Catherine Whitney

Excellent review of the events & players that surrounded the tumultuous events of the financial distresses of 2008. From the Bear Stearns sale in March to the Lehman Brothers collapse in September and the incredibly destructive events of the entire year, Maria delves into many of those aspects from a chronological standpoint. With her access to key players, a reasonable but concise picture emerges (from the aspect of 2010) of what happened.

From my perspective in 2021, unfortunately, the U.S. and the rest of the world really hasn't learned any real lessons. We all still spend more than we make, we borrow money against the future, thus putting ourselves and our offspring further into financial debt that will ultimately have a devastating reckoning that no government will ever be able to deal with.… (mais)

I continue to gobble up books about the '08 financial crisis, because a) it's important to know the details and important to simply know about it. b) I don't understand any of it. c) I'm fascinated by the fact that I understand none of it even though I'm inundating myself with information about it. Bartiromo has gotten me closer to understanding because, by dint of her capacity, has a unique perspective of the particulars. She explains much of the happenstance by way of metaphors, which is really interesting. She also explains the public psychology very, very well. Unforgiveable though, are a massive spate of typos, but those shouldn't be too big to fail the book.… (mais)

Catherine Whitney’s The Calling covers Rosary Heights, a house of Dominican nuns in Washington State. It is ostensibly about a year in the life of these religious women. Unfortunately, the story is all over the map (literally). Rather than “intern” at a religious house and relate her experiences and how she coped with the contemplative, religious life, she takes the opportunity to write mini-biographies of everyone associated with the order.

I would have much rather read a book about the chronological experience of living in a religious house, with flashback necessary to providing context for experiences and interactions with the other sisters. Whitney is fairly adept at turning a phrase, but at points becomes slightly melodramatic in her quest to enter and understand the religious life. All in all, it was an interesting book. Nuns are significantly out of the view of the general population and reading their stories was indeed eye-opening. I just wish the book had been structured better.

http://lifelongdewey.wordpress.com/2012/04/04/255-the-calling-by-catherine-whitn...… (mais)