My New Reading List

I am really excited about the books that I received this year for Christmas. I have lots of good reading material for the new year.

Economics
The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
Naked Economics  by Charles Wheelan
Soccernomics by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski

Other
The Next 100 Years by George Friedman
The Business of Value Investing by Sham Gad
The Best American Sports Writing 2010 edited by Peter Gammons
Eating Well's Healthy in a Hurry Cookbook

I was also surprised by my wonderful girlfriend who gave me an Amazon Kindle, the top selling eReader. I am in the process of learning how to use my new gadget, but you can expect a post about it in the coming weeks.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas and happy holidays! I hope everyone is able to enjoy this special time of year with their loved ones.

Economic Hardship - The Ozarks and Winter's Bone

When people are facing economic adversity, what choices do they have? One option, is to turn to family and friends for help. But what happens when an entire community is struggling?

I was forced to think about these questions and others when I watched the Sundance Film Festival Best Picture Winter's Bone. It is based on the book by Daniel Woodrell written in 2006. The film tells the story of a community in the Ozarks by focusing on one particular family. Sadly, some residents of the community have turned to cooking crank (methamphetamine) to earn a quick profit.

After seeing the movie, and listening to this NPR interview with the book's author, I am really interested in learning more about the history of the Ozark region and how people there have dealt with economic hardship. Although the book is fictional, it is inspired by events that the author has experienced while living in the Ozarks. I have only listened to excerpts, but I do plan on reading Winter's Bone the novel. The character descriptions from the interview are captivating. Here is an eerie description about one of the main characters, Uncle Teardrop:

"Uncle Teardrop was Jessup's elder and had been a crank chef longer, but he'd had a lab go wrong and it had eaten the left ear off his head and burned a savage, melted scar down his neck to the middle of his back. There wasn't enough ear nub remaining to hang sunglasses on. The hair around the ear was gone, too, and the scar on his neck showed above his collar.

Three blue teardrops done in jailhouse ink fell in a row from the corner of the eye on his scarred side. Folks said the teardrops meant he three times done grizzly prison deeds that needed doing, but didn't need to be gabbed about. They said the teardrops told you everything you had to know about the man, and the lost ear just repeated it. He generally tried to sit with his melted side to the wall."

You can hear author Daniel Woodrell read this description at 3:20 in the interview. If you have seen the movie or read the book, I would love to hear your thoughts.

Measuring Teacher Quality Series

This month I will be writing a blog series on teacher quality. I will share my own insights from teaching, current economic research on the topic, and more. Look for the first post in the series during the next few days.

For now, I will leave you with this...

1 Year of Free Amazon Prime For Students

With any student email address, you can sign up for an entire year of FREE Amazon Prime for students. The main benefit with this promotion is free two-day shipping with no minimum order quantity.

I already had an account with Amazon.com, but I had to set up a new one for the promotion to work. It is worth the extra few minutes if you plan on doing any shopping on Amazon this year.

Feel free to share any of your own holiday shopping tips, websites, or ideas in the comments section below.