Permanent Portfolio Book - brief review

[rocketdog]

I just finished reading "The Permanent Portfolio" book, and I have to say I'm duly impressed!  I found it a very enjoyable read, and I expect others interested in this topic will as well. 

I wasn't sure how Craig and J.M. would be able to fill 352 pages with details about the strategy, but somehow they managed to do so with minimal repetition (and what little repetition there is was probably needed in order to drill some of the more crucial concepts into the reader's brain). 

If I had to nitpick, I would say that some of the charts were a bit hard to read since the shading was all in gray scale.  Color would have been welcome, or at least a pattern change rather than a shading change.  But the overall "gist" was still apparent, so not a major criticism.  (I also found an annoying typo here and there, so make sure your editor gives it another "once over" before the next edition goes to press.)

I found the detailed information about foreign investing options especially welcome as a starting point for my own investigation.  I was also glad to see the charts showing performance of the Permanent Portfolio, along with other charts illustrating various points along the way. 

All in all I thought Craig and J.M. did Harry Browne proud, as clearly a good deal of thought and care went into the book.  As someone who's currently working on a book of his own, I can readily appreciate the time and effort it took to assemble "The Permanent Portfolio".  Congratulations on a job well done!

[craigr]

Thanks Rocketdot. Can you just PM me the typos you found if you recall where they are? Was it the Kindle version? The Kindle version had typos introduced by Amazon during the conversion. We have tried to get them fixed, but they seem unresponsive.

As for the charts, that is a good point and an oversight on our part. We thought they'd be in color for tablets, etc. but they went out in BW instead. If we do an update, we'll use a pattern fill on the charts to make them more legible.

Thanks for reading the book.

[rocketdog]

Thanks Rocketdot. Can you just PM me the typos you found if you recall where they are? Was it the Kindle version?

I read the hardback version.  I should have flagged the typos as I found them, but they were intermittent and by the time I got to the 3rd one I thought to myself, "Damn, too late now."  But I seem to remember most of them occurring early on, so I'll browse through the first few chapters again to see if I can find them. 

[MediumTex]

I really appreciate the nice comments about the book.

We did our best to create a valuable resource that would complement Harry Browne's earlier works.

[rocketdog]

I'm re-reading the book now, and I've already flagged 3 errors.  I'll post them here once I have a few more flagged. 

[rocketdog]

Here are my first 3 findings:

Page xx, "About the Illustrator"

Sentence reads:

"When we decided we wanted an illustrator, we were looking for someone that could do drawings..."

Correction:  Use "someone who", not "someone that".

Page 2, paragraph beginning with "Harry Browne..."

Sentence reads:

"He built his career in the 1970s advocating hard asset investing (like gold) to fight inflation and all of the sudden he advises readers..."

Correction:  The phrase is "all of a sudden", not "all of the sudden".  Or, you can simply use the word "suddenly" instead.

Suggestion regarding call-outs (those gray boxes with selected excerpts):

These are usually most effective when placed somewhere after where the quote itself appears in the text.  That way it can serve to reinforce the point you're trying to make.  When the call-out appears before the reader has encountered the original quote in the normal flow of text, it feels awkward and out of context and doesn't serve to reinforce anything because you haven't even gotten to that quote yet.  I would suggest placing them after the paragraph in which the quote you're pulling first appears. 

[MediumTex]

Good stuff.  Keep it coming.

[KevinW]

Suggestion regarding call-outs (those gray boxes with selected excerpts):

These are usually most effective when placed somewhere after where the quote itself appears in the text.  That way it can serve to reinforce the point you're trying to make.  When the call-out appears before the reader has encountered the original quote in the normal flow of text, it feels awkward and out of context and doesn't serve to reinforce anything because you haven't even gotten to that quote yet.  I would suggest placing them after the paragraph in which the quote you're pulling first appears.

+1

[MediumTex]

Suggestion regarding call-outs (those gray boxes with selected excerpts):

These are usually most effective when placed somewhere after where the quote itself appears in the text.  That way it can serve to reinforce the point you're trying to make.  When the call-out appears before the reader has encountered the original quote in the normal flow of text, it feels awkward and out of context and doesn't serve to reinforce anything because you haven't even gotten to that quote yet.  I would suggest placing them after the paragraph in which the quote you're pulling first appears.

+1

This issue apparently has to do with how the publisher formats the pages, sections, paragraphs and other graphics for the final printing.

It was annoying to us as well.

[craigr]

Suggestion regarding call-outs (those gray boxes with selected excerpts):

These are usually most effective when placed somewhere after where the quote itself appears in the text.  That way it can serve to reinforce the point you're trying to make.  When the call-out appears before the reader has encountered the original quote in the normal flow of text, it feels awkward and out of context and doesn't serve to reinforce anything because you haven't even gotten to that quote yet.  I would suggest placing them after the paragraph in which the quote you're pulling first appears.

+1

This issue apparently has to do with how the publisher formats the pages, sections, paragraphs and other graphics for the final printing.

It was annoying to us as well.

Yep. The layout is moved around in the final process for typesetting. The publisher needs to weigh a lot of factors considering page layout for print, e-versions, etc.