Upton Bell Collection at UMass Lowell Libraries: Spooner

An introduction to investing for profit features more than sixty short sketches that present a behind-the-scenes look at the world of investment.

"This is a novel about two great American games - golf and success." "In a rush of memory, wistful and funny and piercingly accurate, John Spooner carries us to the snug little Boston suburb of "Brookwood" in the 1950s, to the start of the journey of four upwardly mobile young men. They are different in their family backgrounds but united in their ambition - they are perfect children of their time." "Starting their careers as caddies, the four boys become lifelong friends and golfing companions, bound together by a fierce competitiveness and by a childhood secret that won't let go of their imaginations. Ceremonially, they hold five-year reunion golf tourneys, striving to best one another not only at golf but at money and women." "Dickie Rosenberg, Duke Hennesey, Freddy Temple, and Stan Singer: no one looking at these winsome boys could have foreseen the millionaires they would become a clothing manufacturer, a real estate developer, a venture capitalist, a movie mogul. Yet they learned their lessons early, and their twists and turns of character, their desires, their fatal flaws, were present in childhood. We watch them grow into adults with a sense of inevitability, a comic inevitability that is still tinged with sadness." "Spanning forty years of American life, The Foursome brings us face to face with the sort of men who are now at the peak of their corporate careers, the men who run American business. The members of the foursome, for all their privilege and success, remain driven and selfdoubting. This is a novel rich in social comedy, with a serious undercurrent that reveals much about an entire generation of men - written by a superbly perceptive student of upper-middle-class America."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

This is the book that every grandparent (or parent) has always meant to write for their children....but has never found the time to do so. In short, John D. Spooner has been carefully crafted a series of essential life lessons that every young person just out of college or high school needs to read before they embark upon their own life's adventures. Told in friendly and reassuring tones, Spooner relates wonderful stories to illustrate and gently guide the next generation of what they can expect when searching for a job, how to know if you've found the right spouse, insights on how to plan for one's financial future, how the internet has changed our lives, dealing with adversity in life, and much, more more. NO ONE EVER TOLD US THAT condenses all of this key information into one volume - and it's presented in a clear-eyed way that only a loving grandparent can. For decades, John D. Spooner has been one of America's leading financial advisors. Now, as his own grandchildren are on the frightening cusp of adulthood, Spooner has chosen to impart his wisdom to them - and to readers everywhere - in the form of old-fashioned letters.