THE BOOK & INVESTMENT CLUBS
The Book Club, is now in its 15th year. Only 2 original members remain active, Lou Bourgeois and Grant Gooding.

Currently members have been reading and discussing Michael Lewis’s two books The Big Short and Boomerang, both fascinating reads. The first relates to the U.S. financial market in the recent crash and the second to the European financial mess. Two new members have been welcomed recently, Mike Pallant and Alex Murphy. More info – call Lou Bourgeois..

In today’s unusual financial environment members of The Investment Club are glad to have a club where investments can be discussed and evaluated. The club meets at 10:00 a.m. on the second Thursday of each month at St. Paul’s United Church. Membership now stands at 19. Additional members are always welcome – call Gunther Lutz.

MOVIE AND BOOK REVIEWS
Helmut Erxleben reports on The Psychopath Test, A Journey through the Madness Industry by Jon Ronson. “This is not exactly restful holiday reading, but nevertheless I found the title of this book intriguing enough to arouse my curiosity. Madness is an extremely difficult concept to define. To get a handle on what it means to be a psychopath, the author, a former BBC host, tries to gain insight by interviewing a number of individuals who at some point in their life had a role to play, either as psychiatrists, researchers, victims, clinicians, institutionalized psychopaths and those not yet clinically diagnosed, but who may have wreaked criminal, political or economic havoc in our society. Essentially, psychopaths are people who lack the insight into other people’s feelings. Is the cause of this lack of empathy, as some believe, a neurological condition, or is it simply a matter displaying a certain number of odd behaviour traits? The history of treatment for psychopathology has been marked by numerous failures, one of the most famous being the Oak Ridge experiments right here in Canada with LSD.”

Harold Erlendson, our movie critic, recently saw the War Horse. Here is his report: “This is an emotional drama that will move you and leave you with tears in your eyes. The setting is in rural England and Europe during WW1. The story begins with a remarkable relationship between a horse and a young man who tames and trains him. The film follows the remarkable journey of the horse as he moves through the war meeting British and German soldiers, a French farmer and his granddaughter and others. The film reaches its emotional climax in the middle of no-mans-land. It is a gallant film with sweeping cinematography and beautiful music. Highly recommended.