Reading Recommendations

In keeping with our comment of “fanning the flames of our inner Chicken Little anxieties”, the title of The Ezra Klein Show podcast released on August 28, Trump vs the Bond Market, may well do that.

But unlike many recent articles in the financial press that fall short of providing useful information, this podcast does promote understanding and is worth listening to.

As one might expect from a New York Times sponsored podcast, the journalism is critical of the current administration. But the real value of this episode lies beyond this criticism.

Klein is an astute interviewer and pursues a sincere investigation of today’s US Treasury bond market: what makes it a cornerstone of the global financial system; what’s driving prices and yields; and why it matters.

Guest Robin Wigglesworth is a serious commentator and author. He covers markets and market plumbing closely at Alphaville, a Financial Times (of London) blog, and his books include Trillions (about passive / index investing) and A Fabulous Debt, a history of the bond market, which will be released later this month.

If this month’s article Is the Sky Falling in Bond-land? captured your interest, I’d suggest Klein’s podcast as a way to delve more deeply into what’s happening today in the bond market.

-RK

We’re now at peak summer season, and I hope you’re finding time to rest, relax, and enjoy some reading that takes you farther afield. Here are two non-finance books that I’ve enjoyed this summer.

King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation by Scott Anderson

I trace my first recollection of political awareness back to 1979. In 5^th grade, one student stood out as more worldly than the rest of us. She talked about the Middle East, oil, political strife, the State Department, and “the Shah” – things I knew nothing about at the time.

I’d filled in some of the gaps since then, but Anderson’s book tells a full story of what happened in Iran in the late 1970s.

Once toasted by President Carter as an unshakable ally presiding over “an island of stability,” commanding the world’s fifth largest army and vast oil wealth— Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi fled into exile just fourteen months later, forced out by a religious revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini.

Anderson frames the collapse as a story of American diplomatic blunders and miscalculations that helped trigger hostilities that have destabilized the region for decades, arguing that the revolution was as world-shattering as the French and Russian revolutions.

What makes it especially resonant now is the broader pattern Anderson identifies: the resentment of economically marginalized, religiously fervent populations toward a wealthy secular elite has fueled unrest across the Middle East, India, Southeast Asia, and Europe – with Iran serving as the template.

The book is a useful lens for understanding how great-power miscalculation and populist backlash can compound into events with generational consequences.

Monsters in the Archives: My Year of Fear with Stephen King by Caroline Bicks

My summer wouldn’t be complete without reading something by, or about, Stephen King.

A few months ago, I was listening to a BBC reporter interview Caroline Bicks, the inaugural Stephen E. King Chair of Literature at the University of Maine.

Bicks told the story that she was instructed by the University of Maine administration to set aside the idea of ever getting in touch with Stephen King, despite her holding the chair endowed by him.

However, King eventually reached out to Bicks, they struck up a professional relationship and friendship, and this book is the product of her having access to his archives.

Monsters in the Archives is part literary master class, part biography, part memoir, and an investigation into our deepest anxieties, drawing on unprecedented access to King’s private papers.

Bicks focuses on five of King’s most iconic early works—The Shining, Carrie, Pet Sematary, ‘Salem’s Lot, and Night Shift—tracing his margin notes and editorial changes to reveal how he built his language, storylines, and characters, and she uncovered unpublished scenes and alternate endings that King allowed her to publish for the first time.

The book offers longtime readers a rare backstage look at how some of the most influential horror fiction of the last half-century was actually constructed, alongside Bicks’s own story of rereading these books as an adult confronting the childhood fears they first stirred in her.

Happy Reading!

-RK

Bill Bengen was a financial planner in the early 1990s who confronted the question that often puzzles aspiring retirees: “When I get to retirement, how much can I spend?”

For his baby boomer clients at the time, there was little expert guidance on the subject. Bengen decided to investigate himself, and in 1994 published his findings in the Journal of Financial Planning under the title Determining Withdrawal Rates Using Historical Data.

The article demonstrated that a 4% initial withdrawal rate from a tax-advantaged account had never failed to allow the account to last for at least 30 years, based on data going back to 1926. And thus, the “4% Rule” was born.

Bengen continued to refine his research. His 2025 book, A Richer Retirement: Supercharging the 4% Rule to Spend More and Enjoy More, argues for a new “4.7% Rule”.

Importantly, Bengen reminds retirees that inflation is their “greatest enemy” and emphasizes that retirees must consistently adjust their withdrawals for the higher cost of living.

Bengen’s book is foundational for financial planners and will be of interest to individuals who want to explore the research behind the 4% Rule.

Bengen was recently interviewed by Morningstar, and you can listen to the discussion on the May 19 episode of Morningstar’s The Long View podcast.

Even if you think of yourself as having “enough” rather than “more than enough,” if you are spending at a conservative rate from your savings, the reality is that you may well be unlikely to deplete your assets during your lifetime. Which means that, financially speaking, “enough” might turn out to be “more than enough.”

In More Than Enough: A Brief Guide to the Questions That Arise After Realizing You Have More Than You Need, author Mike Piper provides a framework for how to approach the “problem” of having more financial resources than you may need.

Topics include:

• Do you have more than enough?
• Who gets the money?
• Talking with your kids and other heirs
• Giving and spending during your lifetime
• Learning to spend and give more

The value in Piper’s short book is not that it provides an answer key for solving the more-than-enough “problem”. Instead, for those who have saved well and lived within their means, it poses questions for self-reflection and introduces ideas that individuals may wish to consider in conjunction with their advisors, including tax professionals, estate planning attorneys, and financial planners.

Piper is a Missouri Licensed CPA, and the author of several personal finance books and the blog Oblivious Investor.

How to Be More Tree: Essential Life Lessons for Perennial Happiness by Liz Marvin uses the quiet wisdom of trees as a metaphor for living a calmer, more resilient, and more joyful life.

Through short, beautifully illustrated reflections, Marvin encourages readers to adopt tree-like qualities—such as rootedness, patience, adaptability, and generosity—to navigate stress and uncertainty with greater ease.

The book blends gentle philosophy with practical life lessons, reminding us to slow down, grow at our own pace, weather life’s seasons, and stay connected to others and the natural world.

Marvin’s uplifting meditation on finding lasting happiness by being steady, present, and resilient—just like a tree—seems appropriate, too, for those who celebrate Earth Day on April 22.

The new year can act as a catalyst to expand horizons and vary daily routines. So far in 2026, I’ve expanded my regular news diet to incorporate balanced and diverse points of view from foreign-domicile media sources.

Here are three podcasts that I’ve been tuning into regularly, which you might find helpful:

• BBC News – Newshour: the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the UK’s national public service broadcaster, founded in 1922 and operating as a chartered corporation, independent from government influence. This podcast is “long-form”, with daily episodes running about 45 minutes.
• Reuters World News: the Reuters news agency was established in London in 1851 and acquired by the Thomson Corporation of Canada in 2008. This podcast is “short-form”, with daily episodes running about 10 minutes.
• FT News Briefing: The Financial Times (FT) was founded in London in 1888. The British company Pearson, which had owned the FT since 1957, sold it to the Japanese holding company Nikkei a decade ago. This podcast has a financial markets orientation and is “short-form”, with daily episodes running about 10 minutes.

These daily productions can be accessed using a web browser, but you may find following via a podcast app more convenient. My favorite podcast app is Pocket Casts, which can be downloaded to your phone using the Apple App Store or through Google Play.

-RK

In The Power of Strangers: The Benefits of Connecting in a Suspicious World, journalist Joe Keohane explores a simple idea: that talking to strangers can make us happier, healthier, and more connected.

Keohane conducted his research through a combination of immersive personal experience and extensive academic investigation.

As a journalist, he embarked on a self-described “quest to master talking to strangers,” which involved actively engaging with people in a wide variety of settings—from cross-country train rides to international seminars.

In addition to his fieldwork, Keohane drew on a body of interdisciplinary research.

He consulted studies from psychology, sociology, anthropology, biology, and even theology to understand the roots of our fear of strangers and the benefits of overcoming it.

He explored how social interaction affects mental health, happiness, and cognitive function, and he incorporated insights from leading experts in these fields to support his findings.

In the prologue, Keohane asks the questions: “Why don’t we talk to strangers? When will we? What happens when we do?”

And he answers: “we become better, smarter, and happier people, and strangers—and by extension, the world—become less scary to us.”

Keohane quotes the philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah: “When a stranger is no longer imaginary, but real and present, sharing a human social life, you may like or dislike him, you may agree or disagree; but if it is what you both want, you can make sense of each other in the end.”

Ultimately The Power of Strangers is an uplifting reminder of our shared humanity.

In an era marked by division and digital echo chambers, Keohane’s message is clear: reaching out to those we don’t know isn’t just good for our society, it’s good for our souls.

-RK