in the past has been followed up in later years.
  
• It instills confidence in the shareholder's that their company is managed prudently. It assures that the the mission, vision and core values guide the management in their decision making.  
• It provides transparency on the running of the company 
• It helps investors anticipate serious problems at their inception before them become 'news'
• It helps align investor and management expectations
• Transparent CEO communication has a direct and positive correlation with investor returns
  

About the author.

Laura J Rittenhouse is a financial expert.  She is named as one of the top 100 US thought leaders in trustworthy behaviour.  She is the founder of Rittenhouse Rankings Inc, which helps its customers increase their valuation by providing trust building corporate communications. In addition to the above book, she has written two more, Buffet's Bites and 'Do business with people you can trust'

About the book

The goal of every CEO should be to create sustainable businesses. By analyzing how CEO communicates, an investor can know if the CEO is progressing towards that goal. A successful CEO communicates with candor and specificity. She links the present decisions to the culture and values generated over time and is candid about the mistakes made and lessons learned from them. Most importantly she appreciates the contribution of the three groups of stakeholders - Employees, Suppliers and Customers - to the success of the company.

Her communication can be looked upon as an evolving story. Investor can easily connect the dots.

CEO makes decisions that involve making judgements between multiple options. Corporate culture and values act as a bedrock in making these judgements. The culture can be transparent or opaque. Since the CEO can strengthen or modify the culture and values of the company, the CEO communication points to the direction of the company. A transparent CEO informs and educates. She explains how the revenues were generated, specific plans for the present and the future, the challenges faced and how they were addressed and expected risks and how they will be addressed. She is consistent over the years and communicates progress on the goals announced in the previous years.

How will an investor analyze the CEO Communication? What are the parameters to look for? What are the clues or signs under each parameters that informs them if the CEO is competent? How can they identify the potential pitfalls? 

To answer these questions, the investor needs a mental model, an approach or a framework. This is where Rittenhouse Approach comes in.

The Rittenhouse Approach

This book provides a structured approach to analyzing CEO Communications. The focus is entirely on the text of CEO's annual letters to shareholders. The goal is to analyze the CEO communication to develop a model of sustainable business To come up with the criteria, the company analyzed over 1000 CEO communications. Based on this they came out with 130 topics. These topics are divided into seven parameters as shown below.

Rittenhouse Rankings Approach

The book provides a set of four or five clues that investor can use to evaluate each parameter. Scores are given for the performance on each of the clues. It also provides relevant examples from CEO communications to illustrate the points. Communication supported with numbers gets higher scores. There are negative scores as well. Finally, the approach comes up with one score to rate the CEO communication. 

While the score itself is important, the components are far more important. For example a higher overall scores with high scores on Capital Stewardship and Candor is better. 

The analysis could be as simple as counting the number of times a specific word is used in a letter. One of the criteria in the parameters Capital Stewardship is to count the number of times the word 'Cash' is used in a letter. They also look for FOG, the number of times platitudes ("We are going to be the best version of ourselves") is used in the letter. Needless to say more the number of the word 'CASH' it is good, more the proportion of FOG in the letter, that is a cause of concern.

The summary of the approach is given in the diagram below.

As an example of  Parameter and their evaluation criteria, let us look at the parameter 'Capital Stewardship'. It is measured by the following criteria (the book calls them Clues)

1. Cash and Cash flow
2. Operating and Financial Goals
3. Capital Discipline
4. Balance Sheet Measures
5. Risk Awareness. 

A Cash Flow Statement consists of three groups. Cash Flow from Operating Activities (also known as Operating Cash Flow), Cash Flow from Investing Activities and Cash Flow from Financing Activities. There are two different terms that CEO uses about Cash and Cash flow. Free Cash Flow (FCF), which is the net cash available after providing for Capital Expenditure. This the cash that accrues to the investors and which they use for valuing a business. A good CEO focuses on FCF. However if the management focuses on 'Operating Cash Flow' then it a red flag. It is possible that there are negative flows related to Investing and Financing that impact the investors. An investor should know why the CEO is focusing on OCF and not on FCF.

The Rittenhouse approach reviews CEO communication to look for words like Goal, Objective, Target and Aim, all of which suggests a focus on goals. They divide the goals into three types. Motherhood goals are generic statements of intention like 'we want to be the best in our industry'. Serious goals combine intentions with measurable outcomes like 'we want to increase sales by 20% next year'. Superior goals wraps a context around the goal. They generally contain a performance matric (increase RoI by 2%), a performance benchmark (compared to industry standards), and specific set of actions to be taken to achieve this goal.

Capital Discipline of the company can be evaluated in two ways. One, how often CEO talks about ROI (Return on Investment), ROIC (Return on Invested Capital) and ROA (Return on Assets). The second way is to see if the CEO focuses on Book Value, which is more predictable and dependable, or on market value, which is more at the mercy of external factors. A good CEO will focus on Book Value, leaving the investors to take care of the market value. 

An analysis of the Balance Sheet will show its liquidity position as well as the Debt to Equity ratio, two key parameters from an investor's perspective. Despite its importance, most of the CEOs do not discuss it much. Any company, whose CEO communicates the status of the Balance Sheet and actions taken to strengthen it, should get a higher investment rating. 

Risks are inherent to any business. It is the duty of the CEO to communicate potential risks and mitigation plans to the investors. For many companies, like insurance and banks for example, Risk management can be a significant competitive advantage. Recognizing the importance of risk. Rittenhouse approach looks for references to the word Risk in CEO communication, with more references displaying competent leadership

Similar detailed analysis is done for all ten parameters mentioned above. 

The strength of this approach is its detail and its consistency over the years. Analysing the CEO communications for the same company year on year can demonstrate the integrity of the management, whether they act on their promises or keep shifting goal posts. In addition, this approach could also focus on changing managerial styles as the company replaces CEOs and helps the investors analyze what works and what doesn't.

How will this book help?

This is a book for all retail investors. The approach is intuitive, easy to understand and easy to put into action. The 'CEO Speak', with surfeit of jargon and numbers can be intimidating to a lay investor. By following the simple but detailed approach mentioned in this book, a lay investor can take informed investment decisions. 

This book is different from all the other books I have reviewed so far in my 50 books in finance series in that this has almost zero math. Numbers if any, add intuitive context to the points mentioned. Any layman can read the book and almost immediately start reading CEO communications with a new and enlightened eye. 

If only for that, I will give this book a 5/5 rating.

Waiting for Mastershare Dividends. Our family tradition....

UTI has declared a dividend of 27% on UTI Mastershare 86 Scheme. Record date is 1st November.

 

Our family has an emotional connection to Mastershare.

 

One of the best investment decisions my father made back in 1986 was to invest a couple of lakhs of rupees in UTI Mastershare when the scheme was launched.

 

I often wondered what prompted him to make that investment. He was not very investment savvy then. I think his auditor must have been instrumental in that decision. There must have been some tax benefits.

 

Though not investment savvy, my dad was a smart investor. He had clear financial goals for this investment. He was about to retire and he wanted the proceeds from this investment to fund the education of his two youngest sons.

 

We are four brothers. My and my next younger bro had completed our graduation by 86 and my next two brothers were about to enter the graduation. Investment in Mastershare was to fund their graduation and higher education.

 

Just to be fair all his sons, he also purchased 1440 units each in the name of me and my younger brother.

 

The scheme has withstood the vicissitudes of time and market cycles. It saw Harshad Mehta, crash and burn of Mastergain 92, demise of UTI Unit Scheme 64, 1998 bull run, 2003 collapse, 2008 collapse and is witnessing the current bull market. Despite all this turmoil, the scheme has stood like a rock, never disappointing the investor, never failing to declare a dividend.....

 

Starting 1986 the scheme has paid dividends every year without any break. In addition in the late eighties and early 90s, the scheme declared bonus and rights issues as well.

 

My dad bought the rights too. He was a conscientious investor.

 

His initial investment increased ten fold by 2000 and the dividends received paid back the initial investment by that year. Effectively he was getting free dividends from 2000.

 

My father also influenced his younger brother, whom we call Dora Chithappa (Chithappa means 'Younger Father', meaning Father's younger brother), to invest in Mastershare. I don't know how many units he held.

 

Mastershare usually pays one dividend every year around Diwali time. Waiting for UTI to announce the dividend was my family tradition over all these years.

 

Every year, around this time, I used to get two calls. One was from Dora Chithappa and the other from my mother. Both asked the same question.

 

"Kanna, what is the date of Mastershare Dividends?"

 

As soon as I get the calls, I will scramble around, go to UTI Website and search. More often than not they would not have declared dividends on that day. Till UTI declared dividend, I was on razor's edge.

 

What if I miss the update?

 

My mom especially looked forward to the dividends. My dad had allowed her to use the dividends as she wished. That was her money. The total dividends came to about 1.8 lakhs every year.

 

Two years ago, my brother sold off the units. He told that 'This scheme has Value Research rating of 3 stars. There are better investment opportunities out there'. He didn't much care for the emotional connect of this scheme to my mother.

 

My brother is practical and pragmatic.

 

Even UTI has forgotten about this scheme. If you call the UTI helpline to ask about the scheme, you will be answered with 'Excuse me?'

 

My dad passed away in 2015, Dora Chithappa followed him last year.

 

I don't get the annual calls anymore. That makes me sad.

 

I still have the 1440 units that my dad gifted me. It will give me 3500 rupees as dividend this year.

 

That is my Diwali gift to my mom. I am sure she will cherish it.

Book Review #43: The Zurich Axioms: Author: Max Gunther

 This is the review of the book 'The Zurich Axioms' written by Max Gunther, who also wrote the book 'How to get lucky'. You can read my review HERE (I have not published the post yet, I will update this link, once I do that). 

Swiss are famous for their prudent and successful money management. It is not for nothing that they have earned the moniker 'The Bankers to the World'. They have a legendary ability to take on and manage risk. At USD 83000, the nation of a couple of million people has the second highest per capita income in the world. 

They must be doing something right with money that we can learn from. 

What are their thought processes? What are the principles that they follow when it comes to money? What are the lessons that we could learn from them?

Book Review #42: The Psychology of Money: Author: Morgan Housel

Most people approach money based on scientific principles. There are many formulae and theorems on how to invest and grow money. After the stock market crash of 2008, Morgan Housel, author of the book ‘Psychology of Money’,  observed that handling money is more of an art than science and the success in handling money depends on how one handles the emotions and stress associated with money.
 

Unlike hard sciences like Physics, money is not dependent on some universal rules, it has behavioral connotations. In 2008 Mr.Housel wrote a report titled ‘Psychology of Money’ that contained 20 behavioral aspects relating to Money. The book 'The Psychology of Money - Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed and Happiness' is an elaboration of the ideas that were briefly discussed in the 2008 report.
 

The book is structured across Introduction, 20 chapters followed by a postscript on the evolution of the American investor over the last century.  18 chapters discusses the behavioral aspects of money, the penultimate chapter is a summary of the principles discussed in the earlier chapters. Chapter 20 discusses how he invests his money.