Perfectly Legal by David Cay Johnston

I’ve been very slowly reading David Cay Johnston’s Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich – and Cheat Everybody Else!

I really enjoyed reading Johnson’s 2007 Free Lunch (click here to read my entries on that book) but have had a much harder time getting through Perfectly Legal; while the material in each book is different, they book have the same feel and I guess I’ve had enough of hearing about how the super-rich are profiting from ordinary middle class and lower class Americans.

To find out more, click here to read James K. Galbraith’s New York Times review of this book titled “ Nothing Is Certain but Death” and published in February 2004 or click here to read an excerpt from the author’s website for this book.

Click here to read Johnston’s articles published in the New York Times.

Freerice.com

So this isn’t exactly related to books and reading, but i figure anyone who loves to read would also be interested in freerice.com.

I’m a big dork and ever since a friend first told me about freerice.com last summer, I’ve made it my default website when I need a quick break.

It’s basically a multiple choice vocabulary quiz and for every word you get right, 20 grains of rice is donated to the UN World Food Program.

Makes me think of studying for the SATs back in high school and how much more fun it would have been to learn words on freerice.com than by studying the Princeton Review’s Word Smart.

What’s so cool about it is that it adjusts based on your vocabulary level. When you get a question right, you get a harder word; and if you guess wrong, you get an easier word. There are 60 levels in all, but it’s rare for people to get above level 50.

Freerice.com claims that learning new vocabulary has tremendous benefits. It can help you:

• Formulate your ideas better
• Write better papers, emails and business letters
• Speak more precisely and persuasively
• Comprehend more of what you read
• Read faster because you comprehend better
• Get better grades in high school, college and graduate school
• Score higher on tests like the SAT, GRE, LSAT and GMAT
• Perform better at job interviews and conferences
• Sell yourself, your services, and your products better
• Be more effective and successful at your job

Have fun!

Books for Artists

I still haven’t received any recommendations for books on Non-profit Management, and I’ve been sorting out the Consulting Books I was told to read, and these Books for Artists came with the highest praise:

• Art Dealer’s Field Guide: How to Profit in Art, Buying and Selling Valuable Paintings by Ron Davis
• Art Market Research: A Guide to Methods and Sources by Tom McNulty
• The Artist’s Marketing and Action Plan Workbook by Jonathan Talbot
• The Business of Art by Lee Caplin
• The Business of Being an Artist, Third Edition by Daniel Grant
• Corporate Art Consulting by Susan Abbott
• Fine Art Publicity, 2nd Edition: The Complete Guide for Artists, Galleries, and Museums (Business and Legal Forms) by Susan Abbott
• Selling Art Without Galleries: Toward Making a Living from Your Art by Daniel Grant

What do you think?

Any others I should tell my artist friend to read?

Or are some of these listed above not worth reading?