Winter Reading Program -- 2024 - 2025 -- December 20, 2024

Locator: 44486ARCHIVES.

Economy: the amount of economic news and commentary this morning was simply overwhelming. I will get to it later. But it is quite amazing to say the least. 

I have no idea what the market did yesterday -- I guess I saw a headline that said the Dow eked out a small gain -- and have not looked at the market today, nor have I turned on CNBC which I will ignore through Christmas, and probably through the first of the new year. I couldn't possibly be in a better mood with regard to investing but it's way too volatile to watch now. My pet peeve: listening to the talking heads in a period of such volatility. 

For the archives: as noted some time ago, I'm in the process of moving all my investments into the accounts of the grandchildren. 

That will take some time, of course, and it will not be complete, of course, until the death certificates are received by the administrators of the estate. Hopefully that date is 20+ years into the future, but in the meantime all new money is going into the grandchildren accounts.

I joke that it's now being managed by Sophia, which, of course, it isn't, but "Sophia" has become my metonym when it comes to investing. I'm hoping that by the time she is 17 years old, it becomes more then a metonym and she takes an active interest in managing the estate. More than likely it will be one of her cousins, either Judah or Levi that takes over from Sophia, or even better, the three of them work together as a team. Maybe one of the older cousins will become their mentor / advisor.

December is a huge month for Sophia.

• dividends make up a large part of her new money. March, June, September, and December are the biggest months by far for dividends. One exception: her biggest holding pays dividends in February, May, August, and November
• RMDs from her grandparents are generally taken in December
• it was pure luck but the dividends, with some minor exceptions, and the RMDs, were on the books before December 18th, 2024, this. year. Pure luck.
• approximately 75% of December's new money was put into the market before December 18th, this past week, but the other 25% is yet to be invested
• by the end of the year, again, Sophia will be fully invested in equities, no cash, and no fixed income except as managed / held by professionally-managed IRAs (negligible).

Winter begins tomorrow.

Today, in north Texas, it's a bit cool. Temperatures will reach a high of 57°F today, but then will get warmer over the next few days. Christmas? A high in the low-to-mid-60s. Whoo-hoo.

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Winter Reading Program -- Update

A reminder: my winter reading program, updated. 

My "winter reading program": mid-October to mid-May. The summer reading program, mid-May to mid-October, to coincide with the period when Sophia and I can enjoy the outdoor pool. 

Books will be continued to be added to the winter reading program at a rate of about one new book every two weeks.

The India Trilogy

The New India: The Unmaking of the World's Largest Democracy, Rahul Bhatia, c. 2024.

Vishnu's Crowded Temple: India Since The Great Rebellion, Maria Misra, c. 2007.

India: A History, John Keay, c. 2000, 2010.Vishnu's Crowded Temple: India Since The Great Rebellion, Maria Misra, c. 2007 

US History

A Hell of a Storm: The Battle For Kansas, The End of Compromise, and the Coming of the Civil War, David S. Brown, c. 2024. 

Four essays back-to-back in the current issue of Claremont Review of Books, Fall 2024:

• "The Liberties of a Nation": Thomas Jefferson and the Fight Against Slavery, by Cara Rogers Stevens, University Pres of Kansas, 400 pages, $54.00, essay / book review by Jean M. Yarbrough, p. 56.
• "The Great Miscalculation": A Hell of a Storm: The Battle for Kansas, the End of Compromise, and the Coming of the Civil War, by David S. Brown, Scribner, 352 pages, $32, essay / book review by Christoper Flannery, p. 59.
• "A Rediscovered Gem": The United States, Governed by Six Hundred Thousand Despots: A True Story of Slavery, by John Swanson Jacobs, edited by Jonathan D.S. Schroeder, University of Chicago Press, 328 pages, $115 (cloth), $20 (paper), p. 62.
• "Reconstructing Reconstruction": The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic: Reconstruction, 1860 - 1920, by Manisha Sinha, Liveright, 592 pages, $39.99 (cloth), $19.99 (paper), p. 64.
  

The Quakers in America, Thomas D Hamm, Columbia Contemporary American Religion Series, c. 2006. 

A mnemonic to remember the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments: Free Citizens Vote. A shout-out to the Texas LRE. 

It is absolutely amazing how much Congress accomplished between 1860 and 1870. Amazing. Under incredibly difficult and polarizing times. President Andrew Johnson vetoed the civil rights act in 1866 ensuring black citizenship which the US Congress overrode.

Other

The Genetic Book of the Dead: A Darwinian Reverie, Richard Dawkins, c. 2024. Illustrated by Jana Lenzovå.

The Secret History of Sharks, John Long, c. 2024

Stanford University: A Campus Guide, Richard Joncas, David J. Neuman, and Paul V. Turner, c.1999

Colossus: Bletchley Park's Greatest Secret, Paul Gannon, c. 2006.

The New Annotated Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, edited by Leslie S. Klinger, c. 2017.

Note: The Annotated Emerson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, edited by David Mikics, foreword by Phillip Lopate. c. 2012, was part of last summer's reading program (2024).